Women in Poker 2025: From Leo Margets’ WSOP Breakthrough to the WPT® Ladies Championship

The summer of 2025 rewrote a long-standing narrative in poker. Spain’s Leo Margets became the first woman in 30 years to reach the final table of the 2025 World Series of Poker Main Event.

That landmark run has fed into a surge in women’s participation and performance lately, a great piece of news for the poker industry. Having covered many live and online events this year at WPT® Global, it’s been fantastic to see firsthand the turning point 2025 has been for women’s poker.

Now the spotlight turns to December’s 2025 WPT® Ladies Championship (Dec 13-14, Wynn Las Vegas), a low-barrier yet high-stakes tournament that could serve as the next chapter in the story.

Leo Margets’ deep run at the Main Event was a historic moment, alongside the 2025 Main Event attracting 9,735 entries at a $10,000 buy-in.

With her 7th place finish, she earned $1,500,000, and became only the second woman ever to reach the final table (after Barbara Enright’s 5th-place in 1995). Her stacking into the final nine carried symbolic weight.

It’s now a marker the game’s top level is now open. Luana Borges, President of the WPF Women’s Committee, summed it up: “For the first time in three decades, a woman sat at the WSOP Main Event final table.”

That breakthrough matters because it aligns with performance and participation shifts. When elite players cross the threshold it expands what is seen as possible.

Signs of increasing female involvement appear in multiple metrics:

Global Pipeline:

Women-Only Events The 2025 WPF Ladies Weekend became the first women’s poker festival held simultaneously across nine countries.

Over one weekend, more than 1,500 women played 2,200 entries, from São Paulo to the Philippines, marking a historic global showcase of female participation. Brazil hosted one of the largest fields at São Paulo’s H2 Club, where 500 players generated 900 entries and doubled the guarantee.

Thaís Salzer won the R$450 Main Event for R$30,000, defeating Larissa Bento (R$21,000) and Paula Katrynne (R$16,000). Across the U.S., nearly 700 players joined, with strong turnouts in Texas and Nevada.

Belgium and Taiwan added 300 and 120 entries, respectively. High-profile guests included Shiina Okamoto (two-time WSOP Ladies Champion), Lauriê Tournier (PokerStars Team Pro), and Kasey Mills (multi-time WSOP Circuit winner).

Live Festival Growth

In broader live-festival data, the Irish Open reported a women’s entry jump of +116% YoY in 2024, then another +20% in 2025. This data from the Irish Open indicates pure growth: more women are playing live open-field events, not only women-restricted tournaments.

As the field deepens, the pipeline to televised final tables improves, which is exactly the environment Margets just leveraged. Though online casinos are adjacent rather than poker-specific, women account for up to ~40% of online gamblers in several markets, a tailwind for broader gaming engagement.

Elite Results in 2025:

Women Delivering in Big Fields While participation is on the rise, performance has been too.

Top-tier women are now consistently finishing deep in elite fields. Kristen Foxen took 3rd place in the Triton Jeju $125K NLH 7‑Max (Sept 2025) for US$1.104 million. She cashed 2nd in the Poker Masters #9 $15.7K NLH (Oct 2025) for US$196,000.

These results show the elite tier is no longer an outlier for women, they are present, visible,  and succeeding. Beyond Foxen: players like Maria Ho, Vanessa Kade and our ambassador at WPT® Global Andressa Lincoln, maintain consistent, high-volume tour results, amplifying the message that women are active across markets, buy-ins and geographies.

As the summer narrative builds, the next milestone is December’s WPT® Ladies Championship in Las Vegas.

This accessible buy-in opens the door for ambitious players of varied bankrolls. The guarantee signals serious legitimacy. Positioning the event this way strengthens brand alignment: after the summer’s breakthrough, the locals get their shot, the scene deepens, the momentum continues in a major brand festival.

For those of us following poker’s evolution closely, 2025 already looks like a hinge year.

It feels like the next generation of women players isn’t waiting for permission; they’re already taking seats at the table. The Margets moment was the spark. The participation data gave the fuel. The elite results show early ignition. And the December event represents the next gear.

For women in poker, this calendar year may mark the transition from “hope” to “happening”. When representation, pipeline and performance align, the narrative changes. If you are a player, someone who supports women in the game, or just tracking poker’s evolution, mark Dec 13-14. It’s more than another Ladies' event.

It may well be the next step in a promising trajectory for women’s poker, and for the game as a whole.