Key Points
Bullet point summary by AI
- The MLBPA proposed a ban on player prop bets during current CBA negotiations.
- This move aims to reduce game manipulation risks and protect players, especially in college sports.
- While federal regulation remains uncertain, leagues could still influence betting partners to limit these wagers.
Does anyone think player prop bets are a good idea? They can be fun, sure, in the same way that juggling kitchen knives is fun, but does literally anyone think they’re a positive addition to human society? Anyone?
On Thursday, the MLBPA proposed a general ban on player prop bets during the current round of CBA negotiations. In this proposal, the MLBPA asked MLB to join them in lobbying for restrictions on types of bets that involve individual players, be that from government regulation or agreements with sportsbooks and prediction markets. This will likely become a back-burnered issue over the next few months, news-dumped the same day as MLB’s incredibly inflammatory contract-structure proposal, which doused league/player relations in kerosene.
Banning player props would be a positive step for American sports
But it should not be; as remote a possibility as it is, a general ban on player props would be an overwhelmingly positive step for legalized sports betting. It should be pursued with uncompromising rigor by players associations throughout American sports and by the leagues they bargain with. It is, arguably, the lone realistic guardrail that gambling providers may actually accept, at least in some capacity. And even though the whole history of the world suggests this won’t happen, if we can (deep breath) all look past our wallets for a minute here, I think we can achieve some serious legalized-gambling harmony in the United States of America. That would be priceless.
Player props are the sleaziest, highest abuse-potential types of wagers in reality and in theory. It invites game manipulation and point shaving from cheaters (and now, uh, criminals) like Emmanuel Clase and Terry Rozier. Over/under rebound totals on random ninth men on the Minnesota Timberwolves is a breeding ground for illegal activity, as are insane things like single-pitch odds, within-inning live betting and other individual options. They also, as the MLBPA is pointing out, create patterns of abuse from fans to players who do not achieve whatever someone had bet on. This is particularly important for college athletics, where amateur teenagers receive death threats on social media for underperformance on props. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why they are stupid.
A player prop ban is politically fraught, but not impossible
Banning them is another story, as federal regulators have repeatedly proven unreliable or unwilling to handicap the booming sports betting industry. The Trump Administration’s ample connections to prediction markets have kept them legal nationwide and relatively unregulated in lieu of judicial ruling. And while America sports leagues like MLB do not necessarily have the right to restrict what can and cannot be wagered on, they do hold significant leverage in controlling their betting service partnerships. MLB already limited so-called “Pitch-level Markets” after two Cleveland pitchers were found to have exploited them, a measure taken concurrently with their gambling partners. Even in lieu of federal assistance, regulation is possible.
But player props are intensely profitable for books and markets, and I doubt they would accept a wholesale removal of that part of sports betting without federal regulation, something that simply is not coming from this White House. But a version of this restriction could be doable and acceptable; namely, player props involving a limited pool of superstar players, already subjected to intense public scrutiny and usually with teams of public relations personnel to handle lunatics who think DMing an athlete after they didn’t hit the over is okay. That would work to protect college athletes and those who do not have the resources of stardom; it would also massively reduce the potential for criminal activity, since superstars are not as susceptible to outside influence as more fringe players.
I’m not anti-sports betting. It’s a cat we are not going to be able to put back in the bag, no matter how uncomfortable it makes certain traditionalist elements. But that does not mean we should not run the new world with sanity and a level head. Put simply, there is no good reason why some substantive restriction on player props should not be in the future of American sports. MLBPA is right to introduce this at a critical juncture in the league’s future, and other leagues should follow suit.
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