Machibet LiveFlutter Reports Surge in Sports Betting Amid Rise of Women’s Sports

New York Liberty guard Courtney Vandersloot works around Minnesota Lynx guard Courtney Williams as we look at the Flutter report on sports betting growth due to the rise of women's sports — New York Liberty guard Courtney Vandersloot works around Minnesota Lynx guard Courtney Williams. Photo by: Matt Krohn-Imagn Images.

The rising popularity of women’s sports is ushering in a new era of betting for our best sports betting sites, where women athletes and sports teams are taking the spotlight.

That's according to Flutter Entertainment’s recent “Betting on Equality” , which examines the increasing viewership of women’s sports.

Alongside highlighting the driving forces behind this momentum, the report explores how sportsbooks can foster growth in these trending markets through community-focused partnerships and initiatives.

The “Caitlin Clark Effect”

The impact that the former Iowa Hawkeyes and current Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark has had on women’s sports is astronomical, so much so that the phenomenon has been dubbed the “Caitlin Clark effect.”

At 22 years old, Clark broke Steph Curry’s record for the most three-point shots made in a season while playing for the Hawkeyes. According to the Flutter report, the 2024 NCAA championship game between Iowa and South Carolina attracted 24 million viewers, surpassing the men’s title game for the first time in history.

Now, ticket sales for Indiana Fever games are up 365%, jersey sales are up by over 1000%, and Clark has joined the ranks of Simon Biles, LeBron James, and Lionel Messi in SportsPro’s “Top Ten Most Marketable Athletes of 2024.”

Data collected by the Flutter-owned sportsbook FanDuel revealed that the first month of the 2024 WNBA season attracted the league’s highest attendance in 26 years, with a 230% increase in bet count on the opening night. You don't even need a FanDuel promo code to take advantage of the sportsbook's offerings.

FanDuel has since revamped its platform to accommodate the increasingly women-centric demands of its bettors. Flutter’s Sports Trading Senior Director Matt Hammond said: “We’ve created a different section of our website to our platforms specifically for Caitlin Clark because people were coming on, looking to just bet on her.”

Flutter’s Strategies for Growth

The report describes a three-fold plan to leverage this trend for future growth: creating parity to drive broader interest, developing partnerships to create a rising tide, and bringing in a new generation of fans.

In 2017, FanDuel made history as the first major fantasy operator to launch a dedicated WNBA game. The operator has since formed strategic partnerships with the WNBA, the WTA, and, most recently, the Indiana Fever. You can always find the competitive WNBA odds there.

Suzanna Brower, Talent Partnerships Senior Director at FanDuel, said: “As the audience for women’s sports continues to grow at an unprecedented rate, our partnership landscape is evolving to reflect new investments centered on female sports. We try and work with partners that have audiences that we haven’t necessarily tapped into yet. We want to really diversify our audience to bring new people into FanDuel.”

According to the report, the increasing momentum of women’s sports attracts a previously underrepresented female demographic while encouraging male sports fans to discover new storylines, rivalries, and drama. A survey conducted by Stats Perform found that 90% of men and women sports bettors intend to watch the same amount or more of women’s sports over the coming year.

These storylines are magnified through social media engagement. Fans can interact with their favorite athletes and follow their rivalries, which results in them having a more personal attachment to an event's outcome. The report suggests that sportsbooks can attract this new generation of digital natives through compelling digital offerings.

Jen Matthews, Sportsbook Brand Strategy Vice President at FanDuel, said: “It’s translating into betting, more people watching a sport, people engaging in a sport that they may not have in the past, because now they have some skin in the game.

“For everyone who bet a dollar on the WNBA, we gave them a free month of WNBA League Pass so that they could watch all the games, an offer that no one else has, and it really sets us apart.”

The FanDuel WNBA League Pass offer is similar to its NBA League Pass promotion, which the sportsbook recently confirmed would return for a third consecutive year.

Written By:
Ziv Chen

Ziv has over two decades of experience in the igaming and sports betting industry, having served in senior marketing and business development positions with both B2C and B2B companies, including Playtech and Microgaming. In 2019, Ziv decided to pursue his passion for writing and became a fulltime industry journalist, covering casino, sports, and gambling business news. He’s specialties include casino games and technology, US state gambling regulation, company performance, as well as gambling affiliates and marketing. As a Pitt graduate, Ziv is a diehard fan of all Pittsburgh sports teams, with the Steelers at the top of the list. In his free time, he enjoys reading crime fiction, biographies (mainly of sports personalities, but not only) and American history. Ziv’s Favorite quote: “We're going to pursue perfection, knowing full well we won't catch it, but we're going to relentlessly chase it," Mike Tomlin, Pittsburgh Steelers Head Coach.