Tucupita Marcano’s ban puts fine point on MLB’s alliance with gambling

Baseball's partnerships with sportsbooks inundate viewers with ads for sports betting. Is it any wonder the San Diego Padres infielder ended up getting hit with a lifetime ban?

Major League Baseball has brought down the heaviest hammer in its arsenal. On Tuesday, the league issued a lifetime ban to the San Diego Padres' Tucupita Marcano after its investigation revealed he had repeatedly bet on Pittsburgh Pirates games while a member of that team.

MLB said that Marcano placed 387 bets on baseball between 2022 and 2023, totaling more than $150,000 in wagers. Twenty-five of those bets were parlay wagers that included a bet on his own team to lose. Marcano placed them while he was injured and out of the lineup, and the league and player both deny that he manipulated any games. But it was all much too close for MLB's comfort, so the league permanently exiled the 24-year-old. MLB suspended four other players one year apiece for lower-tier gambling infractions. Those players bet smaller amounts on games not involving their own teams, though a few of them were minor leaguers who bet on their organization's major league teams. Nobody punished on Tuesday is a star player, and if MLB has its way, the stories will soon fade from the limelight.