Microbets, parlays and prop bets: A guide to the MLB gambling scandal
- The San Juan Daily Star
- 18 hours ago
- 4 min read
By JENNY VRENTAS
Professional sports has been rattled by federal indictments involving illegal gambling schemes that accuse NBA and Major League Baseball players of manipulating their performances to set up fraudulent bets on nearly invisible nuances of games.
As leagues grapple with the fallout, one central issue is the availability of incremental bets that do not depend on the game’s outcome and thus may be easier to manipulate.
On Monday, the day after two Cleveland Guardians pitchers were charged with setting up rigged bets on individual pitches, MLB said that its betting company partners would limit this specific kind of bet because it carried the greatest risk for misconduct.
The indictments accused the pitchers, Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz, of sharing inside information about pitches with bettors. Lawyers for Clase and Ortiz said that their clients were innocent.
Previously, NBA players Jontay Porter and Terry Rozier had been accused of telling bettors that they would leave games early, enabling them to wager on their underperformance. Porter, who was charged in 2024, pleaded guilty to wire fraud and has been banned from the league. Rozier was charged last month and has denied wrongdoing.
Many people think of sports gambling as simply placing bets on wins and losses. But as legalized betting has spread across the United States, the volume and types of bets that customers can make have grown exponentially.
Here’s what to know about the bets that are being scrutinized:
What is a proposition bet?
A proposition, or prop, bet is a wager on an event or player performance not directly tied to the game’s outcome. Examples include whether a player will score more or less than a certain number of points, whether a specific batter will hit a home run or whether a game will reach overtime. Prop bets are also combined into a riskier wager that is growing in popularity, the parlay, which involves two or more outcomes.
Prop bets are a core business for betting companies, or sportsbooks. Chris Grove, a partner emeritus at Eilers & Krejcik Gaming, a research firm, said that prop bets, at a conservative estimate, account for around 20% of money wagered at regulated sportsbooks in the United States.
What is a microbet?
Microbets are a subset of proposition bets. They can be resolved within seconds and are tied to live game action. Examples include whether the next basket will be for two points or for three, or the outcome of a single baseball pitch. Jason Robins, CEO of DraftKings, said on an August earnings call that microbets account for a single-digit percentage of the total money wagered at the sportsbooks.
Why are these bets vulnerable to manipulation?
In team sports, rigging an entire game is a tall order that would probably require coordination among several players. An individual can much more readily control his or her own performance — by leaving a game early because of a supposed injury or illness, for example, as Porter and Rozier were accused of doing.
Manipulating a single play — as Clase and Ortiz have been accused of doing, by intentionally throwing balls — may appear to be a simple mistake. This phenomenon, referred to as spot-fixing, has also been a source of scandal internationally, including among Pakistan’s cricket team and Australia’s National Rugby League.
Have there been efforts to limit these kinds of wagers?
The changes MLB announced Monday represented the first tangible action by a league since the federal indictments. The league said that its partners, which encompass nearly all the legal sports betting companies in the United States, will institute a $200 limit for bets on individual pitches. They also will stop including pitches in the parlays, which carry longer odds but a larger possible payout.
Rob Manfred, the commissioner, called the limitations “a national solution to address the risks posed by these pitch-level markets, which are particularly vulnerable to integrity concerns.”
There have been other efforts. Charlie Baker, president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, successfully petitioned several states to ban prop bets on university athletes, citing concerns about both integrity and athlete harassment.
Public health experts have also said microbets are akin to slot machines, because of the brief time between making the bet and learning if you won or lost. Dan Hutchison, a Democratic Assembly member in New Jersey, proposed a bill in July to ban microbets for both integrity and public health reasons.
Why is baseball especially susceptible?
Baseball is a game with ample stops and starts and myriad statistics, creating more betting opportunities on discrete events. Nearly every action on the diamond is accounted for and tabulated.
But the indictment presents one example in which a single play could not be successfully manipulated: In a May 28 game between the Guardians and the Los Angeles Dodgers, prosecutors say, Clase intentionally threw a ball. The batter, Andy Pages, nevertheless swung and missed, making it a strike.
The bettors lost.