The Saga of Shohei Ohtani and the Impact of Nationwide Sports Betting
A historic scandal involving baseball superstar Shohei Ohtani is about to expose the cynicism with which MLB has justified its partnership with the gambling industry.
BET MGM Sports book next to Washington Nationals stadium. Making it easier and more convenient to bet on games and alter the outcome of sporting events.
More than half of all Americans currently live in states where sports betting is legal. In the past six years, Americans have collectively bet over $220 billion on sports. With this much money being exchanged, it creates a strong temptation for players, coaches, and owners to alter the outcome of games in order to profit from this widespread betting.
Shohei Ohtani, the $700 million superstar for the Los Angeles Dodgers, has maintained that he had nothing to do with the illegal sports bets placed by his longtime friend and interpreter Ippei Mizuhara, who has been fired by the team. Mizuhara initially claimed that Ohtani covered his gambling losses, which were in excess of $4 million. Ohtani claimed that Mizuhara covered those losses by stealing from the player. Ohtani has insisted that he himself has never gambled on sports. It is a scandal that neither Ohtani, the Dodgers, or Major League Baseball (MLB) wanted at the start of the 2024 season.
As of today, nobody has been charged with a crime. Yet the issue has rocked the entirety of MLB, which is fully embracing the idea of gambling on its games and has placed itself in a troubling dilemma.
After more than a century shunning any connection with gambling, MLB came out last year and named FanDuel, DraftKings, and MGM Resorts International as its official sports betting partners. The league characterized its deal with FanDuel as partnering with “an industry leader in innovative fan engagement opportunities while also reminding them of the importance of doing it responsibly.” Yeah, we’re just trying to keep fans monitoring their bets in front of the TV, plus we’re promoting “responsible gambling.”
Players are Getting In on the Game
Can sports leagues avoid the corruption that resulted in nationwide bans on sports betting in the past? Absolutely not. You don’t need to be a moralist to have concerns about the effect of legalized betting on the integrity of sports. You only need to be a realist.
Even if Ohtani is found to be completely innocent of illicit betting, a recurring scandal, much more devastating, is on the horizon. It might not surface publicly for a year or so, but it will happen.
Athletes are young men and women with more money and attention than they ever dreamed of having. It should come as no surprise that young people who, for all of their lives, have been told how great they are, might transfer some of their greatness from the playing field to the sports book. If they get into financial trouble, what’s to keep them from shaving a point or two and profiting from it?
History Repeats
This has happened before. The infamous 1919 “Black Sox” scandal, when eight members of the Chicago White Sox were accused of throwing the World Series on behalf of a gambling syndicate, was the episode that severed Major League Baseball from gambling interests for 100 years.
There was also Pete Rose, who in 1989 was banned from baseball and permanently excluded from the Hall of Fame for betting not just on baseball in general but on his own team, the Cincinnati Reds, which he was managing at the time.
Across all professional and many amateur sport leagues, growing evidence of collusion between sports teams and gambling companies will confront fans with a sobering reality: Our favorite pastimes are being controlled by big money interests and outcomes of games are not determined solely by performance but by inside influences – players, coaches, owners – with a stake in the outcome. Don’t think it’s not happening.
The Rise of Sports Betting
Six years ago, commercial sports betting was illegal under federal law (the state of Nevada being the exception). Since 2018 sports betting has grown twelve-fold, with 38 states now allowing gambling on sports. ESPN has entered the gambling arena, adding online betting alongside its sports reporting.
Just about every element of a game can be the subject of a bet. In baseball, for instance, a fan can bet on the odds of a batter striking out or getting a hit on a 3-2 count, or a pitcher delivering a certain number of strkeouts, or the number of runs a team gets in the first five innings. Many ballparks advertise sports book websites at the game, and some parks even have physical sports book facilities inside the park itself.
The lure of sports has been easy to understand. Teams go head-to-head with nobody knowing the outcome. Players give their maximum effort to win. It is the ultimate reality show; unscripted, with an “anything can happen” vibe. Even if your favorite team loses, you know in your heart that they gave it their best try.
With the likelihood of the players (or their proxy) placing bets on their teams and adjusting their performance toward the outcome on which they wagered, sports will be seen by fans as something other than games of merit. A team being shut out or winning by a large margin will be thought to be the result of one team playing to lose on purpose. A permanent cloud of suspicion will descend upon sports and the legitimacy of the games will be forever tarnished.
As for Shohei Ohtani, even if he emerges from this scandal an innocent person, his legacy will be altered and his previous reputation in Japan as kanpeki no hito (“the perfect person”) will be ruined. Ohtani’s agent has retained a lawyer specializing in high-profile scandals and is working with a crisis public relations manager whose clients include Alec Baldwin and Harvey Weinstein. He’s surrounding himself with an expensive array of legal professionals in anticipation of a bad outcome.
And baseball itself will be surrounded by a sad cynicism when fans realize that their favorite players are bought and paid for, in more ways than one.