There might be no college sports star bigger than Caitlin Clark at the moment -- and that immense star power has bettors nationwide backing her and the Iowa Hawkeyes in full force.
"If they're playing, that's always the women's game with the highest handle," Caesars Sportsbook lead college basketball trader Grant Tucker told ESPN. "It's really them and South Carolina, but if Iowa's playing, it surpasses South Carolina by far. Any time [Clark's] playing, we want to put that game up."
Tucker said Caesars chose only a handful of Iowa games to offer during the 2022-23 regular season, but offered five times that during the 2023-24 campaign after Clark and the Hawkeyes burst onto the national scene during last year's March Madness tournament.
It resulted in "crazy" handle numbers for the book.
It's a common theme across the sports betting marketplace. DraftKings says it offered significantly more women's basketball in general this regular season, notching an eye-popping 14-time increase in handle year-over-year. Iowa has been its main attraction, becoming the most-bet women's college basketball team by both tickets and handle since March 2023.
Three Iowa games from last year's tournament -- the national championship, Final Four and Elite Eight -- are the most-bet women's basketball games since March 2023 by tickets and handle. Tipico Sportsbook reports that Iowa games had a 55% higher average handle than non-Iowa women's basketball games in 2023-24.
"When you publicize that you can't get a ticket to the game, well, people are going to want to watch that game," DraftKings director of sportsbook operations Johnny Avello told ESPN, referencing the fact that Hawkeyes games this season were some of the hottest college basketball tickets in the nation.
That heat grew to an inferno as Clark closed in on the women's NCAA and overall scoring records, for which Avello says DraftKings saw a lot of action. BetMGM reports that the March 3 matchup against Ohio State, when Clark surpassed Pete Maravich, was its most-bet game of the 2023-24 women's college basketball season by tickets. Its highest handle of the season came when Iowa played Nebraska on Feb. 11.
The frenzy surrounding Clark's Hawkeyes is poised to continue into the 2024 edition of March Madness.
Iowa is a 38.5-point favorite, according to ESPN BET, in its opening game against Holy Cross. BetMGM reports that in early action, 63% of bets and 94% of money is on the Hawkeyes to cover. The huge spread could be scaring off some bettors, as DraftKings says Iowa is only its eighth-most-bet team against the spread Saturday.
But bettors are focusing more on where Iowa could be in a couple of weeks than on the here and now.
"Iowa's certainly a team that's been attracting a lot of business on our network for the future book. That's a liability for us now," Avello said. "Of course, that's the Caitlin Clark factor."
The Hawkeyes have the most tickets to win this year's national championship at ESPN BET (30.4%), BetMGM (34.6%) and FanDuel (33%). They have the highest handle at FanDuel (30%) and the second highest at BetMGM (28.8%), behind only South Carolina.
"In the women's tournament, we need a long shot to win it all -- hopefully longer than a Caitlin Clark 3," BetMGM trading manager Seamus Magee told ESPN. "All of the favorites -- South Carolina, Iowa and LSU -- are liabilities for BetMGM."
Of course, sides and futures aren't the only ways to bet on the Hawkeyes at this time of year. In fact, Clark's fans will likely flock to the window to back her regardless of her team's results, and the sportsbooks are leaning in.
ESPN BET released a large menu of Clark-centric prop bets, which mostly focus on her ability to break career and tournament records over the next couple of weeks. These props range from the total points she'll score to the number of 3-pointers she'll hit to her assist tally.
The books should feel confident that they'll bring in sufficient handle from these specials. DraftKings says Clark is its most backed women's basketball player for props since March 2023, by both bets and handle.
"Fans want to bet on Caitlyn Clark to win, but how much more fun is it if you're just betting on her to score and the full game result doesn't even matter?" said Tucker of Caesars. "That's something that we're definitely going to try to ride the momentum on, use that star power and basically just give the fans what they're asking for."
The irony is that some of her biggest fans can't even get in on the action. Iowa's betting law dictates that props on players from Iowa-based schools are strictly prohibited.