It was a very different season for women’s college basketball, thanks to Caitlin Clark and a host of other fantastic players and storylines, which culminated in the Iowa-South Carolina final on Sunday afternoon becoming the most-bet women’s event ever at several sportsbooks.
South Carolina defeated Iowa 87-75 as a 6.5-point favorite.
FanDuel Sportsbook reported that the championship game had 22 percent more money wagered than Friday night’s UConn-Iowa game, which had set the previous handle record for a women’s event. The Iowa-South Carolina game was the No. 1 betting event across sports on Sunday at FanDuel and had a 155 percent increase in total dollars wagered and 205 percent increase over last year’s Iowa-LSU title game.
Fanatics Sportsbook reported that the game had 2.5 times more handle than any other sporting event on Sunday.
Pretty remarkable:@FDSportsbook reports that Iowa-South Carolina was single biggest women’s betting event of all time and had a 205% increase in bets and 155% increase in over the 2023 Iowa-LSU title game
— Ben Fawkes (@BFawkes22) April 8, 2024
“I knew that the women’s tournament would do well if we got the right matchups,” Shank Subramani, basketball trader at Fanatics Sportsbook, said in an email. “We were lucky to have Caitlin Clark and Iowa face LSU in a national title rematch, a historic program in UConn and an undefeated South Carolina team for the championship. The South Carolina-Iowa game finishing 12th in handle among all games across both tournaments was pretty cool to see. This tournament taught me that people love to engage with a good narrative regardless of the sport and I hope we can continue to capture that. I’m interested to see how this will translate to increased action for the upcoming WNBA season.”
