The WNBA has largely avoided sports betting controversies involving its own players. Now the league may have just created one.
The WNBA posted a now-deleted video on multiple official league social media accounts of Paige Bueckers and Angel Reese appearing to place a $400 bet during All-Star Weekend for an upcoming game between the Dallas Wings and Atlanta Dream.
That game was played Wednesday night, and the Dream defeated the Wings at home, 82–81.
The video showed Bueckers being asked backstage ahead of Wednesday’s game whether she remembers placing the bet with Reese.
“We did?” Bueckers replied, before the video flashed back to a moment from last weekend between the two players at All-Star Game practice.
“If y’all win, you get $400,” Reese told Bueckers in Chicago.
The video ended with Bueckers, from Atlanta, saying the wager was still live: “Bet. I’m standing on that.”
The WNBA posted the video Wednesday ahead of the game between the Wings and Dream, and deleted it shortly after.
The league said Thursday the post was a “lighthearted” misfire.
“While the social media post was intended to be lighthearted, WNBA players are well aware of the league’s policies prohibiting betting on WNBA games and receive training every year reinforcing those policies,” the league said in a statement to FOS. “We recognized that the post missed the mark, removed it shortly after it was published, and addressed the matter internally. We will also use this as an opportunity to reemphasize with the players involved that conversations about wagering on WNBA games, even when intended as a joke, can have negative consequences.”
The Dream, Wings, and representatives for Reese and Bueckers did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
After the game, Reese celebrated her win on X/Twitter, posting “DUBS IN THE MF CHAT” and including the hashtag #cuatrocientos, Spanish for 400. (Reese’s post is still up as of Thursday morning.)
The collective bargaining agreement has a clear prohibition on players gambling on the WNBA in any capacity, but it also gives the league commissioner broad latitude to determine how players are punished. Article XIV Section 5 (c) reads:
“Any player found by the Commissioner after a hearing to have been guilty of wagering (directly or indirectly), or of offering or attempting to wager, money or anything of value on the outcome, score, or any other aspect of any WNBA Competition shall, in the sole discretion of the Commissioner, be subject to a fine, suspension, and/or dismissal and disqualification from any further association with the WNBA.”
The same portion of the CBA says that the commissioner can ban players from “any further association with the WNBA” if they’re found to have fixed games.
A source confirmed that Bueckers and Reese will not be penalized.
The NBA, which owns 42% of the WNBA, is embroiled in several sports betting scandals involving Terry Rozier and Malik Beasley. The NBA also handed a lifetime ban to Jontay Porter in 2024 after he was found to be betting and influencing his own player props.
This is also not the first time in the last week that the WNBA’s official social media account had to delete a social post about Bueckers.
During WNBA All-Star Weekend, the league deleted a video of Bueckers talking about her weekend plans while inside a Chicago hotel. The original post showed the hotel’s logo in the background, revealing Bueckers’s location. It was eventually deleted and re-uploaded with a blurred background.
