More than a third of social casino players are women

The social-casino game market hit $2 billion in 2013, and a good chunk of that came from women.

A new survey from International Game Technology shows that more than a third of social casino poker players are women. IGT is the largest maker of slot machines, and its DoubleDown Interactive division is one of the biggest makers of social casino games. The number of women playing online social casino poker games was up 22 percent in 2013 compared to the year before, the survey said. That should be informative for the designers of social casino games, which have exploded in popularity on social networks and mobile devices in the past couple of years. The enthusiasm for these nongambling games, where players can buy virtual chips with real money but can’t cash out their winnings, is so high there are more than 100 startups making social casino games.