Schuetz: Barbie, Black Quarterbacks, And Being A Keynote Speaker On The East Coast

“Men rule the world.”

— Ken, from Barbie

Let’s assume the probability of being a male at birth is 50/50. In reality, for every 100 females, there are slightly more than 105 males born, but I want to keep this as simple as a coin toss. If one tosses a fair coin and records the result, the probability of getting 12 heads in a row is 1 in 4096. Or 0.000244.

I thought of this after recently receiving an advertisement for a gaming conference on the East Coast this week. What caught my attention was the listing of the 12 keynote speakers or “industry leader presentations,” who were all male. My probability example above would suggest that if a male and female had an equal chance to be a keynote speaker, then having all 12 being male would happen every 4,096 years, assuming the conference took place once a year. 

I started noting such things after a conference in 2016 in Las Vegas where my dear friend Jan Jones was giving a keynote presentation. Jan was showing slides of the executives of big gaming firms ‚ the “team photos,” so to speak. Of course, the general theme of the pictures was male and pale. Another well-known woman took a picture of one of the slides and put it on social media. Soon thereafter, both women received a somewhat pointed email from a representative of one of the firms, suggesting that this was inappropriate conduct and there could be repercussions for such activity. By the way, the writer of the emails was a woman.

In 2021, I noticed that an East Coast Gaming Congress (ECGC) had announced its lineup of keynote speakers, and it was 11 males. I published an article about this, and several weeks later, an individual affiliated with the conference wrote an article about my article, suggesting that I was not a good person and that this conference was all about inclusion, women’s rights, and the like. Also, the author was a woman, and the article’s title was “Women Understand Their Place.”

The following year, this conference advertised only nine speakers, all males. It did, however, announce that two female moderators would be present. You go, girl — work hard and pay your dues, and you, too, may become a moderator.

However, material progress was made in 2024. The plan was to have 14 keynote speakers, including two women.

It appears that the dam was not bursting, however. As mentioned, this year’s event has 12 keynote speakers — all males. One of the conference’s goals is to “… bring leaders from government, suppliers and operators, who collectively set policies and make decisions, into one place …” That seems to mean men.

Apparently, the attendees at this ECGC think this is all acceptable. One does gather the impression that the organizers, sponsors, and attendees think this is all cool and life as it should be. Otherwise, there would be pressure to change it. 

Illusory superiority

In part, I believe this situation is an example of illusory superiority. One example of this concept is the “Lake Wobegon effect,” where all children are above average. My favorite example of illusory superiority is something in the range of 90% of all drivers rate themselves as above-average drivers — a statistical impossibility. Moreover, this illusion is most dominant among men. 

One also does not want to miss my favorite theory: the “men are pigs effect,” which is ever present in the gaming industry. 

The point is that men run most gaming organizations and suffer from the notion that they are much better than women at running a gaming business. Therefore, there is no net tendency to change.

In professional football, Black players were excluded from 1933-1946. 1953 marked the first time a Black pro took a snap from the center as the quarterback. In 2024, 15 of the NFL’s starting quarterbacks were Black, meaning that for 32 teams, 46.8% were helmed by Black quarterbacks, whereas the Black population in America is approximately 14%.

In this example, Blacks were subjected to material discrimination and considered to lack the intelligence and leadership to play the position. They were not looked upon as having quarterback potential until, of course, they had the uppity nerve to pick up a football and throw and run with it. What broke this down was the reality of the sport and the importance of winning. As more Blacks came to play the quarterback position, records improved, and as noted in our most recent Super Bowl, both starting quarterbacks were Black.

In this instance, skill and leadership trumped racial bias and stupid perceptions.

It is funny how a person learns things. I saw the movie Barbie last year, and what I learned there was that females suffered from a perception that they were best suited to be mothers, not CEOs. In that movie, the dolls that females were socialized with transform from a baby to a skier, athlete, and all of the realms that Barbie conquered. Suddenly, the female child was not socialized as a mother with a baby doll but as an all-around capable person to accept numerous challenges. Unfortunately, the males of the species seem slow to get that. 

I found Barbie to be analogous to the situation of the Black quarterback, who was not socialized to believe that such a thing was really in the realm of possibility. But then that changed, and the agent of change was the goal to excel, and it was evaluated more on performance and less on skin color.

One wonders what the agent of change will be for this East Coast Gaming Congress. 

Will the female attendees decide to participate in events where the keynote speakers have more in common with them and seek out alternative learning environments? Every time this conference runs an ad about its keynotes, it implicitly sends a message to younger women that this industry has no room for them. This is like the Black athletes of decades ago being treated as if they lacked the intelligence and leadership to be in the ultimate position. Or the female child being given a baby to play with.

Will the sponsors choose to use their sponsor dollars in environments where the keynote speakers are not generally male and pale? 

And will the many male keynote speakers one day go home to their daughters and realize that this nonsense is just not right?

Who knows? My guess is that I will just get another article written about what a misguided jerk I am … from a woman.

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Richard Schuetz entered the gaming industry working nights as a blackjack and dice dealer while attending college and has since served in many capacities within the industry, including operations, finance, and marketing. He has held senior executive positions up to and including CEO in jurisdictions across the United States, including the gaming markets of Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Reno/Tahoe, Laughlin, Minnesota, Mississippi, and Louisiana. In addition, he has consulted and taught around the globe and served as a member of the California Gambling Control Commission and executive director of the Bermuda Casino Gaming Commission. He also publishes extensively on gaming, gaming regulation, diversity, and gaming history. Schuetz is the CEO American Bettors’ Voice, a non-profit organization dedicated to giving sports bettors a seat at the table.