ORLANDO, Fla. – Weeks after a Miami Heat player was arrested in Orlando during what prosecutors say was a sports betting scheme to help bettors win big, another incident is prompting changes from sportsbooks across the country, including Hard Rock Bet, and their app.
[VIDEO: Miami Heat player Terry Rozier arrested in Orlando as over 30 nabbed in gambling schemes]
Two pitchers for the Cleveland Guardians were indicted Sunday, after federal prosecutors said Emmanual Clase and Luis Ortiz threw non-competitive pitches to win gamblers nearly $500,000 in prop bets.
Prop bets are wagers placed on specific parts of a game – think about how many rebounds a player would grab in a basketball game, how many yards a receiver would catch in a football game, how many hits a baseball player records, etc.
[VIDEO: Pitchers Clase, Ortiz cited in sporting gambling indictment]
But in the evolving world of sports betting, a new kind of wager has arisen. “Micro-bets”, as they’re called, are even more specific wagers – bets placed on minute aspects of a game, in baseball, down to the specific pitch.
It’s something that even caught the eye of Gov. Ron DeSantis.
“Prop betting creates a lot of temptation for players to have a side hustle while not having to throw an entire game,” the Governor wrote on social media. “It was clear that the NBA was not alone. Bad incentives.”
Monday, on the heels of the indictments against Clase and Ortiz, Major League Baseball announced new limits on “micro betting.”
Effective immediately, wagers on individual pitches will be capped at $200, and the bets cannot be used in parlays. The league says the measure will significantly mitigate risk on pitch-level markets, which have heightened integrity risks because they focus on one-off events that can be determined by a single player, while still being inconsequential to the outcome of the game.
News 6 reached out to Hard Rock Bet to see if their mobile platform will reflect those changes.
“This initiative reflects a shared industry commitment to regulation, licensing, consumer protection, integrity and responsibility,” a spokesperson for the company said. “Working in partnership with Major League Baseball, we’re committed to strengthening the regulated framework that ensures safe, transparent, and trustworthy sports betting experiences.”
There have been calls by some governors to outlaw prop betting as a whole. News 6 reached out to the governor’s office to learn if that’s something being explored in Florida. At this point we have not yet heard back.
Prop bets are allowed in Florida on everything except for college sports, as part of the 2021 gaming compact between the Seminole Tribe of Florida and the State.