Australians have a well-known reputation for being avid gamblers. In fact, Australia has the highest rate of recreational gambling in the world. More than 80% of all Australian adults gamble regularly in one form or another. It probably won’t come as any surprise to hear that when it comes to wagering, most Aussies prefer to lay their money down on online pokies (slot machines for those unfamiliar with the term).
An interesting fact that can be derived from the rate of gambling in Australia is that placing bets is not an activity undertaken only by men. Unless the Australian population is 80% male (thank god it’s not!) there are a large number of Aussie women who also like to try their luck at Australian casino games.
While most people tend to conjure up images of men throwing dice at the craps table or staring each other down across a poker table when gambling is mentioned, Australia is proving that that image simply does not represent reality. Women make up a significant portion of online casino players and their numbers are growing.
Join me while we analyze the factors behind this trend and check my favourite 5 online casinos for Aussie female players:
In this review you will find...
🎰 Top Rated Australian Casinos for Female Players
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📖 A Quick Overview Of The History Of Gambling In Australia
As a country, Australia has a long history of gambling. The first official horse racing event took place in the New South Wales territory back in 1810. People gathered to watch and wager at Hyde Park in Sydney.
The first lottery to run in Australia began in 1881. More recently, in 1956, the first legal “poker machines” were legalized. The first slot machines that appeared in Australia had poker cards on the reels. Because of this, they were referred to as poker machines, which was eventually shortened to the common modern term “pokies”.
Even though Las Vegas, in the United States, is considered to be one of the world’s most popular gambling meccas, gambling in Australia was legal and popular long before Las Vegas casinos sprung up out of the desert sand. In addition, in contrast to US laws requiring casino players to be 21 years old or older, to enter an Australian casino on land or online players only need to be 18 years old. In fact, going to play the pokies on one’s 18th birthday is a very common rite of passage for Australia’s young adults.
Australia even has its own national gambling game—Two-Up—which is said to have been played as far back as the 1700s. For those who’ve never played, Two-Up involves placing bets on two coins that are flipped up in the air using a wooden board.
⏳ Times Are Changing
In many areas of the world, a woman who likes to gamble is looked at with a certain stigma. For Australian women, there is no negative stigma attached to their gambling activities.
Many Aussie women simply think of gambling as a fun and harmless activity as long as they play responsibly and in moderation. Gambling isn’t thought of as a moral issue the way it is in many other countries.
Deakin University conducted a study in which researchers outlined the role that Australian women play in gambling as well as how they view the gambling industry in general. The research project was led by Doctor Samantha Thomas.
At a time when Australians have more gaming options available to them than ever before, Aussie women show a very positive view of gambling overall. Dr. Thomas said, “Women are gambling on a more diverse range of gambling products and we are also seeing that younger women have more positive views towards gambling.”
For Australian women, gambling is socially acceptable. They think of it as something that commonly fits into a fun night out with friends just like going for drinks, dinner, or dancing. Both men and women in Australia typically include gambling in the celebratory festivities of their 18th birthday.
🤳 Female Targeted Advertising
Looking at some of the current advertising, one could easily be led to think that operators have begun setting up specific Australian online casinos for women. We no longer see so many ads featuring mostly poker-faced men playing at a table in a somewhat seedy-looking gambling hall where the only women to appear are showgirls or waitresses.
Today’s best Australian casinos have moved women to centre stage in their advertising campaigns. Modern casino advertisements show women smiling, excited, and enjoying themselves. Gambling is portrayed as safe, somewhat glamorous, and most certainly fun and exciting.
The CrownBet casino has featured famous Australian actress and model Nicky Whelan in some of their most recent advertising campaigns. Sportsbet went a step further than just creating targeted ads, they deliberately showed most of their ads during The Bachelorette TV show, a show known to attract a mostly female audience.
In the end, these types of campaigns have paid off. Studies show that there has been a quantifiable shift in women’s attitudes towards gambling. The modern Australian woman views gambling as a perfectly acceptable social entertainment activity.
🌬️Feminisation Of Gambling Environments
It’s not just advertising that brought about the massive growth in the number of female Australian casino players. The Deakin University study cites several key factors that have influenced women’s gambling behaviour.
One of the most common ways people develop habits is through what is known as peer observation. In other words, we tend to do what we see our peers doing. Some study participants described their own experiences with gambling behaviour at young ages, even before they were able to legally gamble themselves.
They described what are now being called feminised gambling environments. The study concluded that women “observed that these environments were female-friendly as they were associated either with glamour or with getting dressed up and having a night out.” The women commented that the perceived glamour and the feeling that attending such venues was a kind of special occasion meant to them that gambling was not seen as an unusual activity for women to participate in.
Gambling games are simply everywhere in Australia and often embedded into environments other than casinos. It’s not unusual when women go out to have some drinks with their friends to spend some time playing pokies as they wait for their entire group to arrive. Bar and nightclub environments have built right into the experience.
The study also showed that for most people the urge to gamble develops well before their 18th birthday. Since so many adults gamble, young adults are exposed to the idea through sports betting, trips to watch the horse raises, or even through simple family conversations at the dinner table.
☘️ Gambling Is Accepted Social Behaviour
When a young woman encounters gambling as a normal part of their family environment, they don’t perceive any stigma being attached to the activity. If her parents and/or siblings can take some time out to go play a few rounds on the pokies, she knows that she can, too.
Gambling often takes the form of a group experience, too. It’s common to see women on a “girl’s night out” playing the pokies together. Some of the women that were interviewed for the study even went so far as to say that they don’t find gambling especially fun when alone, but enjoy it very much when it’s part of a night out with friends.
Peer influence isn’t just limited to getting together in person and going out. Some study participants said they have downloaded gambling apps to play games or even bet on horse races because their friends were already using them.
⭐ The Bottom Line
When you combine factors such as family experiences, positive social cues, and targeted advertising, it’s not hard to see why gambling has become such a popular way to pass the time with Aussie women. While it might be seen as taboo in some other countries, Australian women have nothing to fear—and that’s the way it should be.
Feel free to look through our lists to find Australian online casinos for women. We list only the best and proven safest Aussie online casinos.
While we genuinely hope you have a brilliantly exciting time at any of our listed Australian casinos, we’d also like to take a moment to remind you to gamble responsibly. You should never gamble with money that you can’t afford to lose and do so in moderation.
Cheers and good luck!