That's one takeaway from new research by bookmaker Paddy Power showing 92% of its online financial spread bettors are male. The figure, culled from a survey of Paddy Power customers, shows not only that betting is predominantly a male pastime, but that men tend to take greater financial risks than women.

While men are prone to gambling on sports or the market, women gravitate to bingo and novelty betting, says Peter O'Donovan, head of financial spread betting at Paddy Power Trader, the company's online arm.

The reason, O'Donovan says, has to do with the profile of the underlying product: men like sports, women like telly. But Dr Ken McKenzie, a social psychologist with UCD's Geary Institute, believes there are deeper forces at work.

"Betting requires some level of study or expertise and men are more likely to want to test their expertise to see if they can beat the market, " he says. "It's about achievement in a particular domain . . . and there is an element of aggression and competitiveness to it."

Men also take more risks in general . . . whether it comes to health, jobs or investments . . .a trait which just happens to express itself more starkly when it comes to money.

Women, on the other hand, are worriers and for that reason are more cautious with cash. A Bank of Ireland study on attitudes to money found that women were not only more inclined than men to follow a budget, but 61% reported regularly worrying about money, compared to just 41% of men. The same study reported men in their 20s spent an average of 110 per month on betting.

Paddy Power has evidence of this in the online habits of its customers, too.

"We do see a far greater percentage of women opening a simulator account, " says O'Donovan. "When they get used to the concepts, they might eventually migrate [to actual betting]."

Surprisingly . . . in light of stereotypes . . . the Paddy Power survey also found that 43% of their (mostly male) customers rely on intuition to inform their trading decisions, while women take a less emotional approach to betting and cut losses quickly.

"It's like flexing muscles, " says McKenzie. "The negative feedback makes men want to come back stronger."