Major League Baseball has moved quickly in the wake of federal indictments of two Guardians pitchers, unveiling a nationwide plan with top sportsbooks to restrict proposition bets on the sport.
The league said Monday afternoon that all of its authorized gaming operators will cap wagers on pitch-level markets at $200 and exclude those bets from parlays. Those authorized gaming operators, which include top names such as FanDuel and DraftKings, have access to official league data and collectively comprise more than 98% of the U.S. betting market.
The shift acknowledges that pitch-level markets—such as whether an individual pitch is a ball or a strike and its velocity—are particularly vulnerable to single players. Many other prop bets in baseball, such as the number of runs scored in an inning, involve multiple events and numerous players.
“I commend the industry for working with us to take action on a national solution to address the risk posed by these pitch-level markets, which are particularly vulnerable to integrity concerns,” said MLB commissioner Rob Manfred in a statement.
The new rules arrived a little more than 24 hours after the U.S. Department of Justice indicted Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz on wire fraud conspiracy charges, with each player potentially facing 65 years in prison. Rigging individual pitches to benefit bettor co-conspirators is at the heart of the indictments against the pair.
Long before these charges, however, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine had called for a prop-bet ban, had worked closely with the league on this issue, and was part of Monday’s announcement.
“Major League Baseball is taking affirmative steps to protect the integrity of the game and reduce the incentives to participate in improper betting schemes,” DeWine said. “I urge other sports leagues to follow Major League Baseball’s example with similar action.”
Looking Ahead
A key question going forward is whether the $200 ban will be enough to curb the illegal activity around pitch-level prop bets. Part of what makes the case surrounding Clase and Ortiz so striking is the rather minimal amount of money involved. Other bettors won more than $450,000 in fraudulent wagers due to the rigged pitches, according to allegations against the two, an amount much harder to amass now with the cap in place.
The pitchers, however, received bribes as small as $5,000 for rigging pitches, something that in Clase’s case was a tiny fraction of the five-year, $20 million contract he has with the Guardians.
Participating sportsbooks said they are hopeful the MLB cap will be impactful.
“This initiative illustrates our unwavering commitment to building a legal and regulated market that roots out abuses,” said FanDuel president Christian Genetski.
Speaking before Game 1 of the World Series last month, MLB Players Association executive director Tony Clark said he would support an outright ban of prop bets in baseball, conveying significant concern about player safety.
“We’re in support of removing any types of bets, prop or otherwise, that could create issues for our guys on the field,” Clark said. “We’ve heard a lot about prop bets of late, and it was one of the things we were concerned about from Day 1 as well.”
