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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.