You know these are businesses, right? I'm pretty confident that more than 50% of NFL fan interest is driven by (or at least supplemented by) gambling in one form or another. They would be the biggest idiots on the planet to not cater to that (whether directly as they have decided to do now) or in the "wink/wink, nod/nod" fashion of the last 30 years that I guess you preferred.
I was under the impression that baseball and football were sports. But I guess they aren’t sports anymore, they are just businesses like Amazon, Exxon, and Wal-Mart, whose only purpose is to make as much money as possible for their owners.Originally Posted by Boston Red
Hoping to change my username to 75769024
You and I don't agree on many things, but this is one. I'm convinced other sports (bowling, soccer, curling) could improve their viewership if they made their games and broadcasts more amenable to gambling.
Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. -- Carl Sagan (Pale Blue Dot)
Nothing more American than the lure of jumping social classes by gambling personal capital to hurdle them.
Truth is the ability to get players to play along in “schemes” pretty much died once the players all started to make money.
Pete Rose will always be the Hit King, Doug’s lightening rod and the last moron in MLB to poke the beat
1. There are plenty of MLB players who aren’t making a fortune who play pivotal roles in games, the Giants closer, for example, is a rookie who may never see the money of arbitration free agency.
2. There are many ways to influence the outcome of the game that don’t involve players.
Hoping to change my username to 75769024
True, but education against it probably saves him from making decisions so stupid... plus hey now he can make millions by playing the game because he's a rookie, and yes metadata is in play, gambling on it being successful is probably a bigger problem than players being involved.
Nonetheless gambling is fun, but I don't like to lose money I make working so I tend to avoid it
Chip R (10-13-2021)
Access to injury reports especially in college sports and the NFL... Huge and valuable inside information where you may not need a player to be directly involved
Also, there is currently an MLS player suspended for betting on MLS games
It's a Pandora's Box and the genie isn't going back in the bottle
Yes, this is why the bigget recent scandal involving athletes was in small-time tennis.
Remember Rose was a manager, not a player when he was suspended. Managers make decent money, but not in the “set for life” area that some players are, and they can influence a game much easier than a player. Coaches, and even some administrative staff can have info that would be highly valuable to gamblers.
My guess is that there already has been games influenced by gambling in every sport that we don’t know about and never will. Maybe not the final score, but there are an abundance of side bets that can be easily influenced by someone on the inside, or at least inside information given out. One easy to imagine hypothetical is a trainer not giving a starting pitcher the go ahead to start a game at the last minute, and giving that info ahead of time to a gambler betting on that game for a price. So many more, as oregonred said, a Pandora’s box.
Hoping to change my username to 75769024
Also why the biggest non-baseball betting scandal was college basketball's 70 years ago.
I think that inside info like that has been out there for years, carosing players were followed, women hired to flirt with them and keep them from wanting to go home and rest. Margins are thin for sure when you have so many variables, it's one of the reasons the NHL does not disclose injuries (that and other players work on that area extra hard)
To MLB, and myself, there's a huge difference between information being leaked or even sold to influence gambling and the opposite, where the gambling effects the game. MLB is more concerned about the 2nd one. The first one doesn't in itself hurt the integrity of the game. The 2nd one does. The first one baseball should take action if discovered, the 2nd one baseball must be diligent/proactive about and bring harsh penalties as they did with Pete Rose.
A player leaking information to a gambler doesn't change the outcome of the game, it changes the outcome of the odds. It's cheating against other gamblers who do not possess nor have an avenue to possess the information. That is the gambling industry's problem and also probably falls in the category of illegal activity along the same lines as insider trading on the stock market. But if I find out a player is leaking information about injuries or other non-public information to gamblers, I can still watch the game with interest. But I will think twice before betting on that team's games. If the opposite is true, then I would lose interest in baseball real quick if they don't address swiftly and harshly like they did with Pete.
Let me say that both are a problem that MLB has to watch for. If a player is leaking information to help out a gambler, there would be suspicion that it could be a two way street and the player could be doing other favors for the gambler within the game. Baseball can only hand out stiff penalties for either, but really can't control it beyond that. And MLB making money of legal gambling through advertising doesn't change that one way or another.
Last edited by foster15; 10-13-2021 at 11:48 AM.
I agree all of this has been happening for decades or longer. And that’s the problem with MLB and NFL embracing gambling so nakedly.
Hoping to change my username to 75769024
Chip R (10-13-2021)
I very much doubt that's the case. It's just that we only end up discussing (via this messageboard) the things that we disagree about. I'm sorry you and I ended up going to different Reds games when I was in San Francisco a few years ago, as I'm pretty sure we'd have gotten along just fine in person!
Pete Rose Rips Into Yankees And Joey Gallo
https://nypost.com/2021/10/13/pete-r...isappointment/After the Bronx Bombers were bounced in the AL Wild Card game by the Red Sox, the MLB’s all-time hit leader launched into a tirade against the Yankees – which quickly turned into a tirade against trade-deadline acquisition Joey Gallo.
“That was the worst f–king lineup they could have put on the field,” Rose said to USA Today, per NESN. “Their 6, 7, 8, 9 hitters were all out-men. They had to have (Aaron) Judge and (Giancarlo) Stanton do something. If they didn’t, all of the pressure was on Joey Gallo. You saw how that worked out.
“How does someone who didn’t play every day strike out 213 times? Ray Charles wouldn’t strike out that much. I just can’t imagine striking out 213 times without killing myself.”
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