Indictment of MLB pitchers raises questions about impact of legal sports betting

Geoff Bennett:

Two pictures for the Cleveland Guardians were charged this week with sharing inside information about their own play with sports bettors, information that enabled them and others to profit off the very pitches they threw.

As Stephanie Sy reports, it's just the latest in a series of gambling scandals surrounding the world of professional sports.

Stephanie Sy:

Geoff, charges against the two baseball players come just weeks after similar indictments rocked the NBA, implicating current and former players.

Taken together, the scandals raise questions about how the legal sports betting industry is potentially impacting the integrity of the sports we love.

To help break it down, we're joined now by Jonathan Cohen. He is the author of "Losing Big: America's Reckless Bet on Sports Gambling."

Jonathan Cohen, thank you so much for joining us.

Let's start with this most recent indictment. These two MLB players allegedly rigged their pitches. What exactly are they accused of doing?

Jonathan Cohen, Author:

Right.

So, the new version of sports betting unleashed these sort of new kinds of bets that you couldn't do before. And what Ortiz and Clase are specifically alleged to have done is to tip off gamblers and associates that they were going to throw specific pitches to be balls, outside of the strike zone.

And so you say, I — you can bet a lot of money — and you can do this — that on the first pitch of the third inning will be a ball. And they would tell their associates, their associates would gamble, and their associates would win money because they had inside information as to how the pitchers would perform.

And that is different from other types of betting, especially betting on sports.

Stephanie Sy:

So fans of America's greatest pastime are concerned about the integrity of the game at this point. The MLB has responded by announcing some limitations on these bets on pitches.

What do you make of their response and what difference it could make?

Jonathan Cohen:

To me, the response of Major League Baseball to this scandal is the kind of thing that should have been happening seven years ago, which is the sports leagues, states, and sports betting companies just unleashed sports betting as quickly as possible, as aggressively as possible, and the most aggressive version that they could.

And, lo and behold, what they result is unnecessary scandals like this one. Maybe, if the leagues had had a little bit more foresight, they wouldn't have ever offered the chance to bet on the speed of a baseball pitch, because who in their right mind is gambling on the speed of a baseball pitch?

So, to me, I'm glad the MLB is doing it, but it's sort of an unnecessary crisis of their own making, because, with a little bit more foresight, a little bit less greed, they wouldn't have had this problem in the first place.

Stephanie Sy:

Well, it seems Jonathan, like people are betting on all of these details. Legalized sports gambling, as you know, has grown tremendously since the Supreme Court ruling in 2018 giving states the discretion to legalize it.

Here's some statistics; 39 states plus the District of Columbia now allow some form of sports betting. The industry posted a record $13.7 billion revenue last year, and Americans wagered more than $99 billion in the first eight months of this year, 19 percent more than the same period in 2024.

So those that are pro-gambling have pointed out, Jonathan, that legalization makes it easier to hold players accountable. Can't it be argued that these indictments prove the system is working?

Jonathan Cohen:

Technically, yes, right, because we were able to detect, or the sports leagues were able to detect these malfeasances so relatively quickly and easily because the players were gambling on a legal, regulated sportsbook and sports betting market.

So, on the one hand, that is proof that the system works. But on the other hand, the only reason that the sports — that these players were able to bet on the speed of the next pitch is because of this technologically supercharged version of sports betting that we now have.

So this feels like sort of the sports leagues and their partners patting themselves on the back for a problem — for solving a problem of their own making. And so on the one hand, we have had sports gambling-related crises, like these — scandals like these going back to the Chicago Black Sox of 1919 and many cases in between.

And so there is some amount of sports betting that it seems baked in to behavior among athletes. But the question is, is this new version making it easier, making it more possible and making it more likely, regardless of whether it's easier now to catch the players who are betting when they're not supposed to?

Stephanie Sy:

You have two scandals, one at the NBA, one at the MLB, just in the last couple of weeks. Is this an inflection point?

Jonathan Cohen:

I think the leagues should hope that this is an inflection point, by which I mean I think the leagues should hope that this is as bad as it gets, and that there isn't a bigger, more prominent name, for example, a really — like a household name-type athlete who gets embroiled in a scandal of their own.

And so I think this is an inflection point, in that lots of people, lots of sports fans especially, had been having concerns over the integrity of the game related to gambling, but it wasn't — they didn't sort of have evidence really that there was actual illegal behavior going on.

And this week really provided that evidence and validated, I think, a lot of concerns that fans have that the games are not on the level and that there's a chance that they could be rigged.

So I hope it's — again, I think the league should hope that it's an inflection point, because that means that they will have turned a corner after this, they will do the work, the necessary work that should have happened seven years ago to ensure that fans can bet on the games, but also can trust their integrity 100 percent.

Stephanie Sy:

That is author Jonathan Cohen joining us.

Thank you so much.

Jonathan Cohen:

Thanks. Good luck.