In what sounds a little like an “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” type of situation, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said the league will consider partnering with prediction markets.
Speaking at the end of baseball’s winter meetings in Palm Beach, the commissioner — who as recently as last year was bemoaning the fact MLB was “dragged” into legalized sports betting — said that this may be the only way to protect against more illegal gambling scandals in the sport.
“We thought it was important for the owners to be updated on why prediction markets are different than sports betting, why we might want to consider being in business with prediction markets in an effort to protect our integrity, to get the kind of protections we need,” Manfred said, according to Front Office Sports. “The regulatory framework — very different. Obviously, state by state on the sports betting side, federal on the other.”
Of course, MLB has had its share of bumps and bruises in the post-PASPA era, from a scandal involving Ippei Mizuhara, the interpreter for modern-day Babe Ruth Shohei Ohtani, to the ongoing investigation into Cleveland Guardians pitcher Emmanuel Clase, accused of throwing pitches in accordance with gamblers’ wishes.
Manfred did point out that in all cases where there either has been, or seemed like there was, hinky stuff going on, the league found it out via data partnerships with the sportsbooks and their partners.
“Every situation we’ve had has been based on data that we received from sports betting properties,” Manfred said, according to The Athletic. “That data, kind of generically … would be characterized as patterns, right? That pattern emerges, you know, sometimes it’s betting when a particular player is involved. Sometimes it involves individuals that when it starts, you have no reason to believe — it’s not a player that’s betting, it’s just some guy that is a stranger to us. So sometimes it takes time for those patterns to become clear.”
One size fits all
Manfred also isn’t against the idea of one set of federal rules covering the entirety of the prediction market landscape, instead of the state-by-state patchwork of legalized sports betting.
“The interesting thing about the prediction markets is there’s an opportunity to work with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission,” he said. “If you got where you want it to be, you’d have a nice federal regulation, it’d be the same everywhere. Kind of a nice thing.”
MLB wouldn’t be the first league to sit at the table with Kalshi and company: The NHL has seen teams partner with prediction markets, with more certainly to come.
The NBA and NFL so far have not engaged the prediction markets, but the winds seem to be blowing in that direction, at least for the NFL.
“It’s innovative. That marketplace is dynamic,” Jeff Miller, the NFL’s executive vice president, told Front Office Sports last week before the Super Bowl.
