9 out of 10 Australian sports bettors are men. Here’s why that might change
- Written by Rohann Irving, PhD Candidate, The University of Queensland
Whether it’s on the AFL or the Australian Open, sports betting is one of Australia’s most popular gambling activities, and its fastest growing.
It also holds the largest gender imbalance of any form of Australian gambling. Recent research indicates almost nine in ten regular sports bettors are men.
There are numerous reasons for this divide, many of which date back to Australia’s colonial gambling practices.
The gendered history of gambling
In Australia’s early colonial period, gambling developed in a predominantly male society where risk-taking and competition were celebrated.
Sports that attracted gambling during this period, such as football, cockfighting and boxing, were generally reserved for men. Women’s sport at the time, by comparison, was mainly health-focused and offered far fewer gambling opportunities.
Throughout the 19th century, the vast majority of families’ economic means also resided with men, restricting women’s ability to gamble.
Where betting was concerned, women were thought of as long-suffering lovers. One newspaper in 1900 wrote “nothing could be worse than to be the wife of a drunkard or a gambler”.
Other skill-based forms of gambling, such race betting (on horses and dogs), have long excluded women. The rituals and traditions of horse racing in particular have seen women relegated to decorative roles at racetracks.
In the 20th century, although women were allowed to punt on horses, the common assumption was that they bet on impulsive whims rather than carefully studying form, as men supposedly did.
The expansion of casinos and poker machines throughout Australia in the past 50 years eventually offered women many more gambling opportunities.
These changes are reflected in modern chance-based forms of gambling, which see relatively even gender participation between men and women.
Skill-based betting on sports like football and golf, however, remained a masculine pursuit, restricted to either betting illegally or in male-dominated spaces such as TABs (or “betting shops”).
Betting in the 21st century
The introduction of internet and smartphone gambling transformed sports betting in 21st-century Australia. The practice has exploded in popularity over the past 20 years, but invisible barriers to women’s participation have endured.
Marketing has played a key role in sustaining the idea that sports betting is a practice for men. Ads for companies such as Sportsbet and Ladbrokes often position sports betting as a peer-group norm among young men, with women relegated to secondary, subordinate and sometimes sexualised roles.
Companies like Sportsbet typically feature men in their advertising.
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One of betting entrepreneur Tom Waterhouse’s gambling ads from 2021 was found to have breached the national advertising regulator’s code of conduct for such depictions.
Surrounded by silent bikini-clad women and touting his betting service, Waterhouse was found to have dehumanised the women in his advertisement. The regulator found the ad “depicted them as doll-like sexual objects to be used by men”.
Beyond betting advertising, the nature of Australian sport has also linked sports betting with masculinity.
Dominant football codes such as the men’s AFL and NRL account for more than half of Australia’s sports betting spend.
The popularity of these sports has attracted lucrative betting partnerships. Their long association with masculine ideas of toughness and competitiveness has normalised betting on these codes as something primarily reserved for men.
A new market for gambling?
It’s possible more women will take up betting on sports in coming years.
The popularity of smartphone gambling means sports betting is no longer restricted to male-dominated spaces such as pubs, clubs or TABs.
Sports betting’s growing popularity in places such as homes and workplaces (thanks in large part to smartphones) may act to increase women’s engagement in betting going forward.
Gambling companies also seem to be realising that women represent an untapped sports betting market.
Wagering service providers have recently offered novelty bets on Superbowl Halftime shows by Rihanna and Usher, as a possible bid to attract young women to their client base.
These novelty options quietly disappeared last year, but have since returned, including for the Triple J Hottest 100.
Additionally, recent research has suggested the normalisation of sports betting in wider Australian culture, along with alternative advertising methods (on apps such as TikTok and Snapchat) may be increasing the appeal of sports betting for young women.
This comes amid a continuing political debate about whether to ban gambling ads entirely.
It’s unclear whether these changes in technology and advertising will impact how we understand sports betting as a “men’s practice”. But they do reflect that women are being targeted as a potential betting market more than ever before.
In one sense, this shift can be viewed as women gaining access to a gambling practice from which they have historically been excluded.
However, this also means women are now at an increased risk of suffering from the many harms associated with Australian gambling.
Sports gambling companies targeting women, and the strategies they employ in doing so, is a concerning shift that should be treated with trepidation and scrutiny.
Authors: Rohann Irving, PhD Candidate, The University of Queensland
