Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said this summer he would try to rally major U.S. sports leagues to lobby against certain forms of prop betting. Now, he says the leagues are working together to push for national action.
DeWine said this week that he is pausing in his efforts to instigate a statewide ban on micro betting because MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred is leading that effort. The governor said Manfred’s office asked him to hold off with his push until after the World Series, as reported by Cleveland.com.
Per the Columbus Dispatch, Manfred’s office told DeWine that it believes it has an agreement with most sportsbooks to ban such wagers.
DeWine publicly called for the Ohio Casino Control Commission (OCCC) to ban micro bets on July 31 amid MLB’s investigation into Cleveland Guardians pitchers Luis Ortiz and Emmanuel Clase. The kind of bets DeWine wants outlawed are “highly specific events within games that are completely controlled by one player,” to use his words. That could include outcomes such as whether a pitch is a ball or a strike.
“These micro prop bets are just very dangerous,” DeWine told the Dispatch. “They’re really a great threat to the integrity of sports. And they can occur in baseball, but they also occur in other sports as well.”
Ohio regulator mulling action
Per Pelzer, DeWine said that pro sports leagues leading an effort to ban micro betting would raise the possibility of such wagers being prohibited in all 50 states, even though sports betting is regulated on a state-by-state basis.
“But, if we can’t get it done, I think as governor, I’ve got an obligation to take action,” DeWine added.
The OCCC announced in the days after DeWine’s call for a ban that it was working on drafting a rule to prohibit player-specific micro wagers. There has been no update since then. This week, DeWine suggested that a league-led effort would allow the OCCC to issue a statewide ban “without having to go through procedural hoops.”
SBC Americas reached out to the OCCC to inquire about the governor’s comment, as well as the status of the agency’s consultation and its own investigation into the Guardians pitchers, but had not heard back at the time of writing.
The OCCC has been proactive on prop bets in the past. It was an early mover to prohibit college player props in February 2024 after NCAA President Charlie Baker requested that states ban those wagers.
Prop bets in the eye of the storm
DeWine’s latest comments come as player prop wagers in particular are under more scrutiny than ever before in the wake of not only this summer’s MLB furor but the scandal currently engulfing the NBA in recent days that has generated wall-to-wall mainstream media coverage. Numerous outlets have run thinkpieces opining that prop betting is an existential threat to the integrity of sports.
MLB chief Manfred has publicly questioned the wisdom of allowing micro bets in the past. He told reporters around the time of the MLB All-Star Game that he believes certain types of bets are unnecessary and particularly vulnerable to manipulation.
NBA’s own commissioner Adam Silver said last week, just before the FBI lifted the lid on the indictments of NBA player Terry Rozier and other league personnel, that certain betting markets are “too easy” to manipulate. Silver revealed the league had asked its sportsbook partners to scale down the range of prop bets they offer.
