Men bet on WNBA players’ menstrual cycles

the “Wh” the dildo flies in front of your face. Tribal chants. Men bet on bodily functions.

This is not a cult, this is a day in the life of a modern-day WNBA player.

That last insult on the list? It’s a sports betting strategy that grows in popularity over the course of this WNBA season, which culminates with the Las Vegas Aces and Phoenix Mercury facing off in the Finals. Dozens of dedicated online gamblers bet on players’ likely performance based on their “expectations” (or rather, assumptions) about their menstrual cycles. In fact, some call it “blood money,” because… of course they do.

One prominent figure who makes and predicts these bets, who uses FadeMeBets online, has received thousands of likes and shares on Instagram for his period betting strategy. He claims to have been correct in 11 out of 16 of his menstrual cycle predictions, with an accuracy of about 68.75 percent. “The good thing, but also kind of the bad, is that it attracts more people to watch the WNBA, but on the downside of that, it’s usually just all gamblers,” says FadeMeBets, who declined to be named, citing privacy concerns.

This WNBA season has been a record-breaking one, with more fans in the stands, more eyes on the screen, and more viral moments. The league announced that attendance surpassed a historic mark of 2.5 million earlier this summer. Meanwhile, standout players like Angel Reese, Paige Bueckers and Caitlin Clark have added momentum and become household names.

New interest in the league has led to more men watching the sport than women, and the huge rise in sports gambling means some of them are betting on the games – and players’ playing periods – which experts warn is not only pseudoscience, but also sexist.

“Not all women are the same,” says Amy West, MD, a sports medicine physician. “Yes, there is a traditional 28-day cycle, but everyone is different, and it varies from person to person, month to month.” “Is there anyone who could predict this? Someone who is not very close to a menstruating woman? It’s actually ridiculous.”

Ways to madness

FadeMeBets admits that predicting a WNBA player’s performance based on menstrual cycle assumptions is more art than science. Typical menstrual prediction videos all begin with a vaguely threatening phrase: “We have a victim, boys.” (In this way, he says, the victim is the betting line — the odds set by sportsbooks that determine a person’s payouts — not the player herself.) He then shares predictions about whether a particular player is menstruating, ovulating, or in the late luteal phase, which occurs after ovulation and before her period. For example, he said this summer of Clarke: “She’s at the end of the late luteal phase, which means low cardio, low strength, low aerobic system, and she’ll be more tired than a normal game.”

FadeMeBets asked viewers to “bet under” Clarke in that game, anticipating that she would score lower than the number predicted by oddsmakers on sports betting apps, and in this case, Clarke did just that.

It looks at two main metrics over time: “field goal percentage” — which is basically how efficient a shooter is — and “plus/minus,” which is a measure of a player’s impact on the team when they are on the field versus when they are off the field.