DOUBLE DOWN –
Nov. 12, 2025 – There is a growing body of research that indicates legalized sports betting has had dire consequences for Americans’ financial and mental health, particularly among young men. Professional athletes and their families now regularly receive death threats from angry bettors when they underperform. Gambling ads are ubiquitous and relentless.
Corruption is also growing. Two major betting scandals are currently roiling professional sports. Over the weekend, federal prosecutors indicted Cleveland Guardians players Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz on a variety of conspiracy-related charges for allegedly working with gamblers to affect the outcomes of games for profit. The scheme described by prosecutors was simple: Associates of Clase and Ortiz would allegedly place prop bets on whether their first pitch in a particular game would be a ball or a strike. Clase and Ortiz would then throw the first pitch into the ground near home plate, resulting in a called ball by the umpire.
This conspiracy was not foolproof. One of Clase’s tainted pitches was thrown for Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Andy Pages, an excellent defensive player who also had the plate discipline of a Jack Russell terrier for certain stretches of the year. Pages was walked only 29 times during the regular season; his colleague Shohei Ohtani, by comparison, was walked almost four times as often. In this case, Pages did what Clase hoped he wouldn’t do: He took a swing.
