The Gender Imbalance in the iGaming Industry

While many online casino companies are taking to social media to celebrate women's day by sharing empowering posts and tweeting about equality, we were interested in taking a look at how equal and diverse the igaming industry actually is.

It has been noted that despite this industry currently being one of the most proficient, successful and populated in the world, it does demonstrate a lack of representation when it comes to people of different genders, races and communities.

In honour of women's day, let's focus on gender inequality.

A study led by the All-in Diversity Project in 2021 exposed a drop of between 3 to 6% from the year before for women being employed in corporate job positions, especially senior-level managerial roles.

The study took into consideration the employment of women across various industries, igaming being one of them.

It has us questioning whether things are really moving forward, considering that numbers dropped a small, yet significant amount from the year prior.

In a recent tweet from Relax Gaming posted on the 6th of March, we were shocked to see that out of six new employees joining Relax's team, only one is a woman. In terms of cultural diversity, this new addition to their team is also lacking.

We must also mention the panel of notable speakers who will participate in SiGMA's Eurasia Summit this year.

The list introduces around 300 speakers of different cultural and religious backgrounds of which less than a third are women. The exact number of female speakers invited to the event is 59.

You may take a look at all of the speakers invited to the event on SiGMA's website.

This is a rather harsh imbalance and we wonder why the voice and presence of women in the industry are not given as much importance as that of men, especially considering that this industry attracts both male and female audiences.

In an article by Anna Rodriquez in the California Business Journal, the author comments on how painfully evident it is that the gaming industry is being led by men with only men in mind.

This is clear to us when we browse the selection of games, for example, on offer at various online casinos.

The product offered to online gamblers is majorly focused on the male customer, down to the design of websites and games.

It is too often that we see female, overly-sexualized characters or themes which are traditionally more associated with the interests of men such as drag racing and sport.

Prominent women who are employed within the industry stated that the responsibility falls on both the employer and the employee, to an extent.

Hero Gaming's Chief People Officer Marie Theobald has suggested we need a change in the people chosen to represent online casino companies.

It is typical that it is always the same representatives to be sent as spokespeople at igaming events. Theobald comments it is necessary to showcase faces, from various backgrounds and from different levels of the company's hierarchy.

This will incite interest in employees to grow within the company, and with the presence of more female representation, will also increase the interest women have in joining and flourishing within the industry.

The Winner of EGR's Diversity and Inclusion Model Award

The EGR Nordics Awards 2023 presented a Diversity and Inclusion Model award for the first time in EGR history.

As EGR very well put it in an article tackling the issues of gender equality and diversity in igaming "diversity and inclusion [are] high on the agenda". This discussion is seemingly becoming a more prominent and essential one with the issue being given high priority.

We were very pleased to see that EGR offered this new award, keeping online casino companies on their toes and certainly pulling their attention towards creating a more inclusive work environment which represents varied people and communities.

The first winner of this award was PAF, an online sports betting and casino centre.

Having the possibility to earn this title is sure to make online casino companies more interested in looking into how diverse their personnel is. This year there were only two nominees for the award: PAF and Betsson Group.

We hope that in the coming years, there will be more contenders for this honourable prize.

This will prove that the importance of a diverse, multi-faceted culture in the industry is being recognized both when it comes to the people employed within the industry and the type of product it offers and who it targets.