The spring of gambling reckoning across the sports industry has hit another major inflection point, signaling that the difficult coexistence between legal betting and league operations isn’t going to fade anytime soon. 

MLB suspended five players Tuesday for betting on baseball, including a lifetime ban on Padres infielder Tucupita Marcano (above), with each in the group wagering on major league games in blatant violation of league rules. The penalties closely follow a similar lifetime suspension levied by the NBA on Raptors center Jontay Porter, and federal bank and tax fraud charges on Ippei Mizuhara, the former interpreter for Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani—with both of those incidents also happening just in the last two months.

The latest cases continue to show the uneasy relationship between the growth of legal sports betting and leagues working to maintain competitive integrity.

Sports betting overall continues to soar to unprecedented heights, reaching record levels of revenue and total handle in 2023. As nearly every major sports league, including MLB, has built an extensive portfolio of gambling-related business relationships—sparking accusations of hypocrisy among some fans—those leagues have also sought to create a bright line marking what is and isn’t permissible for players.

In the case of MLB, that line includes sacrificing some broader societal rights.

“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,” said MLB commissioner Rob Manfred. 

MLB learned of the players’ wagering activities primarily from an unnamed, but legal, sportsbook operator. 

Terrible Performance

A further tragedy of the five MLB players damaging or throwing away entirely their pro baseball careers to gambling was how poorly they performed in their baseball-related wagers and, in some cases, how small the involved bets were.

Marcano bet more than $150,000 on baseball, with an average of about $378 per bet, and won only 4.3% of those, including losses in all of his parlays involving the Pirates, his former team. Padres minor league pitcher Jay Groome, suspended for a year, bet $453.74 on MLB games and posted a net loss of $433.54, and received payouts for only two of 32 MLB-related bets.

Diamondbacks minor league pitcher Andrew Saalfrank, also suspended for a year, posted a net loss of $272.64 on $444.07 of MLB-related bets and won just five of 28 wagers. A’s pitcher Michael Kelly also received a yearlong suspension for conduct involving just $99.22 worth of bets involving MLB games.

In the end, though, the level of activity was far less of an issue compared to the betting on MLB games at all by these players. Marcano is believed to be the first major leaguer to receive a permanent ban for gambling since Pete Rose agreed to a similar penalty in 1989 for wagering on games as a Reds player and manager from ’85 to ’87.

“The longstanding prohibition against betting on Major League Baseball games by those in the sport has been a bedrock principle for over a century,” Manfred said.

Mizuhara, meanwhile, pleaded guilty Tuesday to the federal charges, and now faces up to 33 years in prison, and also must pay restitution to Ohtani and the IRS. His sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 25.

Fan demand for the newly relocated Utah NHL franchise is so intense that the team now has something of a math problem on its hands. 

As tickets for the team officially go on sale Friday, Utah NHL officials said they have received more than 34,000 deposits for season tickets in the six-plus weeks since the move of the former Arizona Coyotes was announced. That figure is up by 70% from the 20,000 deposits made in the frenetic first 24 hours after the news hit of the relocation. 

The Math ‘Doesn’t Work’

But regardless of the final number, that demand is much higher than the roughly 10,000 seats at the Delta Center that will initially offer unobstructed views for hockey—a figure set to rise to 17,000 in the coming years. Team executives are now finalizing a plan in which season tickets will be offered on a first-come, first-serve basis depending on when the initial deposit was made, but also with an eye toward pushing partial-season ticket plans to allow a greater number of fans to have access to the debut season in Salt Lake City. 

Pricing will start at $44 per seat, per game. Additionally, priority will be given to purchasers with a Utah ZIP code. 

“The math just doesn’t work for everyone to get a seat,” said Chris Barney, Utah NHL chief commercial officer, in response to a Front Office Sports question. “It’s one of the reasons we’ll have a robust mini-plan offering and [why] we’re giving people on the deposit list priority to buy single-game tickets.”

Overall, the first season of the Utah NHL franchise will have a capacity of about 16,000 at the Delta Center, counting both unobstructed and obstructed seats. 

The situation somewhat mirrors the intense demand that also greeted the NHL’s arrival to Las Vegas, in which the Golden Knights capped their season-ticket sales a full year before starting play. As the Utah franchise looks to the Golden Knights and other high-demand teams as business influences, the arrival of the NHL to the Beehive State also marks a significant milestone in the ongoing growth of pro sports there.

“We’re in a position to watch what other teams have done [in this situation] and take the best of what they’ve done and apply it here to make sure people feel like we’re engaging them,” Barney said. 

What’s in a Name?

The franchise, meanwhile, is reportedly advancing plans to finalize a temporary moniker as the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has received multiple applications for Utah Hockey Club and various logos relating to that. That branding will act as essentially a placeholder for the first season while a broader fan-focused effort continues to select the permanent name.

That initiative, beginning last month with 20 name candidates, is now winnowing down to a final four, according to team owner Ryan Smith. Appearing recently on The Pat McAfee Show, Smith said Yeti and Mammoth will be among the remaining candidates.

“We’ve got our four. I think Mammoth’s up there. I think Yeti’s up there. I think a couple other ones are up there. I think it should be good,” Smith said on the show.