The WNBA First Basket Cheat Sheet is now live at BettingPros. For every player on every WNBA slate, it shows the stats that decide a first basket bet: tip win percentage, first shot percentage, first baskets made, first basket rate, and the best available odds across sportsbooks. The cheat sheet is free to use, and a free BettingPros account unlocks the full board.
First basket is one of the most popular ways to have a small sweat riding on the opening minute of a basketball game. It’s also one of the least studied bets on the board. Books treat it as a novelty market: limits are low, prices move slowly, and most of the money that comes in lands on whichever player the bettor has heard of. So the odds end up tracking name recognition instead of opening possessions.
That’s true in the NBA, where a bunch of sharp bettors model this market. In the WNBA, fewer bettors are doing so, and wrong prices sit around longer in markets nobody is watching. The problem was never finding the edge. The problem was that the stats that decide this bet, like who wins the tip and who takes the first shot, weren’t collected anywhere. If you wanted them, you charted games by hand.
As of today, they’re on one screen.
What’s in the WNBA First Basket Cheat Sheet
For every player on the slate, the cheat sheet shows:
- Best available first basket odds across sportsbooks. In a market where everything is plus money, the difference between +450 and +500 on the same player is not small over a season.
- Tip win %. The team that controls the opening tip gets the first crack at the first basket. A center who wins her tips at a high rate puts her whole team in the play more often than the prices suggest.
- 1st shot %. The closest thing this market has to a predictive stat: how often a player takes her team’s first shot. You can’t score the first basket without shooting, and some offenses funnel the opening possession to the same player almost every night.
- First baskets made, first basket rate, and team rank, so you can see who actually converts and who merely gets chances.
- Team first baskets, which tells you how often a team opens the game’s scoring at all.
You can filter by date, matchup, and time range, and the board updates as odds move throughout the day.
How to Read the Board
The cheat sheet earns its keep when the columns disagree. Three profiles show up on almost every slate, and learning to spot them is most of the skill.
The tip winner who doesn’t convert
Say a center opens as the board favorite around +400, a price that bakes in roughly a 20% chance to score first. She wins the opening tip more than 70% of the time, the best mark on the slate, so her team starts with the ball almost every night. Then you reach the conversion column: one first basket across her last dozen-plus starts, a rate under 10%. The sheet isn’t telling you she can’t score the first basket tonight. It’s telling you what you’re paying for and what the season says you’ve been getting. Winning the tip creates the chance, but someone else usually takes the shot.
The value profile
Now the opposite. Picture a guard priced around +500, where break-even is one hit in six, about 16.7%. She’s scored the first basket in a quarter of her starts this season, and she takes her team’s first shot close to 30% of the time. Both numbers lead her team. A season is a small sample, and a rate is never a promise about one night. But when the observed rate runs comfortably ahead of break-even and the first shot data backs it up, that’s the profile you want at a plus-money price.
The name you’re overpaying for
The board is just as useful for the bets it talks you out of. Picture the most recognizable name in a given game, priced like a co-favorite off reputation, sitting on zero first baskets all season with a first shot rate that says the opening possession rarely runs through her. Before a tool like this, you found that out the hard way, one plus-money loss at a time.
What the Sheet Won’t Do
No cheat sheet turns a longshot market into an income stream, and this one won’t either. First basket is a high-variance bet. Even Mitchell’s profile, the strongest on tonight’s board, loses three times out of four if her season rate holds exactly. What changes is the side of the math you’re on. It’s the same thinking behind +EV betting: find the numbers that are wrong in your favor, accept the losing nights, and let volume do the work. A first basket bet is still a sweat. It just has math behind it now.
Where to Find It
The WNBA First Basket Cheat Sheet is live now and free to use. After you’ve viewed 10 picks, a free BettingPros account unlocks the rest of the board. No paid subscription required. The sheet covers every WNBA game and updates daily as lineups and odds move.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a first basket bet?
A wager on which player scores the game’s first made basket. Every player is plus money, with favorites on a typical WNBA board sitting near +400 and role players stretching much longer.
What stats matter most for first basket bets?
First shot percentage and tip win percentage do most of the work. A player who takes her team’s first shot often, on a team that usually controls the opening tip, gets the most chances at the first basket. Season first basket rate then tells you how often those chances actually convert.
Is the WNBA First Basket Cheat Sheet free?
Yes. The board is free to view, and after 10 picks a free BettingPros account unlocks the full slate. It is not part of a paid subscription.
How do you find the best first basket odds?
The same player can be priced meaningfully differently from book to book. The cheat sheet shows each player’s best available price across major sportsbooks, so you’re always betting the highest number offered rather than whatever your default book hangs.