It’s not too much of a stretch to say that a lot of eyeballs are focused on this year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup, which began July 20. The players from Team USA are attempting to achieve their third consecutive title.
The World Cup is just one event that sees a spike in women and bettors. The women’s NCAA March Madness tournament is another. In recent years, viewership has risen for these events.
“The fact that there are so many betting companies right now that have lines developed on the Women’s World Cup is an indicator that tells us the market for women’s sport is alive and well, and growing in ways it hasn’t in the past,” Nancy Lough, a UNLV professor specializing in sport management, told the Las Vegas Review Journal.
Still, some sportsbook leaders and industry analysts are mixed on how this year’s World Cup could influence betting on women’s sport at large.
But researchers at UNLV say female athletes and their competitions are underrepresented in betting menus across the country. While 40 percent of sports participants are women, coverage represents just 4 percent of the media.
“Without the coverage, the entire economic model breaks down,” Lough said. “Because sponsorship relies on media coverage, advertising relies on media coverage, viewership relies on media coverage. It’s about audience building.”
The problem with the metrics is that the lack of audience means a lack of league experience on staff to create odds and prop bets.
“It’s almost like a Catch-22,” Brett Abarbanel, executive director of the UNLV International Gaming Institute, told the Review-Journal. “There’s not enough demand to justify having a desk that’s dedicated to say WNBA or the NWSL. But the Catch-22 is they (don’t) have the desk so they’re not necessarily creating the line to see what the demand might be and if it even exists in the first place.”
John Murray, director of race and sports at SuperBook Sports, said betting volume on events like Wimbledon is roughly the same for men and women.
“It seems like women’s soccer becomes such a huge focus every four years and during the Olympics, but the domestic league doesn’t seem to move the needle much,” Murray told the Review-Journal. “It’s the same way with the MLS.”
Chris Grove, a sports betting industry analyst for Eilers & Krejcik Gaming, said that since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) in 2018, most sportsbooks have focused on taking bets but not on seeing women get their share of play. To do that, they prioritize the leagues with the largest betting markets: the NBA, NHL, MLB and NFL.
“As sportsbooks and suppliers don’t need to put in so many resources toward the obvious sports and start having a little bit more flexibility to prioritize a broader range of sports,” Grove told the Review-Journal. “Women’s sports will become a greater part of conversation. That balance is going to start to shift as sportsbooks start looking for more innovative ways to reach new customers.”
Several sportsbook leaders in southern Nevada say that shift is already happening. They all point to more wagering choices than recent years on the WNBA, and more specifically, on the Las Vegas Aces.
Chuck Esposito, Red Rock Casino’s race and sportsbook director, told the Review-Journal, “(We’re doing) things like that to increase the overall interest in it and expand that wagering menu for games that are in our own backyard. (They) really appeal to our guests.”
Murray also attributed a growing increase in WNBA betting handle as part of the impact of the Aces. In the book’s 12-month rolling report, NBA handle outpaced the WNBA 30-to-1. He suspects the gap can close because of the Aces’ hot streak.
In fact, the team’s success is drawing so much attention from interested bettors that the sportsbook’s staff is having to study the games closer for better risk management.
“Because the Aces are winning by such big margins, customers are betting Aces first half,” Murray said. “By the fourth quarter, all the starters are out of the game. We’re actually having to pay attention to that. I don’t recall ever having to pay attention to WNBA first half.”
And the team’s success is a double-edged sword. Casual bettors may know that the team is the best but don’t understand by how much. And that can stop them from placing a bet.
