The casino industry is still struggling to close the gender pay gap, yet progress has been made, with companies reporting gradual decreases of pay disparity, and the prognosis is optimistic.
One of the best ways to close the gender pay gap is to employ more women in senior positions in the industry who can contribute to creating a wholly equal workplace. Luckily, the casino industry is waking up to this fact, and UK online casinos specifically have made significant progress in hiring women in high positions of power.
Today’s article will introduce you to some of the female trailblazers who are revolutionising the casino industry and their accomplishments.
We will start our article by discussing the impressive women who worked hard to be noticed in the male-dominated casino industry and now sit in the highest positions of their respective companies.
No article about women in gambling can be written without mentioning Denise Coates.
Coates is a British-born businesswoman and the daughter of Peter Coates, the former chairman of Stoke City FC. After graduating with a degree in econometrics, she along with her father and brothers founded Bet365 in 2000, one of the most successful online sportsbooks in the world.
Coates applied her knowledge of statistics in the creation of the sports betting site, contributing immensely to the sportsbook’s revolutionary betting algorithm.
Denise Coates owns about half of Bet365, which, according to latest estimates, is worth $9 billion, making her fortune close to $4.5 billion. Denise is still very much involved in the business, acting as a joint CEO with her brother John.
Amy Howe is a New Yorker who has held multiple senior positions across various industries. Howe has a degree in Business, Management, Marketing and Support Services from Cornell University which led to her finding a seat at the table at some of the biggest companies in the world.
Howe first became a partner at McKinsey & Company, a consulting firm, and then went on to become the CSO of Live Nation, and the COO of Ticketmaster. Most recently, in 2021, Amy Howe was made the CEO of FanDuel, a massive online gambling operator offering casino games, sports betting and daily fantasy sports.
Danish-born Jette Nygaard-Andersen is one of the women with the most experience in the casino industry who successfully climbed the ladder to end up being the CEO of one of the most prestigious multinational casino companies in the world.
Nygaard-Andersen received an economics degree from the University of Copenhagen which she used to gain access to the big Swedish media company Modern Times Group. She spent 16 years working for Modern Times Group, during which time she’s held numerous senior positions.
Nygaard-Andersen later chaired Astralis, a Danish e-sports organisation which became the first esports company to conduct an initial public offering. E-sports have long been a male-dominated field which made Nygaard-Andersen’s appointment all the more impressive.
Later, she became the non-executive director of the gambling giant Entain and reached the CEO role in 2021, making her the first woman to become a CEO of a UK-listed betting company.
Operating a successful land-based or online casino business is only a facet of the female contributions in the field of gambling. Some of the first women to break the glass ceiling of the casino industry were ones who made their names on the gambling table.
This section of the article will introduce you to a few famous female gamblers with impressive win streaks and big monetary gains from professional gambling tournaments.
Annette Oberstad is a professional poker player from Norway who has set numerous records over her illustrious career. Oberstad started playing poker at 15 and soon started making headlines.
It was not just beginner’s luck, however, as Annette proved four years later. A day shy of her 19th birthday, Oberstad won the first edition of the World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE) Main Event on 17th September 2007.
By winning the Main Event, which carried a prize of $2.01 million, Oberstad set two records – becoming the youngest WSOPE winner (a record she still holds today) and becoming the first woman to win that amount of money in a single event.
Annette Oberstad continues to play poker, taking part in online and in-person events around the world. She is estimated to have won about $3.9 million from poker tournaments so far.
Annie Duke is a household name in the poker world, a player who has amassed millions in poker earnings.
Duke holds a World Series of Poker (WSOP) gold bracelet and she used to hold the record of highest poker earnings in the history of the World Series of Poker with $1,166,567 from 39 cashes at WSOP events. Her total poker earnings total $4,270,548.
Annie Duke’s brother Howard Lederer is also a famous poker player who has two WSOP bracelets and holds two World Poker Tour titles.
Katy Lederer is Annie’s and Howard’s younger sister who also aspired to play poker like her impressive siblings. However, she gave up that dream in her feat to becoming a writer. Katy became famous for authoring the book Poker Face: A Girlhood Among Gamblers (2003) which detailed her and her siblings’ experience in professional poker.
Any girl who wants to become a professional poker player knows Vanessa Selbst’s name. Selbst became a poker player while studying at Yale Law School and went on to set the record for the most consecutive WSOP Open events wins by a woman. She has 3 bracelets, 8 final tables and 20 money finishes at WSOP events.
Selbst also holds the records for highest earnings of a female poker player. It is estimated that Vanessa Selbst has earned about $12 million from various poker events before ultimately retiring in 2018.