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MLB and “prediction market exchange” Polymarket agreed to a deal last week, which is exactly the kind of thing you want to hear while two of the league’s pitchers are under federal investigation for alleged outcome manipulations for prop bets that resulted in “charges of wire fraud conspiracy, honest services wire fraud conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy and conspiracy to influence sporting events by bribery.”
There are a couple of ways to look at this whole deal, one of which has been done in this space before and elsewhere, a raging against the fact that society has taken this turn and MLB has decided the check is worth directly involving itself in further propagating it. We have already seen where that has gotten us — again, federal charges — but it is worth pointing out that this likely would have happened without MLB’s direct involvement with sports betting.
This is, for better or worse — it’s worse, for the record — where legalized sports betting in the form we have has taken us. Sports betting is fine, as a concept, but as one of our finest philosophers, Spencer Hall, recently put it, “Sports gambling should be legal but you should have to go to an actual building to do it and it should be so off-putting and sad you’ll never want to do it again”. Or as I said nearly concurrently, “You need to be steeped in the shame of the thing, having gambling directly connected to your pocket is a net negative in so many ways, to the point it changes how people view the action and the world.” Instead, we’ve got people able to make prop bets on the same device from the same place in their living room that they then send threatening emails and tweets to athletes from once those bets don’t pay off.
The problem is that this kind of sports betting isn’t going anywhere, no matter how many families of players are placed under security because of the intensity of threats against them, not in a world where the United States federal government is basically doing insider trading on surprise overnight attacks of Iran in order to get a prediction markets payout. So, we’re left with a situation where you can participate, as MLB has, but attempt to have some control over the proceedings. Which MLB is also doing — in addition to the Polymarket deal, which the league basically used to allow Polymarket the use of its logos while giving MLB a direct say over the direction of prediction market activities, it also came to an “information sharing agreement” with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
That means federal regulation rather than state-by-state, but also this:
On Wednesday in Miami, Manfred and CFTC chairman Michael Selig signed a memorandum of understanding centered on the sharing of information confidentially. The two sides will meet regularly to discuss potential threats to integrity posed by specific markets.
“We’re making sure that we have the right guardrails and integrity standards in place, and that’s why we’re partnering with MLB, because we’ve got to get this right,” Selig said.
Am I happy about any of this? Absolutely not. Again, sports betting in the form we have it is a societal disease that is making both people and the world worse. As much as I want that to all go away, though, it’s not happening all at once or at all, and MLB has to exist within the world where it keeps on going and do what it can to minimize the damage. That the league is at least trying to establish a foothold for control over what kinds of betting is going to be allowed — to help eliminate the prop bets that gave Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz the opportunity to end up being charged by the federal government in the first place, for example — is notable, at least. “Commendable” would be going a little far, but it’s at least got the needle going in the right direction.
There is another way to handle all of this business, however, and it should not be disregarded. The NCAA has sued DraftKings for trademark infringement — in fact, did so the day after the MLB and Polymarket deal was announced — as the sports bettor’s use of names like “March Madness” in its app gives the mistaken impression that the NCAA approves of the betting going on under DraftKings’ watch.
The NCAA said the company’s unauthorized use of its trademarks is flatly contrary to one of the Association’s most deeply held institutional values: that sports betting must not be associated with, endorsed by, or linked to NCAA championships or the student-athletes who compete in them.
The NCAA makes clear in the complaint and its motion that every day that DraftKings continues to use these marks, millions of sports fans — and, critically, college students and young adults who are particularly susceptible to gambling harm — are exposed to the false suggestion that the Association has authorized or endorsed DraftKings’ gambling platform.
This causes confusion among NCAA members and student-athletes that the Association is involved with and/or endorsing sports betting, which is in direct contradiction to its robust education, integrity monitoring, anti-harassment and advocacy efforts to end risky prop bets.
The NCAA does not have any commercial relationships with any sportsbooks of any kind and continues to uphold a strict prohibition on advertising and sponsorships associated with betting. The NCAA says filing this complaint is a crucial step in furthering its mission to protect the integrity of competition and student-athlete well-being from the harms of sports betting.
Unlike MLB, the NCAA does not cash checks and partner with sportsbooks just because they are here in the world, and while that keeps it out of being able to directly influence the direction of said books and what bets are allowed, it also puts it in a position to do things like sue DraftKings. So, you know, to each its own.
Two very different approaches to handling this world of incessant, ever-present sports betting, and it’s unclear which will end up working out best in the end at this point. However, it’s a little worrisome that the NCAA, of all things — and at a time when its members are spending more and more on paying athletes thanks to changes in its structure in the NIL era — has said no thanks to making money off of virtual sportsbooks. Worrisome not for the NCAA, no, but for every league that didn’t make a similar calculus when it came to the potential repercussions of endorsement and strengthening of the sportsbooks’ position in society.
The NCAA might be fighting a losing battle here, but maybe it all would have turned out differently had the other leagues not all seen dollar signs and acquiesced; I wonder, would ESPN so regularly be gambling-focused, even during game broadcasts, if the partner leagues weren’t also in bed with the sportsbooks? I’ve watched an awful lot of college basketball this season, and the sport has been fairly insulated from gambling angles in those broadcasts, compared to other leagues. Just something to think about, as one league fights back and another decides the solution is working to change things from the inside since that’s the more lucrative option.
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