The claim that men make up “over 82%” of the iGaming player base does not hold up against the regulatory and industry data we could verify. What the evidence actually shows is a persistent but narrower gap: men account for roughly 69% to 78% of active online gambling accounts depending on the market and product, and in Europe that share has been widening rather than shrinking. In the United States, the opposite is happening in sports betting specifically, where the female share of bettors has grown noticeably since 2020.
Key takeaways
- The European Gaming and Betting Association (EGBA) reported that three-quarters of EU and UK online gambling customers were male in 2024, up from 72% in 2023.
- The UK Gambling Commission’s Patterns of Play research found 78% of player accounts were male, but men accounted for 94% of all money staked — spend is more skewed than headcount.
- In the US, men held a 69% share of the overall online gambling market in 2025, but the American Gaming Association found women’s share of sports bettors rose from 38% in 2020 to 46% in 2024.
- Gambling harm is also gender-skewed: the World Health Organization estimates 11.9% of men and 5.5% of women globally experience some level of gambling harm.
- No verified regulator, academic, or listed-company source we found puts the male share of the overall iGaming player base at 82% or higher; that figure appears only in uncredentialed aggregator content.
Table of contents
How wide is the gender gap, actually
Every credible dataset we reviewed agrees on direction — men are the majority of iGaming players everywhere — but the size of that majority moves depending on who is measuring it and which product is in scope. Reporting on EGBA data shows
three-quarters of customers were male in 2024, marking an increase from 72% in 2023, while among women this figure dropped from 28% in 2023 to 25% in 2024
. That is a meaningfully smaller gap than “over 82%,” and it is measured across the EU and UK’s combined online gambling customer base of 38.6 million people.
In the United States, the picture is similarly in the high sixties to low seventies rather than the eighties. According to Mordor Intelligence’s 2025 market analysis,
male users held 69.01% share of the United States online gambling market in 2025, while the female cohort posted the fastest growth at a 10.12% compound annual growth rate
. The UK Gambling Commission’s own internal research, discussed in its Advisory Board for Safer Gambling minutes, found that
78% of player accounts are male, and 94% of all bet spending was by men
— a study built from 20,000 player accounts across seven operators over a full year.
Why the split varies by product
Averaging across “iGaming” as a single category obscures how differently men and women use specific verticals. A YouGov study covered by Gambling Insider found that
33% of men placed a bet online in the last 12 months, compared to 24% of women
, but the composition of that activity diverges sharply by product.
Women were more likely than men to buy lottery tickets (72% vs. 58%) or play bingo or keno online (6% vs. 2%)
, while
men were far more active in sports betting (45% vs. 23%), poker (7% vs. 1%), and fantasy sports (4% vs. virtually no women)
.
US data tells the same story from a different angle. Statista’s 2024 survey found
the gambling form with the largest disparity between men and women was online sports betting, with 15% of men saying they took part compared to only 6% of women
. Lottery participation, by contrast, is far more balanced. This matters for how we read any single “gender gap” headline: a sportsbook-heavy operator will look far more male-skewed than a lottery or bingo-first platform, even in the same regulated market.
| Market / product | Male share | Female share | Source (year) |
|---|---|---|---|
| EU + UK online gambling customers | 72% | 28% | EGBA (2023) |
| EU + UK online gambling customers | 75% | 25% | EGBA (2024) |
| UK real-money player accounts (all operators) | 78% | 22% | UK Gambling Commission, Patterns of Play |
| Share of total money staked, UK accounts | 94% | 6% | UK Gambling Commission, Patterns of Play |
| US online gambling market (all products) | 69% | 31% | Mordor Intelligence (2025) |
| US online sports bettors | 62% | 38% | American Gaming Association (2020) |
| US online sports bettors | 54% | 46% | American Gaming Association (2024) |
Widening in Europe, narrowing in US sports betting
The direction of travel is not uniform, which is itself a useful finding for anyone assuming a simple, linear “women are catching up” narrative. In the EU and UK, the male share of the overall online gambling customer base
increased from 72% in 2023 to 75% in 2024
— the gap widened, not narrowed, over that period. Analysts covering the region have suggested this reflects both the growth of sports betting relative to other verticals and continued male-skewed marketing around football and other major leagues.
The US sports betting vertical moved in the opposite direction. Mordor Intelligence cites American Gaming Association figures showing
46% of sports bettors were women in 2024, an increase from 38% in 2020
. That is an eight-percentage-point shift in four years for a single vertical in a single market — a faster pace of change than the EU-wide figures show for the market as a whole. Anyone comparing “the gender gap in iGaming” across regions or time periods should specify which metric, market, and product they mean before drawing conclusions about direction.
This product-and-region volatility echoes what we found when we mapped the industry’s other major demographic shift; see The Age Shift: Why 70% of Online Gamblers Are Now Between 18 and 39, where growth in younger cohorts is similarly concentrated in specific verticals rather than spread evenly across the industry.
Spend is more skewed than headcount
One of the more consequential findings for operators and regulators alike is that the gender gap in who plays is smaller than the gender gap in who pays. The UK Gambling Commission’s Patterns of Play data is unambiguous on this point:
78% of player accounts are male, but 94% of all bet spending was by men
. That sixteen-point gap between account share and spend share means the average male account generates disproportionately more revenue than the average female account in that dataset — a detail that matters more to an operator’s commercial model than headcount alone, and one that any algorithmic scoring system needs to treat as a distinct signal rather than folding it into a single “player demographics” number.
Risk and harm differ by gender too
The gender skew in participation carries through to harm statistics, though not proportionally. The World Health Organization’s gambling fact sheet states that
around 5.5% of women and 11.9% of men globally experience some level of harm from gambling
— roughly double the rate for men relative to their higher participation share. Reporting on Lancet Public Health Commission findings put the absolute scale at
54.7 million men worldwide experiencing gambling disorders or problematic gambling, compared to 25.3 million women
. The same coverage notes a pattern that should concern anyone designing responsible-gambling tooling: women who do develop problem gambling tend to progress to disorder more quickly than men, even though fewer women gamble overall. A male-dominated player base is not simply a marketing curiosity — it is also where the bulk of measurable gambling harm currently concentrates, in absolute terms.
How operators are responding
Several US operators have run marketing campaigns explicitly aimed at growing female sports betting participation — Caesars Sportsbook’s “Queen of the Sportsbook” initiative, which foregrounds female athletes and influencers, is a widely cited example of this shift, coinciding with the AGA’s reported rise in female sports bettor share. We name this only as an illustration of a documented industry trend, not as an endorsement of any operator or product; the underlying data on female sports betting growth comes from the AGA figures cited above, not from the marketing campaigns themselves. Casino and slots verticals, where the gender split is already closer to even in several European markets, have generally required less deliberate repositioning.
What this means for our scoring
Demographic skew is not a quality signal in itself — a sportsbook is not better or worse because its player base leans male — but it is a useful context variable when interpreting other metrics our algorithm tracks, particularly responsible-gambling tool uptake, average session length, and complaint patterns by product type. We treat gender-composition data as a market-context input rather than a scoring input, in the same way we treat the age-cohort data covered in our companion piece on the 18–39 age shift. Readers who want the fuller picture of who is actually betting, across both age and gender, can browse the rest of our iGaming demographics hub.
Frequently asked questions
Is the gender gap in iGaming closing or widening?
It depends on the market and product. EGBA data shows the male share of EU and UK online gambling customers grew from 72% to 75% between 2023 and 2024 — widening. In US sports betting specifically, the American Gaming Association recorded the female bettor share rising from 38% to 46% between 2020 and 2024 — narrowing. There is no single global trend line.
Which vertical has the widest gender gap?
Sports betting and fantasy sports consistently show the widest gaps in every dataset we reviewed. Statista found online sports betting had the largest gender disparity of any US gambling form, at 15% of men versus 6% of women. Lottery and bingo skew the other way, toward higher female participation.
Do men and women gamble differently online?
Yes, beyond just participation rates. YouGov data shows women favor lottery and bingo-style games, while men are disproportionately represented in sports betting, poker, and fantasy sports. UK Gambling Commission research also found men’s accounts generate a disproportionate 94% share of total money staked despite being 78% of accounts.
Is the male-skewed player base itself a risk indicator?
Not directly, but it correlates with harm concentration. WHO estimates men experience gambling harm at roughly double the rate of women (11.9% vs. 5.5%), and Lancet-reported disorder estimates put affected men at more than double the number of affected women globally. Product mix, not gender share alone, is the more actionable signal for operators and regulators.
Where does the “82%” figure come from?
We could not trace it to any regulator, listed-company report, or peer-reviewed study. It appears only in uncredentialed statistics-aggregator content without disclosed methodology. The best-supported figures from EGBA, the UK Gambling Commission, and Mordor Intelligence place the male share of the player base between roughly 69% and 78%, depending on market and year.
Methodology
For demographic context pieces like this one, GamblScout.com’s algorithm aggregates publicly disclosed regulator statistics (such as UK Gambling Commission and national gaming authority reports), listed-operator investor filings, and third-party academic or survey research rather than collecting any personal data from individual players. We cross-reference figures across at least two independent sources before treating a demographic claim as reportable, and we use natural language processing on operator marketing and public disclosures to flag when a stated audience skew is unsupported by the underlying data. This context feeds into the broader review process described in our scoring system and algorithmic weights documentation.
Gambling involves risk. Only play with money you can afford to lose and use the deposit limits and self-exclusion tools available in your jurisdiction.
