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Caitlin Clark, #22 of the Iowa Hawkeyes, celebrates after beating the Lousiana State College Tigers 94-87 within the Elite Eight spherical of the NCAA Ladies’s Basketball Match at MVP Area in Albany, New York, on April 1, 2024.
Andy Lyons | Getty Photos
The celebrity girls’s school basketball matchups Monday evening attracted extra than simply viewers â the video games additionally set new sports activities betting data.
FanDuel tells CNBC that the Louisiana State College versus Iowa recreation was its greatest betting occasion of all time for ladies’s sports activities.
The report betting comes as girls’s sports activities have hit an inflection level, reaching larger audiences and garnering extra curiosity than ever with the rise of once-in-a-lifetime celebrity expertise akin to Caitlin Clark and growing valuations of ladies’s sports activities franchises.
ESPN says viewership of the ladies’s Candy 16 was its most watched on report, up 96% from final 12 months. Viewership is spilling over into the sportsbooks with report exercise on girls’s sports activities. But, with solely 26% of bettors being girls, in line with the American Gaming Affiliation, sportsbooks see the large alternative.
Monday’s LSU-Iowa recreation featured a heated rematch between two storied franchises, family names Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, plus teaching legend Kim Mulkey, whose management type has been capturing latest headlines. All that mixed made it the No. 1 betting occasion Monday, forward of all Nationwide Basketball Affiliation, Main League Baseball and Nationwide Hockey League video games, FanDuel mentioned. The sport garnered a 28% improve in deal with over the 2023 Ladies’s Nationwide Championship recreation.
The later matchup between the College of Connecticut and the College of Southern California was the third-highest of the day for the sportsbook as followers watched star Paige Bueckers rating 28 factors and seize 10 rebounds in UConn’s 80-73 win.
“We have now seen an unbelievable uptick in betting on girls’s sports activities as followers present unprecedented curiosity, and we look ahead to seeing how followers have interaction in the course of the Remaining 4,” Karol Corcoran, senior vice chairman and basic supervisor of FanDuel Sportsbook, mentioned in an electronic mail.
DraftKings says girls’s basketball additionally dominated its sportsbook Monday evening. The ladies’s basketball video games had been its prime two occasions final evening, forward of each MLB and NBA recreation, a spokesperson instructed CNBC.
The sportsbook mentioned from a deal with perspective, the video games had been on par with many NFL video games from final season.
BetMGM additionally had a giant evening, saying the Iowa-LSU matchup was its most bet-on girls’s basketball recreation ever.
“It was a particular evening for the sport and for the sportsbook as we noticed report handles in each pregame and dwell in-play motion,” mentioned Seamus Magee, buying and selling supervisor at BetMGM.
Looking forward to the ladies’s Remaining 4, FanDuel says Iowa is a 2.5 level favourite over UConn and South Carolina is an 11.5 level favourite over NC State because the Wolfpack go for an upset.
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