NBA players don’t get too much time off to spend the millions they make playing the game they love. After all is said and done, there are only so many mansions you can buy and luxury cars you can drive. Most baseball stars also like to spend money on relaxing. Home movie theatres, bowling alleys, and private jets are just some of the ways they like to kick back and relax after a hard season. Others like nothing more than sports betting in their downtime.

Unfortunately, baseball players are banned from betting on sports. As with other sports stars such as cricketers and boxers, there is a lot of controversy around allowing professional sportspeople to place a bet for fear that they will lose the game on purpose to win the bet.
Not every sports person listens to what they are told to do, however, often with disastrous consequences.

The 1919 Whitesox Team
In 1919, the Chicago Whitesox had real problems. They did not find just one of their players trying to fix matches to win sports bets; they discovered that there were eight of them trying to throw the World Series to win sports bets. They were trying to make sure that the Cincinnati Reds won so that gamblers would be paid out a lot of money. The Whitesox were unhappy and thought that they were not paid enough money so came up with a novel way of trying to make some more. They were actually all found not guilty of fraud but banned from ever playing the sport again.

Dennis McClain
Dennis McClain was a baseball player for the Detroit Tigers in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He was accused of being part of a sports gambling ring and it is alleged that he even had his toes broken by the mafia for his gambling exploits. He was suspended for three months over the allegation and eventually retired in 1972.

Leo Durocher

Leo Durocher was always a controversial figure, since he did not get on with a lot of other people in the sport and held the record for the most times a manager got ejected. An argument with a club owner led them to accuse each other of betting on sports and the MLB banned Durocher for the rest of the season. It is a fair bet that not many of his fellow baseball managers missed him that season.

Pete Rose

Pete Rose was given a lifetime ban from baseball. An investigation by Sports Illustrated found that he was betting on the outcome of sports games when he was the manager of the Cincinnati Reds in the late 1980s. Rose denied that he had ever bet on the Reds games but that didn’t stop the NLB from banning him from the sport for life. Some people think that this punishment was too harsh. A recent column suggested that as it is not illegal for a person to bet on baseball games and some sites even give away free bets, Pete Rose should be reinstated. The jury is still out on that one.

Shawn Chacon

Shawn Chacon found trouble in another way. As a professional player, he moved around the top clubs a lot and eventually left the sport after an alleged physical tussle with a manager. His troubles did not end with his career. A well-known sports betting casino then produced an arrest warrant for him relating to debts totaling $150,000. This was eventually settled out of court but that is a huge gambling debt for someone who isn’t supposed to be betting on sports.

Kris Bryant

Kris Bryant played for the Giants when he organized a charity event in 2015. Many stars of baseball past and present attended the event, and the idea was to raise the money for charity by beating MLB players in gambling games. If you beat the player, you won his jersey. This was a controversial tournament, but it went without a hitch or any disqualifications as it was played in the name of charity.

Post Career

Although current baseball players are not allowed to bet on sports games, there is nothing to stop them from betting once they have left the world of professional baseball. Some ex-players enjoy relaxing at the casino or on online betting but will often stick to the slots or traditional casino games such as blackjack or roulette rather than risking the controversy of sports betting.

Sports betting does not usually end well for professional baseball players. With allegations of match-fixing, they can often receive a ban that can last for anything from a couple of months to the end of their career. Although this is not the only sport that has been plagued with allegations, the fact that so much money can change hands means that it is a continuing issue

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