It is not unwelcome news to hear that women are rising to the top of what might have been perceived as a man's world. You could say that most industries operate with male-centric bias, but the gambling world is bucking the trend with women leading many of the world's top established companies.
image credit Hayley Maxwell unsplash
Starting it all
Possibly the best well-known woman boss in the gambling industry is Denise Coates, who founded Bet365. She spotted the opportunities of internet gambling before many of us had even really understood what the world wide web was. She persuaded her family to mortgage their chain of Staffordshire-based betting shops and started her new empire from a portacabin in a car park. The rest, as they say, is history.
The company developed its own software system and invested heavily in its UK workforce. As a result, Coates is now one of the UK's highest taxpayers, and the company provides high-quality careers in an area of the country which was hit badly by post-industrial decline. However, Bet365's success is not limited to the UK. The company has customers and operations spanning the globe and is one of the top names in online sports betting and casinos.
Taking the lead
Jette Nygaard-Andersen is the CEO of the global gaming company Entain. She has risen to the top of a worldwide corporation and is outspoken on issues within the gambling industry. Nygaard-Andersen is particularly vocal about what she regards as unsustainable promotional, and advertising spend in the USA. Entain owns a wide range of sports betting and online casino sites, including bwin, Ladbrokes, Coral, Eurobet and BetMGM — competitors of key players in the industry like LeoVegas and Casumo.
Nygaard-Andersen said:
"I don't think about myself as a female CEO. I show up because I'm a leader in the industry. I have ambitions to change the industry, both what we're doing on the product side, but certainly also how we think about the industry from a diversity and inclusion perspective."
One of the areas in which she is pushing for change is the ways in which gambling companies pick up customers. She is championing a strategy that capitalises on the allure of gambling entertainment, and this includes free-to-play games. She said this way of working is paying off as Entain grew its global customer database by 25% last year. While many of their competitors offer generous sign-up bonuses and risk-free bets to secure new customers, Nygaard-Andersen points out that promotions like these eat into profit margins and do not foster loyalty.
A serious flutter for women
FanDuel CEO Amy Howe also has concerns about the money spent acquiring new customers. After the online operator launched its mobile sports betting platform in New York's newly opened sports betting market, she told reporters:
"We want to make sure that we're reaching the broadest and the right audience, but we're doing that in a fiscally responsible way."
Howe landed the top job in 2021, and FanDuel's parent company, Flutter, say they are serious about recruiting more women to top positions in their organisation. They have set a public target of having 40% of the leadership roles within the company filled by women in 2026.
Girls Who Code
Girls Who Code is an organisation aiming to close the gender gap in technology and bring fresh talent into the world of tech. Entain is heavily invested in this program, and Nygaard-Andersen is keen to see more girls and women getting excited about technology. With technology being used to entertain and inspire customers, she says it is vital that the tech itself is free from bias in the data sets.
UK regulator urged to work with gambling companies
Entain, Flutter and Bet365 have been amongst the companies submitting evidence to the DCMS regarding the forthcoming Gambling Act Review white paper. Many in the industry say that the legislators underestimate 'the complexity of the technology operated by licensees'. In its submitted evidence, Entain argued it would be better if the Commission 'adopted a co-operative rather than confrontational approach'. Regarding affordability checks, Bet 365 called for balance 'to protect those at-risk with the vast majority of people who gamble without experiencing harm'.