Be a Sport
Legal sports betting is getting an undeserved black eye as more and more athletes are swept up in cheating scandals.
One recent episode involved a pair of pitchers for the Cleveland Indians (still can’t get used to Guardians) who reportedly threw a ball (rather than a strike) at a specific time in a game, earning them $7,000 on the spot.
Now, first thing to come to mind is: Why? Each of these pitchers earns a lot. Emmanuel Clase has a five-year, $20 million contract. Luis Ortiz earned $782,600 in 2025. Was it really worth it to risk their careers—which are now over—and their freedom? They each face up to 65 years in prison.
The two pitchers were suspended in mid-summer by Major League Baseball and failed to join Cleveland on its playoff run. Clase was the team’s closer, so would his presence have made a difference, preventing their first-round exit? We’ll never know.
This accompanies the scandal that unfolded in October when the U.S. Department of Justice unsealed an indictment accusing three current and former NBA players and coaches of involvement in an illegal sports betting scheme. As FBI chief Kash Patel said, “This is the insider trading saga for the NBA.”
Portland Trail Blazers coach and NBA Hall of Famer Chauncey Billups, Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and former Cleveland Cavaliers player and assistant coach Damon Jones were arrested in the scheme, which included sharing inside information about games with gamblers. Billups was also accused of taking part in rigged poker games that targeted deep-pocketed professional poker players. This comes after former Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter was banned for life after betting on his games and leaving games early to minimize his statistics and help others win bets.
Of course, sports betting problems aren’t limited to professional sports. Betting on collegiate sports is also an issue. In November, the NCAA declared ineligible six college basketball players found to have been point-shaving or altering their individual performances to favor a specific wager.
That scandal caused the NCAA to cancel a plan that would have permitted college athletes and staff of legal age to bet on professional sports.
Sounds like an epidemic, doesn’t it?
I’ve spoken to several current and former sportsbook operators, and their opinions are mixed. All agree that this activity was caught early, because with legal sports betting the data necessary to identify the activity is widely available. It’s unclear how evidence was discovered in the Billups case, because some face-to-face rigged poker games were part of the indictment. So the question is, which came first: the inside information on games or the poker games?
Less clear is whether the spread of legal sports betting influenced the actions of these players. Would they have thought to break the rules if sports betting wasn’t so widely accepted and publicized? Maybe some of that will come out at trials.
As a result of the Cleveland case, the MLB asked legal sportsbooks to limit wagers on player props to $200, reducing the potential profit to be had from any manipulation of player performances. Most of the books complied with that, but will it be extended to other sports? Football and basketball each have lots of player prop bets that could be managed by players seeking a payoff.
More disturbing is the abuse of players by the betting public when their wagers fail to pay off. There are hundreds of examples on social media of public shaming of players who may not meet bettors’ expectations.
Does the link between sports betting and professional and collegiate teams via sponsorships create a problem? Art Manteris, the respected bookmaker who led the Station Casinos sports betting operations until his retirement, thinks so. In his upcoming book, The Bookie, Manteris blames the leagues and the sportsbooks for this abuse.
“Don’t keep putting players in the ridiculously compromising position they are in today,” he writes.
Remember, sports are just games. Players should be able to enjoy a kid’s game as long they can. Have fun betting, but remember, it’s not the end of the world to lose. And it’s certainly not any player’s fault.
