Sports betting has become a global phenomenon in the world today. It has become popular with sports fans everywhere. It’s also been made available for athletes to bet on other sports. With that though comes some issues, players can try to hide some accounts and bet illegally. On Tuesday, the MLB announced that Tucupita Marcano will face a lifetime ban from betting on baseball due to him violating the league’s gambling policy.

The league had received some data from a legal sports-betting platform concerning some illegal baseball gambling activity. Several accounts were found belonging to players. Baseball and Softball players can participate in sports betting but can’t bet on diamond sports.

“The strict enforcement of Major League Baseball’s rules and policies governing gambling conduct is a critical component of upholding our most important priority: protecting the integrity of our games for the fans,” commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement. “The longstanding prohibition against betting on Major League Baseball games by those in the sport has been a bedrock principle for over a century. We have been clear that the privilege of playing in baseball comes with a responsibility to refrain from engaging in certain types of behavior that are legal for other people. Since the Supreme Court decision opened the door to legalized sports betting, we have worked with licensed sports betting operators and other third parties to put ourselves in a better position from an integrity perspective through the transparency that a regulated sports betting system can provide. MLB will continue to invest heavily in integrity monitoring, educational programming and awareness initiatives with the goal of ensuring strict adherence to this fundamental rule of our game.”

What You Need To Know:

Tucupita Marcano wasn’t the only player to be found making illegal bets on baseball/softball. That list also includes Oakland Athletics reliever Michael Kelly and minor-league players Jay Groome (Padres pitcher), José Rodríguez (Philadelphia Phillies infielder) and Andrew Saalfrank (Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher).

Marcano was found to have made 387 baseball bets. That number includes 231 MLB-related bets between Oct. 16, 2022 and Nov. 1, 2023, totaling over $150,000. The MLB stated that 25 of those bets included wagers made on Pirates games while he was on their Major League Roster. Those bets were all exclusively on the outcomes of the games and he lost all of those parlays. According to the league, Marcano won just 4.3% of all of his MLB-related bets.

The other four players made less than 50 bets each. None of them had bet on games while they were on an active roster of the two teams playing.

As stated above, the MLB allows personnel to gamble on sports as long as it’s legal in their territory and not on diamond sports. All of the players mentioned were found to have violated Rule 21, which is posted in every clubhouse. The rule features two notable points.

1. The non-Marcano players violated the first part of the rule: “Any baseball game in which a player, umpire, league official or team employee has no duty to perform results in a one-year suspension.”
2. Tucupita Marcano violated the second part of that rule which states: “Betting on a game in which the person has a duty to perform results in a lifetime ban.”

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