A pair of Senators, from each side of the aisle, want information 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.
“We are going to respond fully and cooperatively and on time to the Senate inquiry,” Manfred told reporters on Wednesday, via Eric Fisher of FrontOfficeSports.com. “Obviously the issue has received a lot of attention, and we understand why we got the inquiry. We think the steps we’ve 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.”
Recently, major sportsbooks have agreed to limit the amount of wagers on pitch-by-pitch prop bets to $200, with certain other prop bets being banned from the ultra-profitable (for the sportsbooks) multi-leg parlays.
“We think the changes that we made strike the right balance,” Manfred said.
The right balance, frankly, is to eliminate any bets, on every sport, that relate to the performance of one player. While it’s very hard to fix games, it’s very easy to rig prop bets. Allowing prop bets to linger preserves the temptation to rig them.
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’s 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 — or an enforceable federal law that wipes them out nationwide.
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’ll 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.