Study · WNBA 2026 · 2 May to 27 October
Beating
the odds.
Add up the closing odds for every Washington Mystics game in 2026 and they come to 21.6 wins. The Mystics won 29.
353 games with closing prices from 3 or more books, 2 May 2026 to 27 October 2026 · Published 30 October 2026 ·
Free to quote under CC BY 4.0 ·
Download the data (CSV)
WNBA2026
+7.4
Mystics wins over odds
Every team
vs its odds.
“Odds expected” adds up each team's margin-free chance of winning every game it played. A team that keeps beating that number is better than the market thought, or luckier.
| Team | Games | Odds expected | Won | Difference |
|---|
| Washington Mystics | 47 | 21.6 | 29 | +7.4 |
| Golden State Valkyries | 55 | 33.1 | 40 | +6.9 |
| Minnesota Lynx | 47 | 31.2 | 34 | +2.8 |
| Portland Fire | 45 | 14.5 | 17 | +2.5 |
| Dallas Wings | 48 | 26.5 | 29 | +2.5 |
| Indiana Fever | 47 | 29.3 | 29 | -0.3 |
| Las Vegas Aces | 50 | 33.5 | 33 | -0.5 |
| Atlanta Dream | 53 | 35.7 | 35 | -0.7 |
| Los Angeles Sparks | 45 | 18.6 | 17 | -1.6 |
| Connecticut Sun | 45 | 12.7 | 11 | -1.7 |
| New York Liberty | 48 | 30.1 | 28 | -2.1 |
| Chicago Sky | 44 | 18.3 | 16 | -2.3 |
| Toronto Tempo | 44 | 14.2 | 11 | -3.2 |
| Phoenix Mercury | 44 | 19.5 | 16 | -3.5 |
| Seattle Storm | 44 | 14.2 | 8 | -6.2 |
Each team played 44 to 55 games here, so a few wins either way can be luck. The Washington Mystics and Golden State Valkyries beat their odds by about seven wins each; the Seattle Storm fell short by 6.2.
Favourites
by price.
Favourites won 70.0% of games against a 68.5% price.
| Favourite's price | Games | Priced to win | Won | Lost |
|---|
| 50-60% | 99 | 55.1% | 60.6% | 39 |
| 60-70% | 104 | 65.0% | 57.7% | 44 |
| 70-80% | 84 | 75.1% | 83.3% | 14 |
| 80-90% | 57 | 84.9% | 86.0% | 8 |
| 90% and up | 9 | 91.1% | 88.9% | 1 |
| All favourites | 353 | 68.5% | 70.0% | 106 |
The bands bounce around because each holds only 50 to 100 games. Taken together the price was close to right.
9 big
upsets.
Teams priced at 80% or more played 66 games and lost 9. The new Portland Fire caused 5 of them.
| Date | Favourite | Priced to win | Lost to | Final |
|---|
| 7 August 2026 | Minnesota Lynx (home) | 90.5% | Los Angeles Sparks | 82-89 |
| 23 September 2026 | Golden State Valkyries (away) | 87.1% | Portland Fire | 82-90 |
| 21 June 2026 | Minnesota Lynx (home) | 86.5% | Washington Mystics | 79-84 |
| 28 August 2026 | Atlanta Dream (home) | 86.2% | Portland Fire | 83-101 |
| 19 June 2026 | New York Liberty (home) | 85.3% | Washington Mystics | 83-86 |
| 13 May 2026 | New York Liberty (away) | 85.0% | Portland Fire | 96-98 |
| 7 July 2026 | Minnesota Lynx (home) | 85.0% | Connecticut Sun | 89-90 |
| 11 July 2026 | Atlanta Dream (home) | 84.6% | Portland Fire | 92-102 |
| 31 May 2026 | Indiana Fever (away) | 81.6% | Portland Fire | 84-100 |
Final shows the favourite's score first.
Home court
month by month.
Home teams were priced to win 54.4% and won 55.0%, or 194 of 353, by 1.91 points on average.
| Month | Games | Home priced | Home won | Home wins |
|---|
| May | 68 | 53.9% | 41.2% | 28 |
| June | 80 | 54.3% | 61.3% | 49 |
| July | 70 | 54.5% | 51.4% | 36 |
| August | 85 | 54.2% | 57.6% | 49 |
| September | 37 | 54.5% | 59.5% | 22 |
| October | 13 | 57.7% | 76.9% | 10 |
| All | 353 | 54.4% | 55.0% | 194 |
May was a bad month for home teams, June a good one. Over the whole season the two cancel out.
Is it
real?
For the league as a whole, the closing odds were close to the truth: home teams were +0.6 points against their price (95% range -4.1 to 5.3 if we resample the games 4,000 times) and favourites +1.5 points (range -3.3 to 6.2). The team table is where the story is, but with 44 to 55 games a team, read it as “who surprised the market in 2026”, not a forecast for 2027.
WNBA
games and picks.
Every game with the chance in plain words and the best price we found. Free.
See WNBA picks
More on WNBA at Bet Better: free WNBA picks, WNBA prop bets, WNBA parlays, WNBA odds, how to bet on WNBA.
How we
measured.
The method
We took the closing moneyline for every WNBA game from 2 May 2026 to 27 October 2026 that had prices from at least three sportsbooks (about 11 on average). Each book's two prices were turned into chances, then scaled so the two teams add up to 100%, which removes the book's cut (on average 4.42%). We averaged the books for each game and matched it to the final score. Playoff games are included.
On the Brier score (the average squared error of a chance; a coin flip scores 0.250), the closing prices scored 0.1993, slightly better than the 0.2031 they expected of themselves.
The data file
wnba-favourites-2026.csv has one row per game. Columns: date, home, away, home_chance (margin-free closing chance for the home team), books, home_score, away_score, home_won.
Free to use, share and adapt under CC BY 4.0. Please credit “Bet Better (betbetter.world)” and link to this page.
Cite this study
18+ (21+ in some US states). Betting is a cost, not an income. If gambling is causing you harm, call 1-800-GAMBLER
(US) or Gambling Help Online on 1800 858 858 (Australia).