WNBA Betting Trends

Breaking down the WNBA betting numbers from the first half of the season

Jul 20, 2021

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We’re a little over halfway through this season’s WNBA games, but with the Olympics splitting up the season it’s a good time to step back and analyze some of the gambling data from the league this year. Let’s take a look at some of the most relevant betting figures and stats that have come out of the first half of WNBA play in 2021. All lines and odds are courtesy of PointsBet, the Authorized Gaming Operator of the WNBA.

Team performance

One of the most important factors to look at in any sport when it comes to betting numbers is how teams have performed against the spread (ATS). Below are the 12 teams ranked from best to worst in terms of point differential against the spread. The second column — a team’s ATS record — is how many times that team has covered the spread against how many times it has failed to cover. The Liberty, for example, have covered the spread nine times, but their opponents have covered 12 times.

The point differential is an average per game, so you can read this as the Dream averaging about one point worse than what PointsBet has expected of them.

Only four teams have outperformed their spreads on average, with the Wings and the Sun clearly leading the pack. Teams that do well here are generally teams that come out stronger than the popular opinion projects them to, and Connecticut certainly fits that bill. Even after a deep playoff run, a seventh-place finish in the regular season last year and an offseason injury to Alyssa Thomas led most to project the Sun to be in the middle of the pack again. Most sportsbooks gave them odds that were tied for fifth-best before the season. Jonquel Jones, however, quickly inserted herself into the MVP conversation and carried her squad right back into the thick of contention.

The Wings are a fascinating case, as their current place in the standings is the exact same as it was last year: ninth. On that basis alone, it wouldn’t appear that Dallas has overachieved, especially considering the influx of youth and subsequent expectation for improvement. But the Wings have actually outscored their opponents 1,788-1,756 this year despite a 9-12 record, and they sit in the top half of the league in net rating at +1.8. In other words, this team is clearly better than the 2020 squad, and it’s improved enough that the sportsbook models haven’t kept up so far.

Team totals

Another crucial piece of information to know when betting on game totals is how each team has performed against the books’ totals over the season. The following chart is formatted in the same way as the last one — the middle column shows how many times the over has hit in a given team’s games against how many times the under has hit, and the final column is how many points above or below the book totals a team’s games have finished at on average.

Atlanta stands out here as the team whose offense (and/or pace) has most exceeded the PointsBet projections. In their 19 games, the game total has exceeded the PointsBet line 11 times. The Dream have jumped from 11th in offensive rating in 2020 to eighth this year, and their pace has gone up a little as well (fourth to third), so it makes intuitive sense.

The bigger takeaway here is just how many teams are finishing short of the book totals — eight to be exact. That includes the Sun and the Sparks, who are both well over five points below the totals on average. The under in general has had a slight advantage this season, as the actual totals have come up about 0.72 points short of the book totals on average. (The All-Star game even had historic movement towards the under at one sportsbook.) But there’s another variable that when factored in has given the unders a much bigger edge...

Back-to-backs

An interesting trend has emerged this season due to the scheduling quirks that arose from crafting a schedule during a pandemic. There have been several instances of teams playing each other twice in a row, often at the same location with just one day off in between. These back-to-backs have been much lower scoring on the second leg. Whether it be due to tired legs leading to a slower pace, defensive familiarity with the scouting report, or any other number of factors, it’s clear that these “series” are lower scoring the second time around.

In 25 such series, there have been 4,220 combined points scored in the first game (168.8 per game) and just 3,952 in the second game (158.1 per game). The average total drops by over ten points per game, despite the same two teams playing.

Of course, this is only relevant betting information if the sportsbooks haven’t figured it out. If they lower the totals for the second leg of back-to-backs accordingly, then there’s no real advantage to be gained. But that hasn’t been the case so far. PointsBet’s totals have come down slightly for game two, but have still been much too high. The second legs have fallen short of the book totals by 175.5 points over 25 games, a full seven points per game. This has made it extremely profitable to simply bet the under any time two teams are facing each other for the second time in a row.

The books may or may not catch up to this by the season’s end, so it’s a trend worth monitoring as the second portion of the season gets underway. But for now, continue to play those back-to-back unders until the books give you a reason not to.

This is Part 5 of our 2021 WNBA betting series. Here are our previous installments:

This series is about learning, so we want to hear from you! If you have any questions or any betting topics you’d like to see covered, please feel free to let us know in the comments or tweet at us @herhoopstats.

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