MLB's tepid response to latest betting scandal hits the target but misses the bigger point

I can’t think of a more 2025 way to start a column than to tell you it deals with a sports gambling scandal, and the most 2025 question you could ask in response is, “which one?”

When I tell you it’s the one that led to criminal indictments of active pro athletes, that would still only narrow the list of contenders to two. And if you didn’t think the wholesale legalization of sports betting, paired with an array of commercial partnerships between leagues and sports books, would lead to the exact kinds of headlines we’ve seen in recent weeks, you probably don’t pay enough attention to sports or gambling.

But yes, Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz, both relief pitchers with the Cleveland Guardians, were rung up this past Monday on charges related to dodgy prop bets. Prosecutors allege that the pitchers colluded with gamblers who bet that specific pitches would a) miss the strike zone and b) come in below a certain velocity, and that everybody cashed in with Clase and Ortiz delivered errant pitches on purpose. According to the feds, the scheme brought in more than $400,000 US to the players and their betting friends.

All those specifics matter – to a point.

Because the bets in question focused on pitch location and velocity, MLB and its “authorized gaming operators” will now limit bets on individual pitches to $200, and exclude single pitches from parlays.

That decision hits this particular target but misses the bigger point.

Parlays are still easy to lose, because every individual bet composing it has to break right for the better to get paid. And prop bets – wagers on discrete elements of the game, rather than the overall result – are still comparatively easy to manipulate. Neither Clase nor Ortiz could, by themselves,