MLB is starting to realize the consequences of embracing sports gambling

Baseball isn’t the only sport that has a mess on its hands but it is once again the sport with the highest-profile athlete in the midst of it.

When it comes to gambling and professional sports in North America, the genie is well and truly out of the bottle. The NFL, NHL and WNBA all have teams located in Las Vegas and MLB is trying their hardest to ensure that there will be a team playing in Sin City by 2028 — all of which would’ve been inconceivable even just ten years ago. The same could be said for the way gambling is talked about in sports media right now.

This used to be the area reserved for guys like Brent Musberger and Al Michaels to slyly-yet-mirthfully make reference to the “numbers crunchers” who were still hanging onto every point or run scored near the end of a nationally-televised blowout. Now, sports gambling has become part of sports mainstream media to where ESPN’s Bottom Line will just straight-up show you the points spread and over/unders for any upcoming game. You can also easily find any type of betting information that you could desire on this very website and also on any of the other blogs across the SB Nation network. This is a perfect time to make the disclosure that SB Nation is a DraftKings partner.

Again, the genie is out of the bottle and it’s hard to imagine it going back inside of the bottle any time soon. With that being said, it’s also becoming quite clear that the North American sports landscape didn’t fully think about the consequences of fully embracing gambling like it has. If gambling is going to become part of the fabric of sports here then it seems inevitable that scandal is going to follow at some point. The NFL has already had multiple scandals involving players and personnel partaking in gambling, the NBA seems poised to make an example out of Jontay Porter, Shane Pinto made infamous NHL history this season as he became the first player in league history to get suspended for “sports wagering” and even college baseball saw Alabama’s former head coach effectively end his own career in the dumbest possible manner.

Speaking of baseball, MLB just happened to be lucky enough to be the league with the most high-profile gambling scandal yet. While other leagues have been able to see their respective gambling scandals come and go within a single news cycle or two, it’s hard to imagine that MLB is going to be able to quickly and completely move on from a gambling scandal involving the current face of Major League Baseball. Indeed, the cloud surrounding Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter Ippei Mizuhara is one that could drag on for as long as MLB’s investigation into the matter could take.

If MLB is actually serious about this situation, then we’ll see the league get to the bottom of what’s going on and that could potentially take months. Of course, the pro is that Ohtani gets to stay on the field for as long as possible while this all gets sorted out but the con is that the league’s image absolutely will suffer if baseball’s biggest star ends up being implicated as being anything but an unwitting figure in this entire situation. Even if Ohtani comes out of this situation clean as a whistle, it’s still not a great look for the sport to have such a high-profile figure even close to a situation involving this much money being wagered on sports — and illegally, at that!

Photo by Keith Birmingham/MediaNews Group/Pasadena Star-News via Getty Images

With all of this being said, it’s always felt inevitable that the rapid embrace of gambling by sports leagues would eventually result in stories like this popping up. While it may be shocking that the most popular and exciting player in baseball has suddenly found himself wrapped up in this, it’s not surprising — this is the same sport that infamously had the 1919 World Series thrown into disrepute thanks to the Black Sox Scandal and it’s also the same sport that saw its all-time hits leader get banned in 1989 for betting on baseball. The difference between the scandals of the past and what’s going on now is that thanks to MLB and other leagues deciding to bring gambling to the forefront instead of leaving it in the shadows, it’s a lot easier for this type of thing to happen.

The continuing legalization of sports gambling has made things much easier and far more convenient for fans who are inclined to gamble while also allowing an industry that was already booming in the shadows to flourish in the limelight with the blessing of all the sports leagues. It’s another large source of revenue for sports leagues (primarily for state governments as well since that’s been the driving force behind legalization) and as we’ve seen with all the money that has been flooding into sports thanks to new revenue streams like advertisements on jerseys and streaming-exclusive games, these leagues are going to continue chasing down any routes to money that they can get.

With that being said, the aforementioned shadowy side of gambling is still flourishing as evidenced by the large amount of money that Ippei Mizuhara found himself wagering. Additionally, there are still plenty of questions to be asked about such an embrace of legal gambling from both the sports leagues and state governments in general when the funding for treatment of problem gambling across the country is still lagging far behind where it needs to be.

That’s not to mention what a gambling scandal could do when it comes to fan confidence in the integrity of the games. It was one of the top concerns that led to Pete Rose being banned from baseball back in the day and while the gambling involved in the Ohtani/Mizuhara scandal doesn’t involve baseball, it’s still not a great look when the first and immediate comparison that many fans made was to compare Ohtani to Rose. It’s an even worse look when Rose himself is able to get his licks in on the whole situation! This isn’t to say that MLB should hurry up and reinstate Rose (since he’d still come up well short in the whole “integrity and character” department that apparently is very important for BBWAA voters) but it is to say that MLB has really messed things up if they’re in this type of position with Rose.

The only good thing that could come out of this mess is that this case could lead to a renewed push by lawmakers to use their power to address what feels like a near-unchecked environment of sports gambling at the present moment. Still, it feels like a lot of this may be too little too late. The genie is out of the bottle and has been selling dreams to both fans and players alike. If a scandal like this can ensnare the likes of Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter, then it’s not very hard to imagine that there could be more scandals on the way. I haven’t even talked about what could happen in baseball if it turns out that umpires are getting in on the action as well. That would definitely result in a scandal that would really and truly throw the game’s integrity into question.

I’ve said all of this to say that personally, I don’t necessarily have a problem with the idea of sports gambling, itself. If you’re able to do it legally (and responsibly) and you want to wager a few bucks to make your viewing experience a bit more interesting, then that’s your prerogative. With that being said, it’s clear that the introduction of sports betting from the background to the forefront of the sports landscape could’ve been handled with a lot more caution and thought than it has.

It’s especially concerning in baseball since historically speaking, the sport has tried to be vigilant about staying above the fray in that regard. Instead, it feels like we’re on the precipice of MLB (and other sports’) relationship with gambling potentially placing the league into a position or scandal that they may not be able to recover from. The Ohtani situation may not be the one to push MLB over the precipice but with the way things are going right now, it’s only a matter of “when” and not “if” an even bigger scandal could rear its ugly head.