By the time he was named player-manager of the Cincinnati Reds in 1984, Pete Rose was the proud owner of three World Series rings, 16 All-Star selections, and more than 4,000 hits. Yet, at the same time, Rose was — in his own words — “pushing toward disaster.”
You know the rest of the story. Despite his statistical achievements, Rose was banned from baseball for over 35 years after the league found that he had placed bets on Reds games while serving as manager in 1987 and 1988. He passed away in 2024, still ineligible for election to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
From Rose himself: “A part of me was still looking for ways to recapture the high I got from winning batting titles and the World Series. If I couldn’t get the high from playing baseball, then I needed a substitute to keep from feeling depressed. I was driven, in gambling as well as in baseball. Enough was never enough.”
You’d think that the story of Rose — one of the greatest talents in modern baseball history — would be enough to deter those involved in professional sports from betting. Right?
Last year, Shohei Ohtani’s friend and interpreter Ippei Mizuhara was arrested after stealing over $16 million dollars from Ohtani. Mizuhara initially told ESPN he had become indebted to a Southern California bookie and, as of 2023, owed over $4.5 million. His solution was to ask Ohtani for help, and Ohtani paid off the debt. According to Mizuhara, that is why Ohtani’s name appeared on two wire transfers to said bookie totaling $1 million dollars. Mizuhara then recanted his statement, said Ohtani had no knowledge of his gambling addiction, and was eventually arrested for bank fraud and tax fraud. He is currently serving 57 months in prison. Ohtani was investigated by Major League Baseball and eventually cleared.
Also last year, Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter was arrested after an investigation revealed that he had bet on Raptors games while a member of the team. Porter was allegedly told to throw games in order to clear “large” gambling debts. He was convicted of conspiracy to commit wire fraud earlier this year and is scheduled to be sentenced in December.
In June of this year, Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz were suspended indefinitely from Major League Baseball after a betting integrity firm flagged pitches thrown by both pitchers as “suspicious.” The investigation has yet to be completed.
Last week, Miami Heat point guard Terry Rozier was arrested by the FBI after a federal investigation. Prosecutors allege that Rozier, while playing for the Charlotte Hornets, had told a childhood friend that he would prematurely remove himself from a game — allowing the friend (and others) to place bets based on the insider information. Rozier ultimately played less than 10 minutes before leaving with an ankle injury.
Chauncey Billups and Damon Jones — both former NBA players — were also arrested by the FBI as part of the same investigation. Prosecutors allege that Jones sold information on a prominent NBA player’s injury status while serving as an unofficial member of the Lakers’ coaching staff. Jones is “said to have texted a co-conspirator that a certain player would be out when the Lakers faced the Milwaukee Bucks on Feb. 9, 2023.” LeBron James was a late scratch from that night’s game with left ankle soreness.
Billups, meanwhile, is alleged to have served as the “face” of rigged poker games run by members of La Cosa Nostra. Billups also allegedly sold insider information about his players’ injury statuses while serving as head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers.
Back in 2018, the United States Supreme Court declared a federal ban on sports gambling to be unconstitutional in the landmark case Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association. Following this ruling, dozens of states legalized sports betting. The sports gambling industry has recorded record profits since.
It’s becoming increasingly clear that sports betting poses an existential threat to sports as we know it. Yes, I know that sports betting — or athletes betting on sport — isn’t a new thing. Take, for example, the Chicago “Black Sox” in 1919. Or former NBA referee Tim Donaghy, who was convicted in 2007 of betting on games that he had officiated. The fact remains that a lot of really, really sketchy stuff involving sports betting has happened in professional sports since Murphy v. NCAA. One might think that million-dollar salaries would disincentivize athletes from gambling on sports, but so far that hasn’t always been the case.
The scary part is that there’s no clear solution. Banning sports gambling entirely just pushes it underground, making it harder to hold athletes who bet on sports accountable and increasing the influence of organized crime groups in the betting industry. A ban on sports gambling was also — again — ruled unconstitutional less than 10 years ago. It’s also hard because many people are able to gamble responsibly. Many Americans suffer from alcoholism, yet you’d be hard-pressed to find a substantial portion of the American electorate that would support banning alcohol. Some can’t control their drinking, but most people can. Same goes for gambling.
The craziest potential solution would be letting athletes bet on themselves, but that opens up a whole other can of worms. While legalizing gambling for athletes would theoretically keep everything above board (read: disincentivize illegal gambling), it could also incentivize athletes to underperform in games in which they’re not betting on themselves in order to improve odds for when they do. Legalizing gambling for athletes would also encourage the sports equivalent of insider trading, in which players use their knowledge of the team that they play for to encourage their betting activity. If a player is benched, or injured, it would be super easy for anyone on that team to profit by betting the under on him or the over on his replacement before the news breaks in the media.
Maybe education is the solution? DraftKings and PrizePicks ads always include the gamblers’ hotline on the bottom of the screen, but I’d argue that’s not enough. Porter, Mizuhara, and Rose all admitted to having significant gambling problems. What if they’d had support before things spiraled out of control?
Before the start of this season, the MLB players’ union signed a licensing agreement with a sports betting platform. This follows years of DraftKings advertisements during Major League Baseball games. One place to start would be banning gambling commercials. Cigarette companies haven’t been able to air commercials since the Nixon administration, yet the United States tobacco industry is still worth more than the sports betting industry. People don’t need commercials to constantly remind them that they can gamble on their iPhones.
Another thing that might help would be mandatory education programs for athletes. Studies have shown that elite athletes are more likely to develop a gambling problem than the general population. This may be amplified by the fact that a lot of athletes earn millions (or in some cases, hundreds of millions) of dollars before their frontal lobe fully develops.
One thing remains clear, though. MLB — and the rest of professional sports — officially have a problem on their hands. Integrity is what keeps people invested in sports. George Springer is a great baseball player, but there is a reason that he has been booed basically every time he steps into the batter’s box during this year’s World Series. Fans need to be able to trust that the product on the field is unencumbered by undue influence. If they can’t? Well, that would be the beginning of the end.
