In poker, you have to learn to bluff, to take risks, and know when to fold. I've played cards my whole life, and I often speak on how it's made me strategic, helped me take risks, and taught me to think on my feet. It turns out poker skills could be central to achieving gender equality in business.

Card Dead: Bad Hand After Bad Hand

Men account for over 77% of entrepreneurs in 2023. Less than a quarter of innovative business starters are women or those who identify as another gender. While statistics are always skewed by respondent numbers, this is an alarming indication of an ongoing gender equality issue. Pernicious, sexist attitudes make it much harder for women and non-binary founders to get a seat at the table.

The deck is stacked, but in the long run, everyone loses. Research from the United Kingdom shows that companies that embrace gender diversity, particularly at the executive level, are 25% more likely to be more profitable. Companies with executive teams made up of at least 30% women are even more likely to outperform their competitors. Ignoring the talents of gender-diverse founders is a bad business move that both companies and investors keep making—but there are ways that women can outmaneuver their male counterparts.

Skewing the Odds

Jenny Just is a huge advocate for poker as a business tool. She's a pioneer in options trading and worth $ 1.5 billion and a highly successful poker player. Her company, Poker Power, is a women-led enterprise teaching other women decision-making, strategic-thinking, and risk-taking skills via cards. Poker can teach business hopefuls:

• When to act and when to wait

• The confidence to trust yourself

• How to analyze data and act accordingly

• How to read people

• How to assess and take risks

Women who have joined the program say they’re now better negotiators, making better deals and having the confidence to speak up and go for what they want.

Final Word

Growing up playing cards taught me many lessons, but an important one was about losing. While it's important to know when to fold, it's also critical to know that losing a hand is not the same as losing the game. Take your losses on the chin, weigh up the odds, take appropriate risks, and go on to win big later.

I’m now teaching my kids my card shark skills. We have a ton of fun with it, but I know that these lessons in strategy, probability, and perseverance will last them a lifetime—especially if they go into business themselves.

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