Caitlin Clark stood at the free throw line inside Washington, D.C.'s Capital One Arena about a minute before halftime on the final day of the WNBA season. The eyes of 20,711 spectators, a new league record, were fixed on her as she knocked down both free throws.
Many of those in attendance were waiting with baited breath -- not only because they had the chance to witness arguably the most influential women's basketball player in a generation, but also because it's likely that some in attendance had bet on her.
Clark player props and Indiana Fever wagers, as they had been all season, were likely one of the hottest tickets at one of the nation's only in-arena sportsbooks and on mobile devices, defying the hometown Washington Mystics, who ultimately won the contest 92-91.
Clark's dominance in the WNBA, both on and off the court this season, benefited the league in every facet, from viewership to merchandise sales, and that "rising tide" mentality extended to sports betting. Penn Entertainment (the operator behind ESPN BET) reported that it saw a more than 150% increase in WNBA handle year over year, while BetMGM reported a 108% increase in WNBA betting for 2024.
Rithmm, a sports betting analytics tool, said it saw 180% more bets placed by its community members this season compared to last, as well as more bets per day per user. The company runs Discord channels for its patrons and said it has been blown away by how the online community has embraced the league in 2024.
"These are the traditional male bettors, ages spanning from 21 to 45, that are betting the WNBA," Rithmm co-founder and CEO Megan Lanham told ESPN. "We went from a pretty non-vibrant WNBA [Discord] channel last year, even though we had the product ready, to lots of incredible communication this year."
"It's pretty obvious that the interest in betting [on the WNBA] has gone up year over year. I think [Caitlin] Clark really drove it. The player prop bets were much higher, and she's just super popular in terms of those."" Caesars Sportsbook pro basketball lead David Lieberman
As with all of the areas in which the WNBA excelled this season, it's not a coincidence that huge betting growth is also occurring. Just as it was when Clark was in college, attention seems to follow her everywhere she goes, especially as she was setting league rookie records for scoring and assists, as well as WNBA overall season records for points by a guard and for assists at any position.
Bettors reacted accordingly. ESPN BET said that 20% of all handle for WNBA regular-season games were for those featuring the Fever, and 12% of all money-line and spread bets for the whole season were on Indiana. BetMGM reported that six of its eight most-bet WNBA games this season involved Clark's squad
"It's pretty obvious that the interest in betting [on the WNBA] has gone up year over year," Caesars Sportsbook pro basketball lead David Lieberman told ESPN. "I think Clark really drove it. The player prop bets were much higher, and she's just super popular in terms of those."
Clark a popular figure in props, too
Clark was a force in the prop market this season. All major sportsbooks reported that she was the single most-bet player in the WNBA, with ESPN BET saying she accounted for five of the top 10 largest prop markets; the book said the "Clark effect" led to a year-over-year increase of over 250% for all props. At PrizePicks, Clark was the eighth-most-selected basketball player for lineups this season, male or female.
BetMGM said Clark brought in five times as many prop bets as the next closest player, Angel Reese, who also took the league by storm in her rookie season, setting the WNBA consecutive double-double and single-season rookie rebounding records, among others.
Clark and Reese's well-documented rivalry from college rolled over into the professional game, making each Fever showdown with the Chicago Sky an event, while bolstering the already growing star power of each player to the ever-growing women's basketball audience. For betting purposes, that meant Indiana and Chicago garnered the greatest share of bets to win the 2024 WNBA championship at FanDuel, per the sportsbook's general manager Karol Corcoran, who cited "unprecedented levels" of bettor engagement for the league this year.
The two competitors also jockeyed for Rookie of the Year honors over the summer, with Reese getting as close as +400 to win the award in July before undergoing season-ending wrist surgery in early September. The LSU product attracted about two-thirds of all bets and handle to win the honor throughout the season at ESPN BET, which ultimately worked out great for the sportsbooks, who took limited action on Clark's prohibitive Rookie of the Year odds.
"I think talent in the WNBA is at an all-time high," Lieberman said. "Any league that gets better talent and more competitive is always going to grow in popularity, and basketball's already a popular sport. There's not a lot of other women's team sports that are out there that you could watch and bet on, so the WNBA kind of cornered the market on women's team sport events."
Of course, it wasn't just rookies that contributed to the W's immense talent volume this season. The Las Vegas Aces' A'ja Wilson set the WNBA single-season points and rebounds records and broke Diana Taurasi's vaunted points-per-game record set in 2006 en route to a unanimous MVP award. Wilson began this season as the favorite to win MVP and never looked back, ultimately closing at -4000, per ESPN BET odds.
While the veteran forward got the large majority of the handle to win the award at ESPN BET, "Clark mania" couldn't be stopped in that market either. A trading spokesperson said the Fever superstar attracted 53% of bets to take home the honor in her rookie season. In general, Clark, Reese and Wilson accounted for over 30% of the WNBA prop bet handle at the sportsbook in 2024.
Betting on future growth
The WNBA ecosystem has made great strides this season, with major assists from Clark. The 2024 regular season was the most WNBA season watched across ESPN platforms, averaging 1.2 million viewers per game, a 170% increase from 2023. The Fever's opening postseason game against the Connecticut Sun was the most-viewed WNBA playoff game ever across ESPN platforms. ION, another league broadcast partner, reported that its regular-season viewership more than doubled year over year.
Going forward, through the 2024 playoffs and beyond, it'll be about maintaining those newfound fans and getting them more comfortable engaging with betting infrastructure.
"I think cultivating that avid fandom is what gets you to that next level in the game," said Ellen Hyslop, co-founder and head of content for The GIST. "And that avid fandom is kind of where you're seeing that people are sports betting and actually putting money on the line, which is that level up from fantasy, especially with the WNBA."
Hyslop's company, which is women-led and caters to women but gives equal coverage to men's and women's sports, has surveyed its readers and analyzed what interests them. She said that the women they've polled are mostly focused on football when it comes to traditional betting, but the WNBA is gaining in popularity in the fantasy side, with the implication being that betting can come next.
There is already progress in that regard, as BetMGM reported that it saw twice as many women wagering on the WNBA this season as in 2023. Of course, it's not just women who are tasked with carrying the betting burden for the WNBA, and there are avenues to expand the market even further, because for as groundbreaking as 2024 was for WNBA betting, it still has a long way to go.
"Despite the growth that we've experienced with the WNBA, it's still not a top-tier sport in terms of betting volume or handle," a BetMGM representative told ESPN. "If we see continued interest from bettors, there's potential in the future to offer additional props and live betting to create more markets."
Other books polled on the question of how WNBA betting handle compared to that of other summer sports were noncommittal, at best. Caesars and DraftKings harped on the progress the league has made in the space, with Lieberman citing "a bigger percentage" of money year over year compared to MLB but saying that it would be hard for the WNBA to compete with the NFL.
The bookmakers are all bullish on the league's betting future and committed to expanding their offerings in subsequent seasons, but there's one other way for them to bolster it more immediately.
"You don't see a lot of advertisements for WNBA betting like you do in other sports. So this is, in my opinion, very organic growth," Lanham said. "It needs to be on the forefront like it is on every forefront of other sports. There's an appetite and an audience for this, and advertisement has to be part of it."
In May, the Illinois House Democratic Women's Caucus lamented this same point in a state legislative session, pointing out that betting companies have spent tens of millions of dollars advertising with men's professional sports teams but not a single one partnered with a women's team. The Chicago Sky, even amid their rising popularity with Reese on the roster, do not have an official betting partner.
In fact, the Indiana Fever are the only team in the league with a betting partnership, which they announced at the beginning of this season. The WNBA has leaguewide sports betting partnerships with DraftKings and FanDuel.
Clark's undeniable marketability surely had an effect on attracting those advertising dollars, but with the current high level of talent in the league, the deluge of promising talent coming from the college game and major expansion on the horizon, the sports betting industry has a clear opportunity to help the WNBA grow.
The markets will keep looking to put up record numbers in the playoffs, where the Fever and Clark are attracting heavy action to win the championship and Finals MVP, respectively. Should the Fever be eliminated early, that's when the league's real betting test will begin.