Gambling addiction is spiraling âout of controlâ in the US, a leading campaigner for stricter guardrails has warned, as experts from around the world are set to gather in Boston to push for more regulation of the industry.
The rapid expansion of online gambling, prediction markets and sports betting platforms, âdemands a public health responseâ, according to Harry Levant, director of gambling policy at the Public Health Advocacy Institute (PHAI), urging policymakers to intervene.
âYou regulate the distribution, the speed, the type, the access to the product, because the product is whatâs dangerous,â he said, calling for gambling to be treated like alcohol or tobacco. âThe problem is the product, not the people,â said Levant. âWe have a crisis here.ââŠ
âWe firmly believe gambling should be regulated like any other addictive product,â said Mark Gottlieb, executive director of PHAI**.**
Sports betting has been legalized in 39 states and Washington DC since the landmark 2018 supreme court ruling.
With such conditions, is it any wonder that players would eventually get drawn in? Most recently, Cleveland Guardians (and frequent hypothetical future Dodger) closer Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz were indicted for fraud, conspiracy, and bribery stemming from an alleged scheme to rig individual pitches, resulting in gamblers winning hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Joseph Nocella, Jr., United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, and Christopher G. Raia, Assistant Director in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Field Office, announced the governmentâs allegations against the pair:
âŠThe defendants agreed in advance with their co-conspirators on specific pitches that they would throw in MLB games. The co-conspirators then used that information to place hundreds of fraudulent bets on those pitches.
Beginning in or around May 2023, Clase, a relief pitcher for the Cleveland Guardians, agreed with corrupt sports bettors to rig proposition bets â or âpropâ bets â on particular pitches he threw. The bettors wagered on the speed and type of Claseâs pitches, based on information they knew in advance by coordinating with Clase, sometimes even during MLB games. Clase often threw these rigged pitches on the first pitch of an at-bat. To ensure certain pitches were called as balls, Clase threw many of them in the dirt, well outside the strike zone. The bettors used the advanced, inside information that Clase provided about his future pitches to wager thousands of dollars at online sportsbooks.
Clase at times received bribes and kickbacks from the bettors in exchange for providing advanced, non-public information. He also sometimes provided money to the bettors in advance to fund the scheme. The indictment includes numerous examples of pitches that Clase rigged, including one in the Eastern District of New York in a game against the New York Mets. In total, by rigging pitches, Clase caused his co-conspirator bettors to win at least $400,000 in fraudulent wagers.
In or around June 2025, Ortiz, a starting pitcher for the Cleveland Guardians, joined the criminal scheme. Together with Clase, Ortiz agreed in advance to throw balls (instead of strikes) on pitches in two games in exchange for bribes and kickbacks. Before an MLB game on June 15, 2025, Ortiz agreed with his co-conspirators to throw a ball on a particular pitch in exchange for bribes. The bettors agreed to pay Ortiz a $5,000 bribe for throwing the rigged pitch and Clase a $5,000 bribe for arranging the rigged pitch.
Clase and Ortiz are innocent until proven guilty, and their trial is scheduled to start on May 4, 2026. One would think even this offramp of a story would be enough to get the league, or any league, to reconsider buddying up to gambling interests.
But like with a certain financial crisis 18 years ago, the money is apparently too good. Online sports betting is legal in 33 states as of February 2025. The sports betting industry hit a record revenue figure of $16.96 billion in 2025, an 11% percent increase from 2024, according to the American Gaming Association.
Remember how bad everyone felt after 2017, which was only compounded *after* it was revealed that the Houston Astros were blatantly cheating? It was like reliving the loss all over again, but worse.
Mark my words: the shoe that will eventually drop from this entirely foreseeable fiasco will make any scandal (including the Clase affair) look insignificant and quaint in comparison. It is knowingly setting up shop in Chornobyl after the nuclear accident, and acting surprised both that something bad happened and that the consequences were somehow unforeseen.
Either way, itâs a lesson that must apparently be relearned, but itâs not my money(ball)âŠ
If the story ended there, I could sign off, but it gets even worse. Sites like FanDuel, Draft Kings, etc., are the devil you know and the devil you can avoid. But the league has embraced something far more nihilistic, which deserves your full attention: prediction markets.