“I think I very quickly realised that as a young woman, sitting at this machine for hours on end, I didn’t fit in. And that’s when I moved my gambling online. Because I could hide. Nobody knew. I even used a male username to try and hide the fact that I was a female,” recounts Stacey Goodwin.
Now a Programs Officer for gambling harms charity EPIC Restart Foundation, Stacey is telling me about her devastating, eight-year struggle with betting addiction.
And her story is not an isolated one.
As more and more players enter the online gaming sphere, problem gambling is swiftly growing amongst one demographic in particular: Women.
Due to a nexus of social factors, women are an under-served group when it comes to accessing gambling harm services.
Female players often have different motivations than their male counterparts.
Telescoping
Many use it as a form of escapism from already precarious positions. Many are lonely and isolated; with caring responsibilities and, at times, concurrent pre-existing mental health conditions.
And because of this, many women experience a faster progression to harmful play–known as telescoping–than men.
Compounding this, the stigma they face as a result of developing disordered gambling overwhelmingly prevents many from seeking the help they need when things get out of hand.
Stacey–the first woman to go through the EPIC Restart Foundation program (launched in 2021), and who then went on to help design a women’s-specific support work within the charity–says that the perception that gambling disorders are limited to mostly middle-aged White men is a major reason why women betting addicts don’t seek–and receive–the support they need.
GamCare
These concerns are echoed by Laura Burke, Women’s Programme Manager at gambling charity, GamCare.
“When [women] talk to us, they often feel an exponential amount of guilt over it. Like, they had let a lot of people down,” says Laura.
“They carry a very personal shame about it. And then also they just aren’t aware that services exist to support them. So they tend to keep it quite silent trying to deal with it themselves.”
Paradoxically, for the very same reasons that many women do not seek help, many are also drawn to online play.
iGaming platforms provide social anonymity and instant accessibility. Playing can fit around busy-childcaring schedules, in an environment that feels safer and less gendered than traditional in-person venues. These features of iGaming simultaneously make gaming more socially acceptable for women, whilst obscuring early signs of harm.
Driver
Daytime advertising of online casinos targeting women is another considerable driver.
“[Online casino advertisements] are targeted around any time when a lot of women can be at home, isolated, maybe have responsibility for caring for children or elderly family members.” shares Laura.
“So it’s accessible and it is repetitive, and it can be a coping strategy for things like boredom or isolation.”
The rise of online play amongst women is a global phenomenon.
For example, as of 2025, female iGamers outnumbered men in Brazil, making up 51 percent of players. In the UK’s more established industry, 46 percent of online gamblers in 2023 were women; and EU-regulated operators saw an 18 percent annual increase from 2020 to 2024 in online sign-ups from women.
Equally, the number of women seeking help for gambling related harms is increasing.
Knowledge Gap
According to Gordon Moody, the rehabilitation centre where Stacey initially received treatment, their number of female applicants have almost doubled in the last year.
A report in Critical Gambling Studies highlights that traditional harm-measurement frameworks often overlook context‑specific aspects of women’s gambling harms.
This contributes to a knowledge gap in understanding motivations, social harm and lived experiences of women with gambling disorders, ultimately limiting the effectiveness and access to prevention and treatment.
Researchers argue for a gender‑transformative approach, one that expands beyond individual behavioural measures–such as the Problem Gambling Severity Index–to include gender‑sensitive design, intersectional analysis and research drawn from lived‑experiences, which can better inform policy, services and industry responses.
Harms
As Stacey emphasises: Prevention starts with awareness. Not just of gambling itself, but of the specific harms women face.
She argues visibility is crucial. And seeing more women speak openly about their experiences in gambling and recovery spaces can make a real difference.
Many of EPIC’s female service users report using gambling as a coping mechanism for a range of experiences – from financial and domestic abuse, emotional stress and even increased impulsivity linked to menstrual cycles, with concurrent conditions like PPMD often worsening problem-gambling symptoms in women with the disorder.
Raising these topics can feel unsafe to discuss in mixed-gender groups, or with male therapists.
Support
Having women-only recovery spaces, argues Stacey, builds confidence, signals that support is available, and reassures women that they have the right to seek help.
“I know that [when I was in recovery] seeing another woman would have made me feel a lot less alone.
“I see women all the time now, which is just incredible. Having more women visible in recovery spaces is happening, which just makes me so happy.”
GamCare echoes these calls, whilst also calling for more research into women’s experiences of gambling harm.
“We need to understand women’s experiences more. For the most part research is conducted as a generic look at gambling. We need to speak to more women. We need to understand their lived experiences more,” the charity affirms.
Realistically, the rise of online gambling amongst women is unlikely to cease.
But as the issue of problem gambling continues to grow, platforms, regulators and support spheres alike must adapt prevention, treatment and design to better meet the needs of women.
The EPIC Restart Foundation offers free support to both men and women facing issues with gambling harm across the UK.
https://www.epicrestartfoundation.org/pages/our-programmes
Gamcare provides specialist training and support for people affected by gambling addiction and can be contacted at 0808 8020 133.
