The principal owner and chief executive officer of Major League Baseball’s (MLB) Pittsburgh Pirates believes it is the role of gaming regulators and lawmakers to foster integrity in sports betting because the widespread legalization of wagering has changed the way people interact with the game.
“As legalized gaming becomes increasingly available so does the need for accountability and over the years baseball has had a few well known, well documented challenges when it comes to gaming,” Bob Nutting said Thursday (July 18) during a brief keynote address to the National Council of Legislators from Gaming States (NCLGS) summer conference in Pittsburgh.
Nutting said it may have been more than 100 years since the infamous Black Sox betting scandal but the prospect of players with the Chicago White Sox conspiring with gamblers to rig the outcome of the World Series remains a realistic one for baseball fans.
More recently, interpreter Ippei Mizuhara stole $16m from Los Angeles Dodgers player Shohei Ohtani’s bank account to wager with an illegal bookmaking operation in California and Las Vegas.
Lesser known, but closer to home, Nutting mentioned infielder Tucupita Marcano, who was banned for life from baseball when it was determined he bet on baseball while with the Pirates in 2022.
An MLB investigation found that Marcano placed 387 baseball bets totaling more than $150,000 in October 2022 and from last July through November with a legal sportsbook.
Marcano become the first active baseball player banned for life for gambling since New York Giants outfielder Jimmy O’Connell in 1924. Pete Rose, the sport’s active career leader in hits, was banned in 1989 after an investigation concluded he bet on Cincinnati Reds games while managing the team.
Nutting said Marcano was “a great kid [who] made a serious mistake that cost him his baseball career”.
“All of our players know that betting on baseball, perhaps above all else, is one rule that baseball players can never break,” he said. “So, integrity of the game is the most important thing to us, whether it is the Pirates or Major League Baseball.”
Nutting thanked MLB’s partners in the gaming industry for creating a legal framework that made it possible to find their own players who bet on baseball games.
“The transparency, the legal framework is critically important to us as we protect our integrity,” Nutting told about 300 conference attendees. “Specifically, it is critically important that we continue to see progress toward licensed legal gaming … where stakeholders get together to uphold the integrity of events that are being wagered on.”
Nutting stressed that sports teams and their leagues “really want to be partners in this” with the gaming industry.
“The important thing again, is to protect the integrity. We strongly support licensed, legal, regulated and transparent marketplaces.”
Nutting reminded regulators that if Marcano had placed his bet in California, Georgia or Missouri, states where there is no legal sports wagering or a transparent regulatory framework, it is very likely that Major League Baseball would never have caught him.
“These bets would have been off-book, under the radar, and not seen,” he added.
Nutting also praised MLB commissioner Rob Manfred and the league for their handling of the Marcano investigation.
“I think everyone in baseball knows those policies clearly,” Nutting told reporters after his speech Thursday. “I think it was a very unusual aberration and we certainly support what [the commissioner] did.”
Marcano was the second professional athlete in the U.S. banned this year for betting on their sport. The National Basketball Association banned Toronto Raptors center Jontay Porter in April after the league determined that Porter engaged in match manipulation in at least two games during the 2023-2024 regular season.
Porter, 24, pleaded guilty earlier this month to conspiring with a syndicate to underperform in a number of statistical categories to ensure the outcome of parlay wagers. Porter is free on a $250,000 bond while awaiting sentencing set for December 18.