Gone are the days when gambling was a male-dominated field. Historically speaking, men ruled the gambling arena playing various casino games as their pastime. However, women gradually liked gambling as a mode of entertainment that's convivial, sociable, and exciting. When more women learned that gambling can't conflict with their everyday routine, employment, and relationships, they became engaged in frequenting in casinos. Incidentally, when legalized gambling has developed, the participation of female in the scene has also increased. Some analysts look at women as social gamblers, because many of them are more thrilled about the casino's atmosphere and the people that they meet than winning games. Nonetheless, the ladies are now discovering their new passion, and they are about to invade what was before considered a male territory -- online casinos.
WHY WOMEN PLAY ONLINE:
The online gaming industry had expanded throughout the years. From having teenage to adult males as its core markets, the industry had widened its territory to include a new demographic -- women. A study by Nielsen Entertainment in 2006 shows that 56% of 117 million American gamers play online games and that a staggering 64% of them are women. Evidently, the online gaming industry have some advantages that lures women into playing. These advantages or reasons for playing can be summed up into three: accessibility, convenience, and socializing.
Accessibility is the most obvious reason why women play online. It's common knowledge that despite women's lib, women still bear the brunt of a double life as homemakers and career women. With all of their responsibilities, it's not fair to have them work hard for their entertainment, is it? This is the niche explored by the online gaming industry for women. With an Internet connection and a bank account, women can start playing immediately. There's no need to dress up in fancy clothes, suffer in high heels, wear make-up, and endure hours-long drive just to play in a casino. They can plop down in front of the computer on slow weekend mornings in their pajamas and bathrobes and find somebody to play with online. It's that easy with no painstaking scheduling, reservations, and snooty ushers to deal with.
Of course, with accessibility comes convenience. Playing online had proved to be convenient for many people but it proved to be doubly convenient for women. With all the cooking, laundry, cleaning, child-rearing, checkbook balancing, power lunches, and board meetings, who has time to run to the bank and withdraw? Certainly not women. With hectic schedules full of soccer practices, recitals, Sunday lunches, and parent-teacher conferences, who has time to learn a new game? Certainly not women. But these was before online gaming came into the picture. Playing games online made things a lot easier for women. For one, they can learn to play a game easily with tutorials and guides provided by most online gaming sites. Secondly, they can start playing instantly because online gaming works closely with online banking. Women can easily transfer funds from their bank account to their gaming account to start playing immediately. More importantly, winnings are also easily collected as these are automatically deposited to their bank accounts. Now that's convenience!
Socializing is another reason why women play online. According to the Nielsen Entertainment study, women players report that meeting different fun and interesting persons online is one come-on factor of online games. Although one can meet exciting persons in person, the anonymity provided by online games proves to be a confidence booster for many. The potential for meeting as many people as possible is also maximized in online games. Women can talk to multiple players at the same time without offending anyone by using the chat applications available in most online gaming rooms. Playing and talking at the same time provide women the much-needed connection to other people in the comforts of their own home. Being in their comfort zone allows women to be more spontaneous and relaxed in interacting with other people. This is one advantage live casinos can't compete in.
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