Despite player and coach objections, multiple green sex toys have been thrown at the court during live WNBA games over the last week. Crypto-based prediction market Polymarket is letting people stake money on whether more disruptions will occur as soon as Wednesday night, after one anonymous user earned more than $6,000 following the latest illegal stunt.
Before the Las Vegas Aces and Golden State Valkyries take the floor, Polymarket has handled thousands of dollars in futures contracts on whether a specific type of sex toy will be thrown during play. As of midday Wednesday, the odds were roughly 20% yes, 80% no. The market exemplifies how new prediction platforms attempt to financialize virality, with the potential to encourage behavior forbidden by authorities.
The string of publicized incidents began in Atlanta during a July 29 Valkyries game, with apparent copycats interrupting play in Chicago on Friday and Los Angeles on Tuesday. The Atlanta offender has reportedly been arrested, facing charges of criminal trespassing, public indecency and disorderly conduct. He allegedly told police officers that the move “was supposed to go viral.” A subsequent statement from the WNBA made it clear that fans who throw objects onto the court are subject to arrest and prosecution.
“It’s ridiculous, it’s dumb, it’s stupid,” Sparks coach Lynne Roberts said of the stunts after Tuesday’s game. “It’s also dangerous.”
For at least one speculator, the LA offender appears to have also generated a profit. As Polymarket pointed out on its X account, user gigachadsolana invested $13,044 around 5:30 pm ET Tuesday on the side that a specific type of sex toy would be thrown at a WNBA game by Aug. 10. They gained more than $6,000 when the contract closed around midnight on the user’s first activity on the platform. The market saw more than $180,000 in total volume, the measure of activity prediction markets use that is by nature higher than the equivalent sportsbook handle in part because it counts the involvement of institutional funds.
On Wednesday, the platform launched daily sex toy toss markets, with users able to predict whether similar acts will disrupt games on individual days through Aug. 12. Users can suggest markets, but an in-house team creates them. A Polymarket representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment. On X, @PolymarketSport posted about the markets and transactions 12 times between Tuesday and Wednesday. An affiliate account posted a GIF suggesting that a user might have brought the sex toy into the Sparks game, while multiple unaffiliated users implied the market was manipulatable in their comments.
Polymarket recently announced it is returning to the U.S. as a prediction market “in the near future” after acquiring derivates exchange QCEX for $112 million, giving it a license from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to provide markets in the U.S. Since 2021, the only way people have been able to use Polymarket in the U.S. is improperly through location-masking VPNs.
Traditional sportsbooks are limited in the wagers they can offer by state regulations. They also typically shy away from markets that could be manipulated by single actors and which involve criminal activity. In 2021, an attendee interrupted Super Bowl LV by running across the field, later claiming he won $375,000 by betting—in part through intermediaries—at offshore platforms such as Bovada. Bovada then said it would void bets from those with knowledge of the ploy while refunding “no” bettors.
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