While addressing questions at the 2024 Associated Press Sports Editors Commissioners Meetings, Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred discussed Shohei Ohtani, what legal wagering has done to help protect the sport, and MLB’s stance on prop betting.
However, the quote that caught everyone’s attention was how he phrased MLB’s situation since PASPA was overturned in 2018.
We were kind of dragged into legalized sports betting as a litigant in a case that ended up in the Supreme Court. Having said that, I recognize — probably better today than when we were involved in that litigation — that one of the advantages of legalization is it's a heck of a lot easier to monitor what's going on than it is with an illegal operation.
MLB has an official sports betting partnership with FanDuel, and teams from all around the league have deals with sportsbook operators DraftKings, BetMGM, and Caesars, among others.
Interpreter scandal
That likely came in handy last month when Ohtani, one of the league’s stars who signed a $700 million deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2023, got caught up in a gambling scandal.
His interpreter, Ippei Mazuhara, was federally charged with bank fraud after he stole over $16 million from Ohtani to pay off sports betting debts.
Because the Department of Justice got involved, Ohtani was investigated and cleared. Thanks to regulated monitoring, watchdog firm U.S. Integrity helped discover the scandal, which also worked in MLB’s favor.
Manfred said federal investigators have tools MLB does not, leading to the league’s stance on Ohtani.
The indictment kind of provides insight into exactly what happened. Realistically, what makes the most sense for us is just to kind of let the criminal process play out a little bit.
Drawing a line
Player prop betting, the wagering on individual stats, is currently under a microscope. The NBA recently banned former Toronto Raptors center Jontay Porter for being involved in suspicious betting activity surrounding props as well as wagering on league games.
The NBA is looking into changes to prop betting, and the NCAA has asked state regulators to ban it because of harassment of student-athletes.
As Manfred pointed out, no MLB player has been caught up in a gambling scandal, but prop betting is certainly on his radar.
"We've been on prop bets from the very beginning,” Manfred said. "When we lobby in states, there's always certain types of bets that we have lobbied against, I mean, the first pitch of the game, we really don't want that available as a prop bet."
