More Wagering Skullduggery

The explosion of ways and places to wager on sports has had positive outcomes like increased tax revenues for jurisdictions and it has had negative outcomes too.  I have been a supporter of widely available gambling opportunities not because I deny the negatives or don’t care about any of them; I support legalized sports gambling because any attempt to ban it will simply drive it underground.  People bet on sports whether or not that activity is condoned by law.  I used to call the Federal Law that limited sports betting to Nevada and a couple other states as “The Local Bookies’ Full Employment Act”.

One of the negatives about legalized sports gambling is that sportsbooks continue to look for new types of wagers.  And that seems to have led to the confluence of some circumstances that are harmful to the sports underlying the wagers.  Those two circumstances would be:

1. Player prop bets
2. Ability to make large wagers over a wide range of legal sportsbooks

Here is the problem in a nutshell:

• Players can control their performance virtually assuring the outcome of a player prop bet – – and – – they or their comrades can make big money if they know the outcome of said prop bets.

We have a situation where two MLB pitchers stand accused of purposely throwing a ball outside the strike zone or at a lower velocity than normal on a specific pitch in a game because there are prop bets on such things.  Basketball players took themselves out of games for injury reasons in the first half to assure that their scoring or rebounding totals would be UNDER on the prop bet.  Just the mention of such possible skullduggery is enough to get sports wagering opponents to call for new legislation banning the activity.  And now, there is a report that Major League Soccer (MLS) has banned two players for life after an investigation convinced the MLS leaders that they not only bet on MLS games, they bet on games that they played in.

Specifically, both players made a bet on a game in 2024 where the proposition involved whether Player A would get a yellow card at some point in the game.  Guess what, Player A managed to get such an admonition from the referee so that the bet cashed.  And to add to the drama just a bit more, it seems that an independent investigation into these players and various activities “determined that the players likely shared confidential information with other bettors about their intent to draw yellow cards.”

Reports say that MLS has been working with sportsbooks and various jurisdictions to remove prop bets involving either “yellow cards” or “red cards” because they are so easy to “influence”.  The fact that MLS has banned these players for life is another positive outcome from this mess; without significant negative consequences, these sorts of sideshows will proliferate.

Moving on …  At least some of the folks who used to make up the Washington Post Sports Desk have latched on to new positions with visibility.  The Athletic hired six of the people let go by the Post last month with the intent of covering the Commanders and the Nationals more closely than in the past and by adding two columnists and a seasoned investigative reporter from the Post to The Athletic staff.  Here is the statement by Steven Ginsberg, the Executive Editor of The Athletic, about these new hires:

“We’re excited to announce the hiring of several Washington Post journalists as The Athletic expands its coverage of the Commanders, launches a new Nationals beat and adds to its growing roster of tennis, opinion and investigative reporters. With these moves, we intend to provide fans in Washington with unparalleled coverage of the teams and sports they love.”

Switching gears …  Team USA survived the pool play and will make it to the knockout round as the second place team in their pool.  Italy pulled Team USA into that next round by beating Mexico yesterday by a score of 9-1.  The WBC enters the quarterfinals now where the loser goes home and the winner moves on.  Here are the upcoming games:

• Friday March 13:
  • • Korea vs Dominican Republic
    • USA vs Canada
• Saturday March 14:
  • • Puerto Rico vs Italy
    • Venezuela vs Japan

Finally, this advice from Groucho Marx:

“There’s one way to find out if a man is honest – ask him. If he says, ‘Yes,’ you know he is a crook.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………