They were there.
Women did attend the 2021 World Series of Poker in solid numbers. It’s tough to see at first glance, and there certainly wasn’t the progress for which many of us hoped. It’s a long road. But if you know where to look, you can see some positive change.
(To be forthright, this article and analysis does not factor those who don’t identify as men or women. The WSOP Ladies Championship remains a single-gendered event, identifying players as only male or female. The WSOP is – so far – unable to track non-gender-specific entries in any event, and I have no way to take those numbers into account, either. I apologize to those left out of this analysis. I welcome any ideas for how to handle this in the future.)
WSOP Ladies Championship
Starting with the easiest way to track attendance, let’s look at the WSOP Ladies Championship. Attendance in this event isn’t exactly indicative of how many women play in the entire WSOP (open events), but it does give us a way to measure women’s interest in poker.
One issue with this, however, is the reentry factor. In 2019, the WSOP opened up many of its events to accepting reentries. And without a breakdown of original players and reentries, it’s not possible to get a true number. So, the 2019 and 2021 figures include reentries:
It is easy to see when the poker boom hit. The highest point ever for the Ladies Championship was 2007 when 1,286 players entered. The fallout from Black Friday shows as well, as the downturn really begins in 2011. It evened out a bit 2014-2016 and fell a bit after.
The spike in 2019 is widely attributable to the introduction of reentries. One was allowed per player, and though we don’t know how many women did reenter, we can see that the 39.1% jump had to include a fair number of reentries.
This year, the fall was almost as steep. The 2021 WSOP did allow one reentry per player again, but the overall number fell 33.5%. However, one must factor in the pandemic, not only the vaccine mandate but also the danger posed to women who might be mothers or caretakers who feared contracting the virus and bringing it home.
WSOP Main Event
The number of women in the WSOP Main Event can only track back a couple of years. In 2017, 2018, and 2019, the WSOP released the numbers willingly. This year, I made a special request for it and received it.
Note that there are no reentries allowed in the Main Event. This means the number of entries is true.
The number of women in the Main Event decreased this year, but the entire player pool decreased 22.4% this year. And as the chart shows, the percentage of women in the Main continues to rise each year, however minimally.
https://twitter.com/mjbloech/status/1466475797938688010?s=20
In some past years, the WSOP reported the number of women in the entire Las Vegas series. In fact, we have those numbers spanning 2013-2018. But the WSOP did not release those series totals in 2019 or 2021.
More Women Play Teams Events
That is what happened in 2021, anyway. A higher percentage of women played in the Tag Team event than in any other open event. I don’t have confirmation of this from the WSOP – they would not provide the numbers of men and women in Event 59 – but a secret source did find the information for me.
This year, the Tag Team event required two players per team and found 641 teams registered. Of those teams, there were 510 with two males, 115 with a male and a female, and 16 with two females. Breaking that out into individual players, that equates to 147 women out of the 1,282-player field.
Women comprised 11.5% of the field.
We have no access to information from prior years of the Tag Team events. I do know, though, that the winning team in 2017 was a man and a woman, as was the 2018 winning team.
My Take
More women play in the WSOP each year. This 2021 WSOP was an anomaly because of the pandemic, but next year will show a truer trend.
Is the increase enough? No. There are still barriers to women getting into the game and feeling comfortable enough to play in open events. And men continue to dominate the majority of ownership and management roles in poker tours, media, and related businesses, with the possible exception of poker photography. But there is progress.
For years, I’ve been screaming into the ether about the welcoming atmosphere of team events. Team poker allows an opportunity for more women to participate without doing it alone. Whether part of a female duo or a male-female team, women play teams events at a much higher rate than other open events. Event 59 of the 2021 WSOP showed 11.5% female participation as compared to just 4.3% of the Main Event.
It’s not difficult to see that more teams events can bring more women into the game. My hope is that more tours will consider hosting at least one teams tournament at each tour stop going forward. It could go a long way to diversifying the game.
https://twitter.com/amandabotfeld/status/1456049294931214336?s=20
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