Ajor League Baseball on Tuesday permanently banned San Diego Padres infielder Tucupita Marcano for betting on baseball and suspended four other players for a year after finding that the players had placed unrelated bets with a legal sportsbook.
Marcano appears to be the first active major league player banned by sports gambling regulations since New York Giants outfielder Jimmy O’Connell in 1924. Pete Rose, the active baseball career leader, famously accepted a suspension for life in 1989 after an investigation concluded that he bet on Cincinnati Reds games while managing the team.
Another big-time player, Oakland Athletics pitcher Michael Kelly, was declared ineligible for a year Tuesday for betting on baseball while in the minor leagues. Additionally, minor leaguers Jay Groome of San Diego, Jos Rodrguez of Philadelphia and Andrew Saalfrank of Arizona were banned for one year for betting on major league games.
The league said it was made aware of the betting activity by a legal sports betting operator. None of the punished players played any games they bet on, and all players denied to MLB that they had inside information relevant to their bets or the games they bet on – testimony that MLB says is consistent with the data it received from sports betting.
“Strict enforcement of Major League Baseball’s rules and policies governing the conduct of gambling is a critical component to upholding our most important priority: protecting the integrity of our games for fans,” he said in a notes baseball commissioner Rob Manfred. “The long-standing prohibition against betting on Major League Baseball games by those who play the sport has been a bedrock principle for more than a century. We have been clear that the privilege of playing baseball comes with the responsibility to refrain from engaging in certain types of behaviors that are legal for other people.”
Marcano was found to have placed 387 baseball bets, including 231 MLB-related bets, between October 16, 2022 and November 1, 2023, totaling more than $150,000. The league says 25 of those bets included bets on Pittsburgh Pirates games while he was on the team’s major league roster. However, he did not appear in any of those matches because he was on the injured list following a season-ending knee injury. At the time he was receiving medical treatment at PNC Park. Marcano bet almost exclusively on game outcomes and lost all of his parlay bets involving the Pirates, winning just 4.3% of all his MLB-related bets.
Major League Rule 21, posted in every clubhouse, states that betting on any baseball game in which a player, umpire, league official or team employee is under a non-performing obligation results in a one-year suspension. Betting on a game in which the person has an obligation to perform results in a lifetime ban.
2024-06-04 15:12:48
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