As Women’s Sports Grow, So Do Chances of Gambling Scandal

Corruption scandals have roiled professional and intercollegiate sports leagues the past three years. Fan trust has eroded. Bettors question every debatable call or mistake.

Few have been spared.

The reputation of the National Basketball Association has been particularly tainted, with former Toronto Raptor Jontay Porter incurring a lifetime ban before pleading guilty to federal wire fraud charges in 2024. Like former Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier – who was indicted in 2025 on similar charges – Porter was accused of manipulating his performance to help gamblers win prop bets.

Twenty-six men, including numerous former and some current players, were indicted by federal prosecutors in January, charged with conspiracy to shave points in NCAA men’s basketball games. Former Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz Jr., are to stand trial on Nov. 4, charged in the Eastern District of New York with manipulating pitch outcomes to win microbets in a conspiracy that touches parts of three seasons.

The common denominator? Greed, and poor decision-making, certainly. But, glaringly, every indicted conspirator has been male.

Risk for Corruption is Increasing

Are female athletes more inherently incorruptible?

No, sports integrity expert Chris Kronow Rasmussen told Gambling Insider. And they may currently be more at risk than ever. 

“I do not think the main explanation is that women are somehow inherently less corrupt than men. That is too simplistic, and the more credible governance literature is careful about making that claim,” Rasmussen said.

“A better explanation is that corruption and manipulation tend to follow opportunity, incentives, access, networks, and vulnerability.” 

A 2021 United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report identified gambling-related corruption as one of three main risks to the integrity of women’s sports, one it predicted would increase in severity as these leagues became more “commercialized.”

A reason women’s sports have avoided publicly-revealed malfeasance so far, Rasmussen believes, is likely rooted in the same factors that helped divulge the alleged impropriety by the Guardians players. The betting volume on whether a pitcher will throw a strike, or at what speed, remains minimal enough, as compared to other prop bets, that aberrations are more easily detected. The same conditions apply to women’s sports despite a recent spike in popularity with bettors.

Women’s Sports Growing Into Worthwhile Target for Criminals

The popularity of women’s sports continues to rise both in terms of television viewership and betting volume. Caitlin Clark’s pre-WNBA celebrity produced an eponymous “Effect” that spiked merchandise sales, ratings, and betting activity that followed her to the Indiana Fever in 2024. PENN Entertainment and BetMGM reported spikes of 150 and 108 percent, respectively, on the WNBA in her rookie season.

A trader from a major U.S. sportsbooks told Gambling Insider that while specific figures for women’s basketball are not available, wagering companies “absolutely can feel the increase in handle” in women’s NCAA basketball and even more so with the WNBA, with players like Paige Bueckers and Azzi Fudd buttressing Clark’s ground-breaking impact.

For now, betting markets for women’s sports lack the exploitable factors possessed by the NBA or men’s college basketball that conspiracy rings target.

“In men’s sport, you typically see deeper betting liquidity, more operators, more in-play opportunities, more derivative and prop markets, and usually a greater ability to place larger sums without immediately distorting the market,” Rasmussen explained. “That matters, because match-fixing is not just about finding a vulnerable athlete — it is also about whether criminals can actually monetize the manipulation.”

Revealed scandals in female sports, while rare, have so far been a European problem. Alana Tuayeva was suspended for three years and nine months in March for fixing two matches at the ITF World Tennis Level Tour in 2023 and 2024. More typically, corruption in women’s sports has centered around tanking to facilitate favorable positioning in tournaments.

The UNODC reported that in 2017, integrity monitors flagged roughly one alert per 557 bettable women’s tennis matches, compared to one per 165 for men.

Preventing the First Scandal Before It Happens

The ascendance of women’s sports as a betting market will make it a more attractive target for manipulation.

“If you combine vulnerable participants with expanding betting markets, that risk can absolutely move,” Rasmussen said. “In that sense, it may be only a matter of time in some settings, or it may already be happening without producing the same level of public visibility.”  

Cooperation between industry stakeholders will be crucial to prevent scandals, added Matthew Wein, a national and cyber security expert who writes the Secure Stakes newsletter.

“I would say that women’s sports are in a unique moment,” Wein told us. “As they gain popularity – and [with] rising salaries like in the WNBA – now is the time to educate athletes about the risks of match-fixing or inside information, and build integrity and security into leagues from the bottom up, before exposure broadens.

“Invest in and empower teams that can prioritize prevention-related work, not just investigations after something bad happens.”

According to charging documents for the NCAA gambling ring indicted in January, conspirators sought out players without lucrative name, image and likeness (NIL) deals. Many of them played at small or historically middling programs with modest revenue-sharing opportunities. That enhanced their value as exploitable assets, but it also made large wagers on first-half spreads or totals more noteworthy to integrity monitors.

“What fixers really target is vulnerability. That can be financial stress, addiction, family pressure, alcohol or drug problems, unstable careers, weak safeguarding, or exposure to threats and coercion. In other words, they look for the athlete, referee, coach, or insider who can be bribed, pressured, or intimidated,” Rasmussen continued. 

“INTERPOL’s guidance on competition manipulation explicitly refers to bribery, extortion, intimidation, and violence as part of the match-fixing landscape. So I would not frame this primarily as a men-versus-women issue. I would frame it as a question of who is vulnerable and whether the betting market is profitable enough to exploit.”