{"id":297293,"date":"2025-11-20T15:22:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T15:22:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/297293\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T15:22:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T15:22:07","slug":"mlb-promises-full-cooperation-with-senate-gambling-inquiry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/297293\/","title":{"rendered":"MLB promises full cooperation with Senate gambling inquiry"},"content":{"rendered":"

A pair of Senators, from each side of the aisle, want information<\/a> from Major League Baseball relating to the gambling scandal that resulted in recent federal indictments of Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred says the league will comply with the request.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are going to respond fully and cooperatively and on time<\/a> to the Senate inquiry,\u201d Manfred told reporters on Wednesday, via Eric Fisher of FrontOfficeSports.com. \u201cObviously the issue has received a lot of attention, and we understand why we got the inquiry. We think the steps we\u2019ve taken in terms of limiting the size of these prop bets and prohibiting parlays off of them is a really, really significant change that should reduce the incentive for anyone to be involved in an inappropriate way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recently, major sportsbooks have agreed to limit the amount of wagers on pitch-by-pitch prop bets to $200<\/a>, with certain other prop bets being banned from the ultra-profitable (for the sportsbooks) multi-leg parlays.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think the changes that we made strike the right balance,\u201d Manfred said.<\/p>\n

The right balance, frankly, is to eliminate any bets, on every sport, that relate to the performance of one player. While it\u2019s very hard to fix games, it\u2019s very easy to rig prop bets. Allowing prop bets to linger preserves the temptation to rig them.<\/p>\n

But the horse has long abandoned the prop-bet barn. Gamblers want the action, and the sportsbooks want the money that comes from it. With all sports leagues rolling in the sheets with the sportsbooks, there\u2019s no way prop bets will be going anywhere, absent one or more of the various states that have legalized gambling choosing to make prop bets illegal \u2014 or an enforceable federal law that wipes them out nationwide.<\/p>\n

Neither will happen. The sportsbooks have the money to lobby legislators aggressively, thanks to the revenue they derive from prop bets and parlays. And they\u2019ll keep banging on the illogical notion that, if prop bets are eliminated from the menu of wagers that can be quickly, easily, and legally made on a cell phone, gamblers will put down their devices and go find a guy with one eyebrow and multiple gold chains with whom prop bets can be placed illegally.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A pair of Senators, from each side of the aisle, want information from Major League Baseball relating to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297294,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-297293","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}