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Caitlin Clark has broken records all season for TV viewership, attendance, and scoring. Monday night’s win over LSU showed another indicator of her popularity: heavy sports gambling.
The Iowa-LSU regional final set a new record as the most-bet-on women’s college basketball game on FanDuel, DraftKings, Caesars Sportsbook, BetMGM, Bet365, ESPN Bet, and Fanatics Sportsbook, representatives for the sportsbooks tell Front Office Sports. The game was the most-bet women’s sporting event on FanDuel and BetMGM.
“It was a special night for the game and for the sportsbook as we saw record handles in both pregame and live in-play action,” BetMGM trading manager Seamus Magee said in a statement to FOS.
On a night filled with NBA, MLB, and NHL games, women’s college basketball took the cake. The Iowa win and UConn–Southern Cal thriller were the top two games on DraftKings and BetMGM, and the first- and third-most-bet games on FanDuel and ESPN Bet. In the last week, the matchup was more popular on ESPN Bet than all but one NBA game and one MLB game.
The handle (the amount of money wagered) for the two games was similar to that of many NFL matchups last season, a DraftKings spokesperson said. Caesars saw action quadruple from comparable Elite Eight games last year.
Fanatics says that Iowa-LSU saw about double the amount of betting than the next most popular women’s tournament game, Monday night’s UConn–Southern Cal game.
The women’s basketball record was previously held by last year’s championship between the Hawkeyes and Tigers on multiple sportsbooks. The amount of money bet on FanDuel for the rematch increased 28% from last year’s game, according to a company spokesperson.
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