Baseball

[Admiral Yi]

What's surprising, at least from what has come out so far, is how little was in it for them.  I guess they thought it was easy money.

Do you know how much they got?

[Sophie Scholl]

Do you know how much they got?

$5,000 for Ortiz and Clase each for the first pitch and $7,000 for the second one. $12k. Madness.

[Admiral Yi]

$5,000 for Ortiz and Clase each for the first pitch and $7,000 for the second one. $12k. Madness.

That's mind boggling.

[Sophie Scholl]

That's mind boggling.

Seriously. For guys making millions and with a lot more of that to come in their futures, to lose it all on that small of an amount is madness.

[Sophie Scholl]

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[Jacob]

Maybe the motivation was more about the thrill about being in control and outsmarting the system.

[The Minsky Moment]

The underlying problem is that MLB's own promotion of gambling on and in its games has become ubiquitous. Players are constantly interacting with sports gamblers because the gambling companies and MLB have converted large swaths of the fan base into gamblers and actively encourage fans to gamble.

And of course many players gamble themselves on their own time - maybe they start by confining themselves to other sports. But they know baseball best, so what could be wrong about betting on another, out of town game?  And come to think on it, why can't I bet on my own teams game if a I bet on my own side?  (the Rose defense).  And from there it's not a huge step to say - one ball vs one strike - what difference does it make? I don't know what Clase's motives really were, but it may be as simple as he didn't think it was any big deal.  And with official MLB games constantly televising updated betting crawlers, why would he?

Baseball went through this before and it almost killed the game.  The Landis rule was harsh but it had the virtue of being clear and understandable.  No gambling.  No fucking gambling in the game.   Our magnificent Supreme Court has made that more difficult but MLB could bring clarity through its own bright line rule.  Instead it went the other way and chased the money.

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

> Our magnificent Supreme Court has made that more difficult

No, it's our magnificent Congress, who refuse to even entertain the idea of shutting down sports books in Nevada.

[The Minsky Moment]

> Our magnificent Supreme Court has made that more difficult

No, it's our magnificent Congress, who refuse to even entertain the idea of shutting down sports books in Nevada.

Their power to do so was undermined by Murphy v. NCAA (2018), which is also the decision that opened up the floodgates to ubiquitous sports betting.

Congress does retain the power to set up and enforce its own regulatory scheme but that doesn't seem a realistic possibility in the current political environment. Perhaps this scandal will shock the politicians into action, but I'm not counting on it.

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

Their power to do so was undermined by Murphy v. NCAA (2018), which is also the decision that opened up the floodgates to ubiquitous sports betting.

Congress does retain the power to set up and enforce its own regulatory scheme but that doesn't seem a realistic possibility in the current political environment. Perhaps this scandal will shock the politicians into action, but I'm not counting on it.

So, I reviewed the decision and see that I was misremembering the basis of declaring the PASPA unconstitutional.  I thought the basis was the carve-out for Nevada (and for Delaware, Montana, and Oregon, which I didn't remember) unconstitutionally favoring a particular state.  The court relied on the Tenth Amendment and the anti-commandeering principle, though, so I see now what you're talking about.  That said, I still agree with their ruling.

[Syt]

Surely you don't want to punish all gamblers for the actions of a few bad apples. Next you'll be shouting "Defund the gambling sites!"

[Bauer]

I read something about why athletes have gambling problems awhile ago from a psychologist that made sense to me.

Their personalities are wired to compete and never give up.  Why would you want someone on your team who wasn't that way.  But it's a deadly personality combo for gambling.

[Razgovory]

Timmay was rigging baseball games?  I didn't know he had it in him.