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Skills Not Gender in Gaming

In the realms of business and competitive gaming, success is defined not by gender, but by the ability to make quick, effective decisions. This critical skill determines whether one ends up in the winner’s circle or falls behind. Just as in business, where success is carved through a combination of personal sacrifice, strategic efforts, and a touch of luck, the gaming world operates similarly. Both fields have historically seen gender biases with claims of one gender outperforming the other.

Yet, in mental sports like Bridge, Poker, Chess, and various video games, it’s the mental acuity and strategic foresight that count—attributes that transcend gender. With the gaming arena poised to be a level playing field, the question remains: why does the debate over gender superiority persist when the focus should solely be on skill?

Traditional Games & Needed Skills

Bridge, together with poker, is one of the most popular card games all over the world. One of the main differences between bridge and poker is that bridge is played in pairs against another pair, meaning you are dependent on 3 other people if you want to play. Poker on the other hand is a single player game and can be played and practiced online without being dependent on anyone else. Both games stimulate the brain and are based on skill rather than luck. To be good at these games one must master the skill of “poker or bridge-face” but as strategic games they also involve many mental skills, all at once:

• Long and short term memory
• Visual
• Reckoning
• Mathematical

The same skills are needed for playing Chess. These are all skills both men and women can master, still, men are often considered to be “better” bridge, chess and poker players than women. Interesting though is that men and women often create the best partnerships when it comes to playing bridge.

Modern Video Games – Different Set Of Skills?

Do men and women battle on equal conditions when they play games like Fortnite? Or does our biological differences make our brains react different when rewards are involved? Modern video games, as well as many of the modern slot machines, are built around elements of reward stimulation. These games are built with a purpose to activate the reward part of the brain. Studies show that men are more likely to react to this than females. This design strategy is known as “reward-based mechanics” and can make games more engaging and sometimes addictive.

Research has shown differences in how men and women react to these reward mechanisms. Generally, studies suggest that men may be more susceptible to the addictive aspects of video games and gambling, potentially due to differences in how dopamine impacts the male brain compared to the female brain. However, these findings can vary widely, and individual responses to video games and gambling are influenced by a multitude of factors, including personal and social factors.

The response to such reward mechanisms isn’t uniform across all individuals or between genders, and more research is needed to fully understand these dynamics.

Besides how we react to rewards, being good at video games require very good visual processing, motor function, ability to react and adjust quickly as well as making strategic decisions. These functions are controlled by the frontal lobes of the brain. These areas are involved in executive functions, which include planning, impulse control, and focusing attention, all of which are essential in both strategic games and high-stakes environments like gambling.

Research suggests that men and women might respond differently to video games, particularly those that are aggressive or territorial. Such games often engage the brain’s reward systems, which are linked to the release of dopamine, a neurotransmitter associated with pleasure and addiction. Studies have indicated that these types of games can have a more significant impact on men, potentially due to evolutionary factors linked to aggression and territoriality.

However, it’s important to note that while there are trends and general findings in this area, individual responses can vary greatly due to a multitude of factors including personality, personal history, and social conditioning. Thus, while some studies find differences on average, these should not be taken as universally applicable to all individuals of a particular sex.

Who is Better – Men or Women?

Well, if we want to support the gender division one might simply look at the statistics for World Bridge Federation (WBF) rankings to conclude that there are very few female players. This is due to the fact that there are not as many female players participating in high-level competition as there are men. The famous bridge writer Alfred Sheinwold said this should not surprise anyone, as women still do 40% more housework than men and simply don’t have time to play bridge.

Sheinwold comes close to the truth. Women who are interested in becoming top bridge players face many more barriers than men. Finances (women earn less than men), safety (it’s less safe for women to travel solo to bridge events than it is for men), community support (in many societies women are still expected to stay home with the children, not fly around the world playing a card game), and access (many male players are under pressure to play with other male players thus perpetuating the difficulties women experience when attempting to form strong partnerships).  There was an excellent study recently that explored neurosexism and gendered sterotypes in mindsports and you can read it at this link.

Chess is another example. The gender balance in championship chess heavily favors men over women, both in terms of participation and performance at the highest levels. The current statistics show that only about 6.1% of chess players in Indian federation ratings are female, with a top female player ranking much lower globally than her male counterparts. This disparity is similar worldwide, where women make up a small percentage of rated players and an even smaller fraction of grandmasters​

Women’s tournaments have been created to provide female players in various mindsports with more opportunities to compete at high levels and gain visibility, which can also help encourage more women and girls to take up the sport seriously. However, the existence of these separate tournaments is a double-edged sword, as they imply that women need different standards or that they cannot compete with men, potentially reinforcing stereotypes rather than dispelling them.

Women and Men – The Battle Continues

The battle between the sexes is not over. It may have changed it’s focus but let’s face it, we are still preoccupied with the question of who is better at what. Throughout history men were often facilitated to reach the highest career peaks. It’s surely an old-fashioned idea, but it seems that men still are considered to be somehow more skilled than women when it comes to certain professional areas. The truth is that when a woman is given the same professional opportunity as a man, she can show the entire world all her skills and unique capabilities.

In the world of gambling, there is a noticeable gender breakdown across different types of gambling activities like slots, poker, and bingo. Generally, men and women participate in gambling activities at similar rates, but there are differences in preferences and spending habits.

Slots are a popular choice among both genders, but women tend to favor games like bingo more than men. Men, on the other hand, are more heavily represented in poker. Online gambling participation globally shows that while 35% of all online gamblers are female, there’s a variance in the types of games preferred by each gender.

Men typically gamble larger amounts of money compared to women. Women are more likely to be cautious, often spending less on gambling overall compared to their male counterparts​. This difference in expenditure can also reflect wider trends in gambling behaviour and risk tolerance between genders.

Initiatives to encourage female participation in areas like poker, where they are underrepresented, are ongoing. These efforts aim to create a more inclusive gambling environment and balance the gender representation across different gambling forms.

Perhaps the advent of online gaming will play a big role in this change. Accessibility as a barrier to women’s participation have been resolved on many levels. We don’t have access to statistics on gender in the world of online bridge, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t more balanced that face to face table bridge tournaments. If you’re a woman reading this, be sure to check out our Play Bridge Online pages!

Related Articles:

Women and Equity in the World of Bridge

Beyond The Boys’ Club: Why The World Bridge Tour Needs To Address Gender Diversity