Women Who Have Made Gambling History
Recently updated on February 10th, 2022
Gambling is not an activity that is only restricted to men. Furthermore, they have also managed to make gambling history in an industry dominated by men. These days women play an important part in growing the gambling industry, whether at online or land-based casinos.
In this article, we will speak about the few women who have affected the history of gambling. They not only broke through barriers of gender, but they have played an important role in the industry.
Top 5 Women in the Gambling History
Here is our top list of great women in the gambling industry.
1. Vanessa Selbst
Selbst is the most famous woman in the gambling industry. She is mostly known for being the World Series of Poker Superstar, where she managed to win $10 million throughout her career. She has three World Series of Poker bracelets and managed to reach the final table of the Wolf Poker Tour events. What’s more, she participated in many poker events. Selbst stopped taking part in professional poker gaming in 2018.
2. Judy Bayley
Many people may not know who Judy Bayley is, but her name deserves to be on the list. She is known as the first lady of gambling. Together with her husband, they opened the Hacienda Casino, located between Las Vegas and Los Angeles, in 1956. She took over the casino by herself when her husband died, which placed her as the first woman to be the sole owner and operator of the casino. While running the casino, she introduced live keno at the casino, which was a first.
3. Anette Obrestad
Obrestad is known as the youngest champion of the World Series of Poker. She got the title after participating in the World Series of Poker Europe in 2007. After this, she took part in the Aussie Millions and European Poker Tour, where she reached the final table. Out of the two events, she managed to win the Aussie Millions’ event in 2010. She began her poker career playing online poker.
4. Lottie Deno
Deno earned her poker queen nickname because of her playing poker games. She made good money throughout her poker career, which she used to live comfortably after she retired from playing poker. Her poker career was from 1860 to 1980, when there was a lot of prejudice towards women who gambled. However, she managed to pave the way for many other women that followed.
5. Shirley Brancucci
Even though many women were working as dealers in 1952, there were no women who were dealers for baccarat. So, Brancucci decided to take a course and learn how to become a baccarat dealer. Even though at first it was challenging, she managed to make it work and became popular with the players. She was the first woman to become a baccarat dealer on the Las Vegas Strip.
