Cleveland Guardians pitchers indicted in connection to sports gambling investigation

ABC News ^ | November 09, 2025 | Aaron Katersky

[nitzy]

For all of you worried about the future of these sports leagues....Pro wrestling admitted it was rigged in a court case in 1989. It didn’t hurt their bottom line.

I’m sure these sports ball leagues full of anti-American thugs will do just fine.

[discostu]

Prop bets have been around for a long time. They tended to happen in sports bars more than anything. Guys starting with “5 bucks says”. Prop bets at the bookie generally had to involve the whole game.

But it’s not the specific kind of bet that matters. It’s the rig. And rigs of various types have happened for ages. When all the betting is illegal they usually get found because somebody involved gets busted for something else. Like the betting scandal Henry Hill’s (later slightly fictionalized in Goodfellas) was involved in. That didn’t fall until years later.

But with legal betting, even in the old days when that was just at sports books in Vegas. The house has a stake in things not being rigged. They pay a lot of people to do a lot of math to set odds and lines such that the house always wins. They only lose money when somebody puts their thumb on the scale. So when their math spots that, they call the feds. There’s an ESPN 30 for 30 on a basketball scandal from the early 90s (too much work for me to look it up). And the investigation started with a sports book in Vegas saying “this looks funny”. Legal gambling is better at catching cheats. Which is why we’re getting all these stories so soon after they happen rather than the usual decade or more of the old days.

[DownInFlames]

It’s everywhere, MLB, NBA, collegiate. Anywhere there is sports betting, there will be corruptible figures.

[discostu]

Except their bottom line is negligible (at least on the sports scale). Last year the NFL’s revenues went UP by more than twice the entire revenue of the WWE. The money in sports is in not screwing with the results, because that’s when their unpredictable, which keeps fans engaged.

[Bonemaker]

They misspelled Indians.

[Bonemaker]

[circlecity]

“ Legal gambling is better at catching cheats.”

Its better at discovering cheating because they can use algorithms to monitor where the action is coming in and see suspicious, unexplainable last minute surges in betting on a specific bet. In just about every instance, though, it takes a snitch to nail the athlete. The athletes are to dumb to know the people they are dealing with are very prone to getting arrested and will rat them out in a second to work down their case.

[circlecity]

“ Somebody earning more in one season than most people earn in a working lifetime, is putting that at risk for some half baked gambling scheme.”

They are usually gamblers themselves who have dug a deep hole for themselves in gambling losses. Their bookie then suggests an easy way to wipe out those losses. Why do they still use bookies in the era of legalized gambling? Bookies extend credit. And a bookie will give a pro athlete all the credit in the world until he owns him.

[libertylover]

But I’ve often heard that the referees could call holding on every play.

I believe it. Talking heads say that if you hold your opponent in the chest area, you'll get away with it, but if you grab outside the shoulders, you'll likely get flagged.

And I was at a game the other day when our quarterback took off and ran for a 30-yard gain, but after the play one of refs called holding 30-yards behind the action.

[packrat35]

NFL is so obvious, I expect it something soon from the feds on them.

[ridesthemiles]

SPORTS BETTING :

WHAT COULD GO WRONG?????

EVERYTHING

[Red Badger]

The NFL is hip deep in this stuff, I’d bet.....😁

[Red Badger]

The NFL is hip deep in this stuff, I’d bet.....😁

[1Old Pro]

Who knew players would be involved, it’s not like sports betting is a trillion dollar industry played by half the nation on electronic devices or anything.