Marketplace Morning Reports new Skin in the Game series explores what we can learn about

money and careers from the $300 billion video game industry. Plus, here how an Oakland-based

program helps young people get the skills they need to break into this booming industry.

Listen to Skin in the Game and more from the Marketplace Morning Report wherever you get your

podcasts. About half of gamers are women, but professional e-sports are still catching up.

From American Public Media, this is Marketplace Tech. I'm Megan McCarty-Carrie-Nell.

Today we're revisiting an episode on gender diversity in professional video gaming,

otherwise known as e-sports. It's grown into a billion-dollar industry.

Tournament straw crowds of tens of thousands to watch players compete at games like Valorant

and League of Legends, and top e-sports athletes earn millions of dollars. But for too long,

like so many facets of the gaming world, this industry has been dominated by men. A 2019

report showed just 5 percent of professional e-sports players were women.

It's a reality that is slowly changing as Marketplace Tech's Daniel Shin reports.

Heather Garosa watched her brother and his friends play competitive e-sports tournaments in the mid-2000s.

And me being the competitor I was, I didn't want my brother to be better than me at anything,

so I jumped into playing as well.

And that was the start of her long career as an e-sports athlete

under her gamer ID Sapphire. Back in the early days, Garosa remembered how unique it was

to be a woman competing in live e-sports tournaments.

I didn't have to tell people what I looked like when I was going to meet someone at an event

because look for the woman and you're going to find me.

Today, there are still few women competing at these attorneys, especially at the top level,

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