Almost 50% of those working in the gambling sector are female

But which companies were considered in the study and why are there a comparatively large number of women employed in the industry, although the players are primarily men? The All-In Diversity Project was launched in 2017. The two founders are Christina Thakor-Rankin and Kelly Kehn. In a recent study, the organization examined how high the proportion of women in the gaming industry was in the past year 2019. As a result, it was found that the proportion of female employees remained almost the same in the period under review. According to this, around half of the employees (46.7%) in the gaming sector are still female.

Women are less common in management positions

As part of the study, a total of 26 mostly international gambling companies were surveyed. These include, for example, GVC Holdings and Game Technology IGT from Great Britain and the Betsson Group from Sweden. While 46.7% of the employees were women in general, on the executive boards of the 26 gaming companies there were “only” 40.8% women executives. The proportion of women on the supervisory boards was even lower – only 22.5% were women (-5.5%).

A similar phenomenon can be seen in the German DAX corporations, for example. It was only recently announced that 11 DAX companies in Germany do not employ any female board members at all. If you look at the MDax and SDax groups, you can see that the proportion of women in the 160 largest listed companies in Germany is just ten percent.

Only 12% of women make more than $ 50,000 a year

The All-In Diversity Project has also found that only 12% of the female workforce in the gaming sector earn an annual salary of at least $ 50,000. In comparison: For men, at 25%, there are more than twice as many employees who exceed this salary threshold.

The All-In Diversity Project pursues the primary goal of promoting diversity in companies. The co-founder of the project, Kelly Kehn, was optimistic about the current study: “We believe that an annual survey in the industry is one of the most important ways to make real progress worldwide”. The organization is currently working on evaluating the data for 2020. These should be particularly interesting in view of the global pandemic situation.

Is the percentage of women in the gambling sector too low?

The current figures show that 46.7% of employees in the gaming industry are already female. In view of the fact that the players in online game libraries and in land-based gambling halls are mainly men, the proportion of women employed is comparatively high. The comparatively low proportion of female managers in gaming companies is therefore worrying. In this regard, it should be noted that this is not an industry-related problem, but rather a problem that affects society as a whole. After all, the DAX corporations in Germany show that there are just as few board members and supervisory boards here.

According to a recent study by the Federal Center for Health Education (BZgA), around 75% of people between the ages of 16 and 70 in Germany have taken part in gambling at least once.

Conclusion

At first glance, it is gratifying that almost half of the employees in the gaming sector are female. But it is also a fact that the proportion of women in management positions is significantly lower. Not only does the All-In Diversity Project want to counteract this trend. Politicians in this country have also already announced that they want to strive for equality with other companies. It will therefore be interesting to see whether the number of female executives will increase significantly beyond the gaming industry in the coming years.