In a trend called “degrading” by women's basketball fans, some sports bettors are attempting to predict the performance of WNBA players by tracking the athletes' menstrual cycles.
The tactic is based on the assumption that female players perform worse during their period.
On Instagram, an anonymous betting tipster called FadeMeBets advises his 29,000 followers to be wary of female gamblers based on their supposed ovulation cycles.
For example, in a clip about New York Liberty player Breanna Stewart posted in September, FadeMeBets encouraged people to bet that she would score fewer than 20.5 points and assists because she was “in her late luteal phase.”
The late luteal phase is the final part of the menstrual cycle, usually a few days just before a person's period begins.
“She loses strength, she loses stamina. That will hurt her points and assists… She will no longer get the benefit of passing the ball in transition, because she will be too tired to run fast down the court,” FadeMeBets says in the video.
He refers to this betting tactic as “blood money” and claims to have been correct in 11 of 16 of his period-related predictions.
On social media, WNBA fans reacted with horror to the trend, which was highlighted by cabling magazine over the weekend.
“Men are betting on WNBA players' menstrual cycles…just when I thought men couldn't get any lower,” one person wrote on
The story also took hold on Reddit, where one person asked: “Besides it being disgusting and degrading, how would they know something so personal?”
“Hint: women are not horses,” another wrote in response to a comment suggesting the tactic was statistical, like “betting on the horse or the company.”
“I'm not betting on whether or not these are the same men who get really angry when you mention toxic masculinity,” another joked.
talking to cablingFadeMeBets, who did not want to be identified, confessed that predicting how players perform during their periods is not based on science.
Their theory involves looking at WNBA players' field goal percentage, which measures how efficient a shooter is, and their plus/minus, which measures their impact on the team on and off the court. It also looks at their WNBA history and even their college careers, tracking statistics over the course of a 24- to 38-day menstrual cycle.
It then analyzes the ups and downs over the course of a month's cycle, with the assumption that if a player misses a lot of baskets, she could be in the last luteal phase of her period. However, FadeMeBets has never directly asked players about their menstrual cycles.
“What's a good thing, but also a bad thing, is that it attracts more people to watch the WNBA, but on the negative side, it's usually just players,” she said.
Amy West, a sports medicine doctor, poured cold water on the whistleblower's methodology. “Not all women are the same. Yes, there is the traditional 28-day cycle, but everyone's cycle is different and varies from person to person, month to month,” she said. Cabling.
“Can anyone predict that? Someone who isn't very close to the menstruating person? It's actually kind of dumb.”
