Betting The Valkyries’ First WNBA Win

Heading into the 2025 WNBA season, DraftKings listed a First Regular Season Win prop for the brand new expansion team–Golden State Valkyries.

This is a really interesting prop because of how bad the Valkyries are on paper. I have the Valkyries favored in just two games this season, both against Connecticut. To make matters worse, I only have four games on the entire schedule where the Valkyries +2 or better.

The team’s current win total is just 9.5 games (this year schedule expanded to 44 games).

Despite the team’s underwhelming expectations, I think there’s a couple ways to exploit this prop that can be really profitable.

Golden State Valkyries First Win Prop

• May 16 – LA Sparks +240
• May 21 – Washington Mystics +260
• May 23 – at LA Sparks +650
• May 27 – at NY Liberty +6000
• May 29 – at NY Liberty +9000
• June 1 – Minnesota Lynx +2200
• June 5 – at Phoenix Mercury +2200
• June 7 – Las Vegas Aces +3500
• June 9 – at LA Sparks +2000
• June 14 – Seattle Storm +1600
• June 17 – Dallas Wings +2500
• June 19 – Indiana Fever +4500
• June 22 – Connecticut Sun +1200
• June 25 – NY Liberty +15000
• June 27 – Chicago Sky or later + 500

Odds were gathered on Friday, May 2, 2025.

How To Play It

For my money there are only two ways to play this prop.

All-In Opening Night

I think the most obvious way to play this prop is to max bet the team’s first game, May 16 – LA Sparks +240, which will be at home in the Chase Center in downtown San Francisco.

The Logic: My model has the Valkyries +1.5 against the Los Angeles Sparks in their first ever WNBA game. LA is a low-seed playoff team that will struggle this season. It’s easy to imagine players will be hyped up and perform better than expected in this game.

However, that’s not why I would max bet it. LA will be a short favorite, making this an easy arbitrage bet.

I expect seeing Sparks between -170 and -200 on the moneyline for this game.

Taking Longshots

If you want play a longshot, I would take June 22 – Connecticut Sun +1200 and May 29 – at NY Liberty +9000. Heading into the season, Connecticut are the second weakest team and New York is the best.

The Logic: Basketball teams have off nights. You see it all the time in the NBA, teams that play each other in back-to-back games each win one game. I don’t think it’s likely to happen for GSV in New York City, but at 90/1 odds on their 5th game of the season, I think a small bet for chaos is worth the money.

The more realistic longshot is Connecticut +1200. This is the only team my model has Golden State being favored against all year. The downside–they’ll have many chances to seal their first win before they play the Sun as it’s their 13th game of the season.

Conclusion

This is a really fun prop that we may see again next year when Portland and Toronto join the WNBA as the league begins its largest expansion in recent memory. There’s a decent chance that I end up on 3 or 4 of these props and look for opportunities to hedge out.