PHILADELPHIA – For the better part of 90 minutes Tuesday, Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred and MLB Players’ Association interim executive director Bruce Meyer laid out their alternative visions of reality, staking out opposite poles on a salary cap, revenue sharing, and perhaps the color of the sky as the sport grinds toward a Dec. 1 owners’ lockout.
Yet there’s one subject in which they were in full agreement: If sports gambling and prediction markets are legal, they most certainly should get a piece of it.
Meyer, in his first major press briefing since Tony Clark’s February resignation, acknowledged that widespread legalized sports betting has created “an environment where our players are subject to constant threats, harassment. Always has been, but I think the players will probably say it’s reached a new low.”
Yet in late April, the MLBPA struck a long-term licensing agreement with Hard Rock Bet, which it said integrates “MLB player name, image, and likeness directly into the core of the betting experience across Hard Rock Bet’s digital and retail platforms throughout North America.”
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That would seem to put the union at odds with one of its core principles, protecting player safety and welfare. Yet both league and union have adopted a mindset that could also serve as the titles of a ‘90s album: Everybody else is doing it, so why can’t we?
Legalized sports betting has changed the game. In this photo, Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Tommy Edman prepares to catch a ball in front of sign related to betting.
“We believe a couple of things: One, to the extent that owners are promoting gambling entities, that players should have the same ability that owners do,” says Meyer. “It’s hypocritical for the owners to say, ‘Well we are allowed to do this, but you’re not allowed to do that.’ Recognizing, as we all do, the incredible importance making sure our game remains completely above reproach, that we have limitations we bargain with the league over what players can and can’t do.
“But in general, we believe players should capitalize on business opportunities the league can capitalize on.”
In the middle of this push-and-pull are the players, who will surely benefit from both league and union shaking hands with sports gambling. Yet they’re also at the receiving end of social media posts from irate bettors – particularly relief pitchers whose appearances often swing the result of the game.
“On social media, yeah – anytime you give up a run or something, someone will hit you up and say, ‘You owe me money,’ Texas Rangers closer Jacob Latz tells USA Today Sports. “You’ve just got to unfortunately turn off the comments and not react to it.
“It’s been worse since gambling became a thing.”
Sometimes the threats are serious enough for law enforcement to get involved, as in the case of Houston Astros pitcher Lance McCullers Jr., who procured 24-hour security when a drunken gambler threatened his family’s lives. Houston police eventually identified the person behind the threats.
Bryan Baker, the Tampa Bay Rays closer whose 25 saves rank second in the American League, says threats to ballplayers are incessant enough that a certain desensitization has occurred. On one hand: Brush it off.
On the other, the content can be serious and threatening.
“The first couple are always alarming,” says Baker. “You’re like, ‘Oh, it’s a baseball game. Let’s keep it simple. Sorry you lost your bet.’ I think people need to be smarter with how they bet their money and understand that cursing a player and their family is not going to get your money back.
“I think most of us know that and try to brush it off.”
Still, the manners in which a fan can lose their money only seems to multiply.
Tampa Bay Rays closer Bryan Baker celebrates after the final out of Tuesday's All-Star Game in Philadelphia. Baker has had to deal with threats from fans.
Prediction markets' unpredictable future
While some of the sports gambling novelty has faded and consolidation occurs in the betting space – with FanDuel, DraftKings and MGM slated to become the McDonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’s of the industry – the relatively recent rush of prediction markets has opened up yet another frontier.
Unlike sports betting, which typically requires state-by-state legislative approval, prediction markets are federally regulated. Rather than fail to bring approval to a vote, states must proactively act to ban tools such as betting on elections, which was federally approved in 2024.
More states are moving to ban prediction markets, or at least elements within them. Manfred opted not to wait for the legality to play out: Earlier this year he struck an agreement with Polymarket, which he viewed as getting ahead of a burgeoning and loosely regulated industry.
“Honestly, I didn’t know what the heck Polymarket and Kalshi were, the predictive markets,” Manfred said Tuesday. “And quite frankly was concerned about additional activity in that space.
“The difficulty of Polymarket is we confronted the same issue again: They were already out there operating. It wasn’t some theoretical, ‘Gee, maybe someday prediction markets will take sports bets.’ We felt we needed the same kind of partnership with them in order to ensure that we had integrity.”
Yet the promotion of said partnership can often border on invasive, for fan and player.
Visitors to MLB.com’s scoreboard page now get a bevy of Polymarket suggested “market plays.” The right field fence at this 96th All-Star Game had a wide scoreboard panel advertising Polymarket, sandwiched between Mastercard and Rothman Orthopaedics.
For players, the ads are the essence of mixed messaging, driving revenue and attention but also at extreme odds with clubhouse counseling that warns them they will lose their careers if they bet on baseball.
“They’re promoting the heck out of (gambling),” says Latz. “They talk to us so many times about, ‘Don’t do it. Don’t even allow yourself to get there.’ I’m sure guys in the offseason will do their fantasy football, and that’s enough for us.
“It doesn’t help when you see the (advertisements) everywhere. I’m happy that at least it helps bring more attention to the game. I think you’ll probably see it swing back in the other direction. It’s the new thing – they’ll promote it, capitalize on it and then it’ll get to the point it’s a little out of control and then go back the other way.”
'It's definitely weird'
Latz raises an interesting point. Gambling can be the sixth tool for a ballplayer, what with high-stakes card games on planes and in clubhouses, lucrative fantasy football buy-ins and big-money March Madness pools to pass the time in a never-ending spring training.
Additionally, it’s not illegal to bet on sports other than baseball, even as players possess a pocket casino that could be a career killer.
“It is interesting, right?” he says. “But we’re talking about the integrity of the game, and that’s gone back since sports even really started. Yeah, having the little Kentucky Derby pools and March Madness pools helps bring chemistry. But you just can’t put the integrity of the game on the line. That’s not what we want to have on us.
“We all spent our lifetime to get to this point and to try to throw it away for something like that just is not worth it.”
That nonetheless failed to deter Cleveland Guardians closer Emmanuel Clase and starter Luis Ortiz from allegedly engaging in pitch-fixing to aid a prop bettor. Both have pleaded not guilty in federal court to charges of wire fraud conspiracy, honest services wire fraud conspiracy, conspiracy to influence sporting contests by bribery and money laundering conspiracy.
And former big league utilityman Tucupita Marcano received a permanent ban for betting on games his teams were involved in, while several fringe big leaguers received one-year bans.
The MLBPA has proposed in collective bargaining talks that the union and MLB jointly lobby for a ban on prop bets.
“It’s something we think leads to more of the harassment,” says Meyer, the interim executive director. “It’s one thing if you bet on a game and your team loses, and gamblers are going to be upset. But betting that a pitcher throws a strike and they throw a ball, there’s possibly more motivation.
“It’s sweeping the country, as we know, creating certain challenges we’re trying to help the players deal with.”
For now, though, they’ll try to get that bag, making what they perceive to be the best of a suboptimal hand the Supreme Court dealt when they turned sports gambling over to the states.
The prediction markets have only further clouded the issue, yet with each partnership struck, the connection is unmistakable to the main characters determining winners and losers.
“It does feel a little weird seeing betting lines everywhere,” says St. Louis Cardinals closer Riley O’Brien. “It’s not something I pay too much attention to.
“But it’s definitely weird.”
