How Women Are Reshaping the Poker Frontier

Poker had been primarily a male-dominated game from the moment it popped up, one which, during its inception, chiefly got associated with outlaws and professional gamblers who played it in shady saloons. In the 19th century, when poker appeared in its modern form, few women had the disposable income to gamble. If they did, they had to overcome the stigma associated with them enjoying this pastime. Moreover, there was also the question if they would get accepted in card rooms.

All this started to change once Nevada legalized gambling in the 1930s, as female poker players were not such a strange thing once this entertainment form became commercially available. Casinos are out to make money, and anyone’s rake is good, right? They still had to face stereotypes, with many believing they lacked the skills and mental fortitude to prosper in this arena, but some did. In the 1970s, when the World Series of Poker got underway, female players were no longer an anomaly. In 1977, the first World Series of Poker Ladies event got introduced, and women became more than mere minority participants in the sector. They started to help redefine the game’s culture.

Once the online realm started gaining traction, female participation grew exponentially. In 2021, the Internet arena saw a drastic increase in female players when a pandemic-fueled expansion was occurring. Below, we get into how gender biases got shattered over time and how, even though women still make up a tiny section of the global poker pool, their influence is felt, and a few have managed to reach the top of the poker hill..

The Personalities that Trailblazed Female Poker

Undoubtedly, the first woman player of fame is Alice Ivers, better known as Poker Alice, who defied societal norms in the 19th century and America’s Wild West. The daughter of Irish immigrants, Ivers made her name in Silver City, New Mexico, and Deadwood, South Dakota, earning herself the nickname the Faro Queen. Faro is a similar game to poker, which many consider the predecessor to what is now, and has been, for over a century, the world’s most established card gambling option.

While Ivers was the biggest female gambling star of her era, she was not the only one. There were numerous others active in this landscape, and one of the better-known ones was Eleanor Dumont, who was twenty-two years older than Alice and was a notorious gambler during the California Gold Rush. Kitty Leroy was another Deadwood personality renowned around the same time as Ivers.

At the start of the 20th century, and up to its middle, not many female players of note attained any level of national fame. In 1976, Barbara Freer was the first woman to enter the WSOP Main Event, and she won the Ladies Limit 7 Card Stud competition three years later.

Vera Richmond was the first female to win an open WSOP event, which she did in 1982, beating seventy-six opponents in the $1,000 Limit Ace-to-Five Draw, collecting a prize of $38,500. That was a landmark moment for the card gambling realm, as was Barbara Enright going to the final table in the 1995 WSOP Main Event and finishing fifth.

Other ladies that can get considered pioneers are Linda Johnson, who won a WSOP bracelet in 1997, and Jennifer Harman, who became the first woman to claim two.

Modern Female Stars

The poker boom of the 2000s made the game cool and mainstream, which drew different demographics to the sphere. In the last decade, it has not become a strange sight for women to sit at final tables in premier competitions. Canadian Kristen Foxen, for example, has five WSOP bracelets and over ten million dollars in live contest winnings. Vanessa Selbst, widely considered the best female player of all time, has close to twelve million, and Kathy Liebert and the UK’s Liv Boeree have around seven.

Maria Ho is another celebrated competitor, one with more than five million dollars in contest earnings. She is a media personality credited with popularizing poker in Asia. She was the last woman standing in four different WSOP Main Events but has not managed to sit at a final table yet, though she has won a World Poker Tour Main Event.

Loni Hui, Annette Obrestad, Kitty Kuo, Vanessa Rousso, and Maria Mapropulos also deserve mention, as do many others. Currently, over thirty women in poker have earned more than a million at public green cloth tables.

The Creation of Female-Focused Poker Communities

Many of these now act as vital spaces for women to learn, network, and compete. Organizations like Poker Power have been founded to empower women to play differently, as this one claims, and it emphasizes confidence-building through card action. Entities similar to this are Pocket Queens Poker, a study- and community-focused group offering women-only events, and the Ladies International Poker Series, or LIPS, which organizes women-only poker tournaments.

These communities provide safe spaces where women can practice and play without the intimidation that newbies crumble under in mixed-gender settings.

These days, Web platforms and mobile apps have shifted to promoting women-only tournaments, as PokerStars debuted its inaugural Women’s £1,100 High Roller in late 2024. Furthermore, many social media groups, like Women in Poker on Facebook, have popped up that further stimulate and promote women’s opportunities in poker.