Many readers of Woman Poker player Magazine would be aware from previous articles that there are a massive amount of female poker players on the Australian felt. The last numbers quoted were huge and they increase daily. In the articles there is mention about the large amount of players in the APL (Australian Poker League). There are around 500,000 players in the Australian poker league with some players saying there are over 100,000 women.

100,000 women playing poker in Australia seems like a huge number.

Let me tell you though that there is a lot of live poker options available to women in Australia.

Australia has a wide variety of poker leagues for players globally. There are of course also the casinos, with each state and territory having their own casino leagues and games. I thought I would touch on exactly what there is to offer for poker enthusiasts that visit Australia, most importantly give a further indication of why the female poker population in the land down under is booming.

Again; we have APL (Australian Poker League) which has been nominated for a poker maven award. This is without a doubt the biggest league in Australia and appears to have the most representing women. Twice a year players battle it out at Crown Casino in Melbourne for $500,000.00 and a spot on team APL at the WSOP. But there is more!

In addition we have the National Poker League with games all over New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia. Most games are roughly $10 entry. Every event you play with NPL earns you points ranging from 1000 points down to 100 points based upon your placing in the event. Your points contribute to not only a Combined State leader board, but a regional leader board and a venue leader board. All three leader boards are used to determine prizes and season final invites. The NPL also has $500,000.00 cash up for grabs although it works more like a satellite with 250 players battling it out to win tickets for a $500,000.00 online tournament.

Next there is the National Pub Poker League providing free tournaments around Australia. Every 4 weeks each region holds its own Monthly Cash Final which is made up of venue winners and top point earners. As well as the Monthly Cash Finals there is also the National Finals that brings together the best players from across the country to participate for the major prizes. National Final qualifiers are the top 16 place getters from every cash game played in the country during the qualifying period plus the top 25 point scorers in each State. Coming up in a few days is the national final with $10,000.00 for first placing alone. As with APL this is a good prize pool for free poker!

From all of this, you can clearly see that there are so many free and cheap poker games going on throughout Australia that there is no excuse for women to miss out; hence there are female poker players in Australia by the truckloads. Although it appears for women that the larger live buy-in tournaments have ceased on tours such as the ANZPT, we still find places like Star City Casino in Sydney hosting the Pink Diamond Ladies Tournaments and series such as the Joe Hachem Deep Stack Series holding ladies nights.

All in all I think the Australian poker scene is a good indicator for the rest of the world of how to introduce more females into the poker scene. There are not many countries in the world that have such a variety of daily and nightly freeroll tournaments where so much cash can be won. My theory as an Australian women is that with over 2 million dollars up for grabs annually, it is worth me stepping out and hiring a babysitter.   After all, the cost of the babysitter is less than the buy-ins in most other major tournaments where there is that much cash on the line. If the cost for you isn’t cheaper - you have the wrong babysitter!