Olympics Betting Recap: Women's Sports Fuels Action

The 2021 Olympics, delayed a year due to COVID-19, are now finished.

On August 6, 2021, Allyson Felix celebrated her bronze medal win in the women’s 400-meter final. According to Jay Croucher, Head of Trading for PointsBet, an Australia based sportsbook licensed in six US states including Colorado, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and New Jersey, women’s sports during the 2020 Olympics generated more betting action than men’s. Croucher also attributed the surge in wagers to the expansion of legal sports gambling since the May 2018 repeal of the federal ban on sports betting. Legal sports gambling is now available in 21 states plus DC and has lead to many Americans becoming more accustomed to odds and sports wagering lines.

It has been a great transformation from a focus on men’s sports to see that many states have now authorized online sports books. This happening at the same time as the first Olympic games in which there is now legalized online sports betting in the US has been really beneficial. People are now becoming familiar with different sports and others they wouldn’t have tried before, Croucher reported to Sportico in an interview. With this, women’s sports lead the way on many levels.

Women’s Sports Leads

Sports betting in the US is largely dominated by male sports. Around 90 percent of bets made are for games played by men, with NFL and college football ranking the highest followed by basketball, NBA and college. The MLB and NHL make up the rest of the ‘big four’. During the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics, it was the women who saw the most betting action, for sports such as soccer, swimming, and gymnastics. According to PointsBet, the US women’s soccer team was responsible for 85 percent of the sportsbook’s soccer bets, though the squad unfortunately failed to win gold.

At the 2020 Olympics, Team USA was expected to bring home one of the most prestigious medals, having been favored to win with odds of +110. Unfortunately, they finished third with a bronze medal. This is a summary of the Olympics betting results.

2020 Olympics Betting Recap

The 2020 Olympics will be remembered for being postponed due to the pandemic and then held a year later without fans because of ongoing coronavirus concerns. During the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Summer Games, PointsBet reported a reduced number of live in-play bets due to the games being contested in the overnight hours when most Americans are sleeping. Instead, bettors focused on full-game outcomes and medal results. The US was favored to win the most combined gold, silver, and bronze medals at -900 and prevailed by claiming 113 medals, with China in a distant second at 88. This meant that bettors who got the -900 odds had to wager $100 to make a profit of $11.11. Furthermore, Team USA was also favored to have the most gold medals at -1200 odds. They barely secured the most gold medals with a count of 39-38 over China, meaning that a gamble of $1200 could guarantee a profit of $100.

Simone Biles’ unexpected absence from many of her gymnastics matches, most notably the team and personal all-around clashes, will not soon be forgotten. Because of this, a lot of sports betting companies refunded bets on Biles’ skipped tournaments.