Gambling and sports . . . what could possibly go wrong?

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Anyone with a brain could have seen this coming.

In fact, I did see what sports gambling would bring, beginning with three posts in 2021:

• This will not end well
• What if we have it all wrong? Reality and the dislocation of joy
• The 2021 World Series: The good, the bad, and the ugly

When I noted, among other things, that those in control are killing the product that baseball fans like me want to consume, that was just common sense. As it was when I made similar points in 2022, 2023 (here and here), and finally in 2024. So chalk this post up, if you wish, as my annual rant.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that bringing gambling money into sports will corrupt the games—the owners, the players, the fans, just about every aspect. Here’s a good column from the Nationals personal experience with this problem last year.

Only last month the NBA got caught up in a gambling scandal that was apparently being run by the Mafia.

And here’s Joe Posnanski’s story from yesterday about the bizarre case of the Cleveland Guardian pitchers:

“Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz were indicted for attempting to rig pitches during a game. What is ‘rigging pitches?’ People bet on everything in sports now, including balls and strikes. Apparently, Clase and Ortiz worked out with gamblers which pitches they would purposely throw as balls.

Apparently, gamblers made hundreds of thousands of dollars on this scheme.

I mean, did anyone doubt that something like this was coming?

Does anyone think this will be the last of it?”

But what really made Joe’s story stand out for me was this ending:

“More and more players tell me how the gambling revolution has impacted their lives. They get threats. They get verbally abused. Their families hear from betting losers. It’s constant. It gets louder every day.

And the leagues that should protect them — the leagues that EXIST to protect them both because it’s the right thing to do and because this cuts to the very heart of sports trustworthiness and legitimacy — have surrendered to money instead.

It’s heartbreaking. And it’s only going to get worse.”

When we have a corrupt administration run by a convicted felon, big media companies run by oligarchs interested only in their personal bottom line, and a Supreme Court in the bag for business and money interests, what else did we expect from our sports leagues. I’ll quote once again this line from my friend Robyn Ryle:

“Let me put it more plainly — the players want baseball to be good. The owners just want to make money. Period. End of story.“

Betting parlors are now part of many ballparks and stadiums. Casinos are practically a license for their owners to print money, so they couldn’t resist. I only know of one person dumb enough to bankrupt a casino, which should tell you all you need to know about that individual’s so-called business acumen. But that’s another story.

We’ve seen this all before. In the 1910s and 1920s. In America. It did not end well. On multiple levels. We barely survived the crash and the turn away from democracy. Sports were so freaked out by the Black Sox scandal that the owners actually brought in a commissioner to clean up the game. Now those types who fought the people reclaiming their government (and their sports) and instituting rules, regulations, and accountability are back stronger then ever.

When will we ever learn.

More to come . . .

DJB

Image of roulette wheel by Greg Montani from Pixabay