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by MATT GALKA | The National News Desk
WASHINGTON (TNND) — Recent federal charges against professional athletes in various leagues have called into question the relationship between sports betting, the players, and the leagues themselves. Two Cleveland Guardians pitchers, Luis Ortiz and Emmanuel Clase, face indictments for allegedly accepting bribes to rig pitches in Major League Baseball games. Ortiz's lawyer maintains his client's innocence.
The indictment puts a spotlight on prop bets that allow sports bettors to wager on things that are beyond the actual outcome of the game. In the case against Ortiz and Clase, the indictment alleges bettors placed suspicious wagers on whether or not certain pitches thrown would be balls or strikes, along with what the velocity of certain pitches was going to be.
"Through this scheme, the defendants defrauded betting platforms, deprived Major League Baseball and the Cleveland Guardians of their honest services, illegally enriched themselves and their co-conspirators, misled the public, and betrayed America's pastime," U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella, Jr. wrote in the unsealed indictment.
Meanwhile, NBA player Terry Rozier was arrested for allegedly accepting a bribe after telling sports bettors he'd leave a game early due to injury in 2023. The scandals extend beyond mainstream sports, with table tennis leagues also facing match-fixing allegations. The sport is among the most popular to bet on for online sportsbooks.
Stephen Shapiro, a sport and entertainment management professor at the University of South Carolina, said he's not surprised about the scandals and won't be surprised if we see more in the future now that gambling on sports has become so easy. Bettors can simply take out their phones to place a wager on almost anything they want in a game.
"I think what you're seeing now is with the proliferation of sports gambling and the ease with which to do it, where you can just get on your phone and do it, there's just more opportunity," Shapiro said. He warned that continued scandals could undermine the integrity of sports leagues.
“When that outcome comes into question, I think it can really hit the foundation of sport and have a real impact. That's where I think leagues have to get out in front of this," he said.
Some members of Congress renewed a push to consider the SAFE Bet Act, which aims to tighten regulations on online gambling. The proposed legislation would do things like ban ads during games, outlaw prop bets at amateur and college levels, and limit how artificial intelligence targets players and forms bets.
"Standards at the federal level not to prevent gambling, but to combat the twin dangers of corruption and addiction," said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., one of the sponsors of the bill.
The legislation is a long shot in Congress right now, as there's been pushback from gambling companies and leagues on how far it would take regulations. Still, professional leagues are facing growing scrutiny with every scandal and arrest that's made.
Sacred Heart University Chair of Sport Management Joshua Shuart says it's not entirely clear why professional athletes, some of whom make millions and millions of dollars, would take gambling risks for lesser money and ruin their reputations, along with facing a potential ban from their leagues. But the more allegations that come out, the more likely it is that there will need to be some form of intervention to standardize gambling rules around the country.
"We're now looking at the car in the ditch on fire, and we're saying, 'What can we do to proactively to make sure this doesn't happen again?" he said.
"I think the entire the integrity of sports in general is under attack, and you're not even talking about professional, you're talking about everything, at all levels. You can understand why low-earning or no-earning college athletes might fall for that. You're impressionable, you don't have a lot coming in, but you have it across the board now. So, it's like epidemic level, and now it's like, what can we do about this?"
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