More than a month has ed since Major League Baseball issued a lifetime ban to former Pittsburgh Pirates infielder Tucupita Marcano for betting on more than two dozen games involving his team.
At the time, the Pirates noted that no evidence showed that any of the games were manipulated, compromised, or influenced by the infielder. On Thursday, Robert Nutting, principal owner of the Pirates, lauded MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred and the league for their handling of the investigation. Under Major League Baseball Rule 21, placing a wager on a game in which a player has a duty to perform results in a lifetime ban from the league.
“I think everyone in baseball knows those policies clearly,” Nutting told a small pack of reporters on Thursday. “I think it was a very unusual aberration and we certainly what Rob did.”
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In total, Marcano made 387 bets on baseball from Oct. 16-23, 2022, as well as July 12 through Nov. 1, 2023, according to the investigation. The Venezuelan native went hitless on July 24, 2023, his last appearance with the Pirates. A day later, the team placed him on the injured list with a right knee injury. While on the list, Marcano still received treatment for the ailment at PNC Park in Pittsburgh.
Nutting appeared Thursday at the 2024 National Council of Legislators From Gaming States (NCLGS) Summer Meeting. Twice a year, NCLGS brings together the leading state lawmakers, regulators, and lobbyists from the gambling industry. The Pirates’ owner delivered the comments from a ballroom inside Rivers Casino Pittsburgh, a short walk from the team’s riverside ballpark.
Bob Nutting, owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates credits the regulated market – and its inherent transparency = to discovering and stopping MLB players from wagering. Regulation helps to maintain integrity.
— John A Pappas (@yanni_dc) July 18, 2024
Nutting emphasized that it appears that Marcano’s gambling conduct was isolated. None of his former Pittsburgh teammates have been accused of wagering on Pirates games. Of the nearly 400 wagers Marcano placed on baseball, 231 were MLB-related, with the others on international contests. While Marcano placed $87,319 on the wagers, he only won on 4.3% of his MLB bets, the investigation found.
On the same day that MLB announced Marcano’s banishment, the league also suspended Oakland A’s pitcher Michael Kelly and three minor leaguers for violations of the league’s sports betting policy.
Kelly, who was claimed by the A’s off waivers in November, had 22 strikeouts with Oakland this year. According to the investigation, Kelly placed 10 bets from October 5, 2021, through October 17, 2021, as a pitcher for an Astros minor league team. Kelly wagered $99.22 in aggregate, returning a profit of $28.30.
MLB has been rocked by a litany of betting allegations over the last 12 months. In March, the Dodgers fired Ippei Mizuhara, the former interpreter of Shohei Ohtani, after reports surfaced that Mizuhara wagered millions of dollars with an illegal California sports betting ring. Mizuhara later pleaded guilty in connection with embezzling more than $16 million from Ohtani to re-pay his considerable sports betting debts.
Upon Mizuhara’s guilty plea in June, MLB announced that the league considers Ohtani a “victim of fraud,” based on the thoroughness of the federal investigation.
Separately, MLB issued a statement in June regarding an investigation of umpire Pat Hoberg. During the investigation of Hoberg’s potential violation of the league’s sports betting policy, MLB determined that discipline was warranted.
Hoberg, who has denied betting on baseball according to ESPN, is appealing the sanction. The league also found no evidence that any game worked by Hoberg was compromised or manipulated in any way, according to the statement.
Asked how troubled league owners are by the allegations against Hoberg, Nutting demurred.
“It’s probably not appropriate for the Pirates to have a position,” Nutting told Sports Handle. “I know how hard everybody works to maintain integrity and how aggressively it is enforced. I think the Commissioner’s Office is doing a fantastic job in doing as much as they can, and we encourage it.”
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Before MLB announced Marcano’s suspension, the Padres claimed him off waivers last November. He opened the 2024 season on the injured list as he continued his recovery from knee surgery.
“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,” Manfred said last month. “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.”
The sports world has seen a number of betting scandals so far this year, including:
• Jontay Porter
• Ippei Mizuhara
• Tucupita Marcano@Alex__Schiffer says that “we’ve only seen the beginning."https://t.co/u0laLu5orf pic.twitter.com/brXBbUjT00— Front Office Sports Today (@FOS_Today) July 7, 2024
Marcano is the second athlete from a major U.S. pro sports league to be banned this year due to a sports betting violation. The NBA banned former Raptors center Jontay Porter in April after the league determined that Porter engaged in match manipulation in at least two games during the 2023-24 regular season.
Porter pleaded guilty last week to conspiring with a syndicate to underperform in several statistical categories to ensure the outcome of several parlays. In one instance, the group made more than $1 million on an $80,000 Porter-related wager, an amount that was reportedly frozen from the bettor’s .
Amid player-betting scandals in numerous professional and college sports, New York Congressman Paul Tonko has introduced federal legislation to curb some of the most vexing components of the legal sports betting market.
