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The New York Liberty are favored to become the fourth team in WNBA history to win consecutive championships, but Caitlin Clark’s Indiana Fever are right behind them on the oddsboard and are very much the preference of the betting public.
New York enters the 2025 WNBA season as the +230 favorite to win the title in October, according to ESPN BET odds. Next comes Indiana tied with the Las Vegas Aces at +350, followed by the Minnesota Lynx, last season’s championship runners-up, at +400.
The crowd at the top indicates the growing parity in the league. Since ESPN Research began tracking in 2019, this is the first time there will be four teams with +400 odds or shorter to win the championship headed into the season.
Among those teams and every other team in the league, the Fever are, perhaps unsurprisingly, the overwhelmingly popular pick among the betting public: Major sportsbooks across the sports betting marketplace declare Indiana as easily the most-backed team to win the title by bets and handle, with DraftKings reporting an astounding 84% of money supporting Clark and company.
“They piled on the Fever early,” DraftKings sportsbook director Johnny Avello told ESPN. “I don’t know how, unless Indiana absolutely folds, the bettors are not going to continue to bet them. Last year they weren’t half bad with just Clark, but now they’ve got more players to help her out. I just can’t see them not being in this mix.”
The Fever are a huge hazard for all of the major sportsbooks and could have a realistic shot at the title after their barrage of significant offseason transactions. In mid-April, ESPN BET’s North American sports trading director Adrian Horton described Clark’s squad as “our biggest liability by a wide margin.”
Avello elaborates that the other three favorites — New York, Las Vegas and Minnesota — comparatively got very little action this offseason, with DraftKings reporting a combined 8% of handle backing the group, making it a good result for the book if any of them were to win the title.
Aside from Indiana, Avello says that the only bad result for the sportsbook would be if the Phoenix Mercury (+1000) were to win the title, as they have garnered 4% of the money share at DraftKings. ESPN BET and FanDuel also report some fliers on the Dallas Wings, who moved to +6000 from +7500 at open. Wings’ first overall draft pick Paige Bueckers is dominating Rookie of the Year betting (-375) with 65.8% of the handle at ESPN BET.
Still, bettors will be backing experience in Dallas’ opener against Minnesota, as the Lynx have taken 72.8% of money to cover -7.5 on Friday night.br/]
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