I have analysed poker specifically in Australia for a number of years now; six years at least. It really seems as though the tides are turning in the Land Down Under with more women hitting the poker scene.

A frequent and popular Australian Poker League player, Deb Styles, agrees stating; “4 years ago when I started I was usually the only woman on a table of 8. It was roughly 90% males and 10% females. It is now around 70% males and 30% females in my region.”

I believe with over 500,000 Australian Poker League members, that’s a ton of female players! If they all came together, it would be a spectacular showing with around one hundred and fifty thousand Aussie poker playing females at a casino!

Sure the ladies involved in poker in Australia are not all champions, there are few champions to be honest. They don’t all play in larger buy in tournaments either. They do however have the opportunity to play free poker in almost every town and city in Australia with APL (Australian Poker League) covering almost every corner of the globe. They have opportunities to play during the day, which is suitable for stay at home mums.

Playing in the APL is a big deal to the ladies in Australia; as they also have an opportunity to play for a million dollars every year in two major 500k tourneys and for little cost or even for free! There’s even more of a sweetener on the cake for these APL playing ladies. APL also sends the top 5 people from each major tourney to the WSOP.  Ladies such as Emma Grace, the last standing Aussie lady in the WSOP, went winning her trip through the APL.

We do have some strong Australian players sending attention to the poker tables, and more women to the scene. Last year a series called “The Poker Star” produced by Joe Hachem was aired on television and the Internet. This reality TV series saw multiple poker personalities compete for the win and the title of “The Poker Star”. There were four women contenders out of a total of 11 in the show. The winner was Amanda De Cesare a single mother of two young girls. Amanda is now set to tour with Joe Hachem as a mentor and participate in tournaments worldwide. Amanda went on to win the Joe Hachem Deep Stack tournament, proving she has what it takes to be a strong player and to encourage more women to follow in her steps.

To further push women to this remarkable industry we have just seen Marsha Waggoner placed in the Australian Poker Hall of Fame. Marsha is a women that has lived and breathed poker for a lifetime; her life of riches made through her choice to take the game up against all odds in a very male driven poker industry; especially  when she first started.

There you have it.  It's a domino effect in the Land of Oz with the rising number of female poker players in the region.  Many opporunities for women in poker are starting to be introduced.  You have a freeroll league offering chances to those with no bankroll to play and then you can visualize stepping into the shoes of Amanda De Cesare and a chosen few perhaps to eventually dream to be a Marsha Waggoner. Need I say more?