Recreational sports gambling continues to grow and is firmly cemented as a mainstream component of sports fandom, as prominent as NCAA tournament brackets and fantasy sports. Last year, we wrote about how Major League Baseball is attempting to maintain its integrity while looping in gambling with the fan experience and also trying to avoid ostracizing the fans who are against gambling.
In light of Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter scandal, in which Ippei Mizuhara has been accused of stealing millions of dollars from the two-way superstar and using it to illegally gamble on sports, as well as issues in the NBA and college sports, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred was asked Monday at the 2024 Associated Press Sports Editors Commissioners Meetings if the league has decided to shift its stances toward gambling.
Specifically, prop bets are an area of concern, where fans can bet on individual outcomes from specific events, like an at-bat. In a worst-case scenario, it would be much easier for an individual player to be compromised. For example, if you bet on a hitter to strike out at least twice in a game, he could, in theory, rather easily strike out twice on purpose. Convincing an entire team to lose a World Series to fulfill a preseason bet would be much harder.
Commissioner Rob Manfred says MLB was ‘dragged’ into legalized sports betting, praises integrity unit
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