Federal indictment of Guardians’ pitchers rocks MLB

Federal indictment of Guardians’ pitchers rocks MLB

The federal indictment of Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emanuel Class A and Luis Ortiz has shaken Major League Baseball and raised serious questions about the growing intersection between sports and legalized gambling. Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn say the two pitchers took bribes as part of a scheme to rig bets on individual pitches, a case that could carry massive legal and ethical consequences for the league. To help us understand what this indictment means legally and how it could change the way major leagues handle betting and data integrity, we’re joined by sports and entertainment attorney Dan Lust, also the host of the Conduct Detrimental Podcast and a leading voice on sports law. Dan, long time no see. How you doing, man? I’m good. Good. A pleasure. And let’s just say um you know, my spider sense has been tingling that uh we’re going to get more and more of these. So certainly happy to be on and and uh you know, appreciate the call. Ah, anytime. very interesting time in sports, especially around the legality and sports betting and how this impacts leagues and all of that. But Dan, from a legal standpoint, what stands out to you the most in this indictment? Are federal prosecutors essentially accusing these players of game fixing or is this being framed more as a fraud and bribery case? Yeah, it’s a little bit of both. I I think if you do the math, each guy’s looking at three different charges, combination of bribery, uh fraud, money laundering. It’s, you know, decades in prison is what these guys are looking at. Um, but you ask me what what stands out the most in this day and age in 2025. We have this technological component. Um, you know, and for lack of a better term, it’s when you hear in the news this suspicious betting activity. And that’s when, you know, these these sites, these third parties can look at and see if something looks odd, if if an odd amount of money is being wagered on a particular prop or particular event. And that’s based on individual users, you know, normal tendencies, right? someone’s generally betting $100 a game and all of a sudden they’re betting 10,000 on a particular event. Um, you know, but that’s that’s the type of evidence that’s just generally hard to overcome. So again, everyone’s innocent until proven guilty, but that technological component, that irregular irregularity in the betting patterns, um, that’s been hard to overcome in terms of the the public sense. Um, yeah, I mean that’s that’s what stands out to me. So certainly the betting patterns, the text messages, it it doesn’t look good at the outset. Yeah, none of this looks really good. As you said, everybody is innocent until proven guilty. But we have to talk about this in terms of Major League Baseball as well, Dan, because the league, they have embraced legal sports betting through partnerships and then prop betting expansion in recent years. Does that increase the league’s legal responsibility to monitor player activity or report suspicious wagering patterns? Yeah, I mean, I would think so. when I was um I speak at obviously and Dexi, you know, I’m on law school panels. I I teach at law school and we have this conversation about ethics. I think the toothpaste is out of the tube, so to speak. You’re you’re not pulling, you know, draft kings, vandal. You’re not pulling these big markets off the table. And the question is, what does Major League Baseball do to combat this? And you could talk about, you know, individual player tops, be it, you know, Jonte Porter in the NBA or what’s going on with Terry Roier or in the UFC with particular actors. The problem is that these bets are occurring with like we’ll call it like micro props, one player doing one thing that doesn’t involve coordinated team activity. Um you know and it’s going to take be it major league baseball, the NFL, the NBA, one of these major sports to lay down the hammer on a particular actor and to show that this technological platform, this suspicious betting patterns, they’ll catch anything, right? you can give your tip um to somebody right to one you know bad actor on the other side but if that person shares it with two three four five people um and we can talk about class A in Ortiz specifically here you know those betting patterns are going to get flagged and that’s going to go to Major League Baseball to the NBA to the NFL before the actual event itself occurs because you have to put the bets in ahead of time so you know I think Major League Baseball has to set an example at some point and again everyone is innocent until proven guilty but you know maybe this is the example that they found someone with their hand caught in the cookie jar and they could set that example. But until that happens, I I don’t think players have gotten the message at this point. Yeah, it is going to be interesting to see how if Major League Baseball has to in this situation sets that example, how harsh of a penalty that could be. And that kind of goes to where I wanted to get next with you, Dan, which is if these allegations are proven true, what kind of penalties could Class A and Ortiz be facing both in terms of federal sentencing and then also disciplinary action for Major League Baseball? Yeah. So, I mean, we’ll we’ll cross them at the same time, right? Like, Major League Baseball doesn’t need a criminal conviction in order to suspend someone for for life, right? To to ban them and not just give him the Pete Rose status to ban someone from the Hall of Fame, to ban them as an active player. Class A is a two-time reliever of the year, three-time all-star, you know, he is he is a big name in Major League Baseball. Ortiz certainly to a lesser extent, but if you’re going to send that message, I mean, you got to do it early and often. Um, so certainly from a Major League Baseball perspective, these players have been placed on administrative leave, paid leave. Um, I I don’t expect either of them to be playing next year and moving forward. So that could be a lifetime ban. Um, it could be a year or two, but I I again, you’re not rooting for it if uh depending on your perspective. But if these charges are are found and there seems to be some credibility, I think a lifetime ban is is certainly well within play. And on the criminal side, right, you just stack up these moneyaundering charge, these fraud charges, these, you know, these bribery charges, you’re looking at decades in prison if you have a conviction. And certainly, you know, we we’d be remissed to point out that both players have denied the allegations and they said the the payment transactions are are for lawful activity. But, you know, this irregular betting pattern, I think, still stands out. So, it’s going to be a very hard hill to climb. Obviously again innocent till proven guilty but this irregular betting pattern you know these these sites flag it for a reason and it’s certainly could have false positives but it seems like from the evidence to so far this happened on a number of occasions and on those occasions when you match up the irregular bets to the actual pitches the pitches themselves were irregular. So um it’s just it’s a very hard battle uh at this point for both players and Dan there’s also some time going back on this because we’re going back to some of the stuff going back to as far as 2023 that we’re seeing. So there’s a whole b bunch of time that the feds have been looking at this and looking at both of these pitchers involved in this allegedly. How in your eyes when you look at this, this isn’t new for sports betting scandals in sports, but how does this case compared to historical sports scandals like Pete Rose, the 1919 Black Socks or in the NBA, Tim Donahe with his refereeing scandal in terms of the legal implications and the threat to a sports integrity. How does this one compare to some of those? Yeah, this is the interesting thing and you know I tell my students all the time like people can blame you know the the legalization of gambling for all these activities but you know the truth is like this stuff has been happening for years going back to Arizona State or Boston College or or you know CUNI like there’s been point shaving scandals for years um but it’s the technology that’s being able to catch it on this instance and I will say you know Dexter what I I think is unique to this story and to the NBA story um and even to the Jonte Porter saga that was a year prior are these individual player props like you can talk about Tim Donnagy, uh, Pete Rose, the Black Sox scandal. Those are a team throwing the World Series or or points being shaved off a game. Those are kind of traditional bets, be it moneyline bets, red bets, overunder bets. Um, these are micro player props that that kind of you could call them exotic bets, but those have really risen in this era of draftings and FanDuel in the in the legalization era, you know, in the last 10 years. So there really is no like you can bring up Pete Rose yes it involved gambling but it’s one particular prop that’s being bet on be it Jonte Porter unders or Terry Roier unders um that’s one player dictating the result so there really is no historical comp because player props weren’t bet at this frequency up until right the last 10 years so it’s it’s fairly new um but in that sense it really doesn’t involve like collaborative effort if a pitcher if the prop here for class A or is will a pitcher throw and this is what was alleged to be gamble on, right? Will a pitcher throw a pitch under 95 miles an hour, but will it be an off-speed pitch versus a fast ball? Like, that doesn’t require coordination of any of the other eight players on the field. It just requires the pitcher to make a decision. So, you know, that’s very tough to police. It’s very tough to find out because it’s really just that one player as opposed to a coordinated effort, which you need on a point shaving scandal, you know, in basketball or the Black Sox allegedly throwing the World Series way back when. Like, you need coordinated effort of every player on that team. So yeah, I I I think it’s hard to find a true historical comp to this. Yeah, it is. And that also is what makes it a bit scarier in this situation too, right? Because of the fact that you have a situation where it’s just one player that can impact this and it’s it’s it’s just really scary. But you made a statement earlier and saying that the toothpaste is out of the tube here, in which I would agree. So when you look big picture at this, Dan, this is the last thing for me. Do you believe this case could force a re-evaluation of how leagues and sports books handle micro betting on individual plays or pitches given how easy, as you just kind of pointed out, it could be to man manipulate? Do you think this could, you know, maybe force a re-evaluation of how leagues and sports books handle this? I think you have to. And I I think you could, you know, there is a comp for this. You could look at the NBA. Dante Porter, who we’ve referenced a couple times, was a two-way player and for lack of a better term, that’s basically like a minor leaguer being shifted between, you know, the G- League and the pros. And at that period of time, you know, these websites offered lines on any active player, you know, the over underline would be set at like one and a half, right? Or a half a point. Will they score a point? Um, and those players at the end of the bench that are on two-way salaries or or, you know, minimum salaries, those players certainly have more incentive to bet because they’re not making, right, like LeBron salary in the tens of millions of dollars. They’re they’re on minimum salaries and they might not even be in the NBA in the next year. So, you know, in the NBA in the wake of the Jonte Porter saga, I think tightened up their their prop lines, right? They’re only offering wines on, we’ll say, the top eight guys in the rotation or seven guys, but they’re not really putting in the guys at the end of the bench. You know, when you go to a Major League Baseball game now and um you know, you could just go on draft teams in FanDuel, they offer live odds on any pitcher that has the ball on their hands. And who needs that, right? Do we need to be able to bet on every single pitch, fastball, curveball? Like, do do we need that? Is that what brings gamblers to the table? The ability to live bet every pitch as opposed to betting, you know, the overall outcome of the game. So, I I think baseball’s going to have to look certainly what basketball has done and I think football has to do the same and hockey and really kind of limit the amount of action to players um you know that that certainly aren’t making the money. The interesting thing here and Dexter, this is why there’s some coms to Terry Roier. Terry Roier had made tens of millions of dollars in the NBA. Class A was a three-time all-star, two-time reliever of the year. He had made his money. And that’s what’s a little dangerous. Like Ortiz was not Ortiz was closer to a minimum level guy. So, you kind of get it from that standpoint. But when guys making tens of millions of dollars make the decision to make a couple thousand in exchange for for a bet, as is alleged here, that’s got to be pretty scary. Um, so baseball, I think, really has to to look very closely at how they limit this action. Um, and they have to find ways to disincentivize players for for partaking in this activity. I think you hit the nail on the head there, Dan, in terms of guys who are making millions of dollars that are willing to then get in this. And the place that we didn’t even get into, but it’s another conversation for another day is you wonder how this could then affect collegiate athletics, right? If players who are making millions of dollars on the professional level can be manipulated into this kind of behavior, then you wonder how it could affect amateur college athletics. It shall be interesting to see. But a good conversation, Dan. We appreciate the time. Everybody check out Dan Lust, sports and entertainment lawyer, one of the best in the business when it comes to talking about this. And Dan, I appreciate you joining us to give us your perspective legally on its whole situation with the baseball indictment of Emanuel Class A and Luis Ortiz. Thank you so much, my friend. My pleasure.

Major League Baseball faces a major integrity crisis after federal prosecutors indicted Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz for allegedly taking bribes to manipulate bets on individual pitches. Sports attorney Dan Lust joins Dexter Henry to break down the legal implications, the potential fallout for MLB and how this case could reshape the relationship between professional sports and legalized gambling.

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