Casinos offered mixed reactions last week after Major League Baseball requested that legal sports books forego any wagering on spring training games.
MLB officials made the request out of “integrity concerns,” noting in a written request from MLB Deputy General Counsel Bryan Seeley that spring training games carry an increased risk of match-fixing concerns because they do not count in the standings.
“Spring training games provide greater opportunity for the misuse of inside information,” Seeley wrote in his request. “The outcome of games sometimes depends heavily on non-public managerial decisions that are made in advance and are independent of club or player performance, such as how many innings a pitcher will throw or in which inning minor league players will replace major league players…
“Spring training games are exhibition contests in which the primary focus of clubs and players is to prepare for the coming season rather than to win games or perform at maximum effort on every single play.”
The request was quickly rejected by Nevada regulators, who oversee the longest-running legal sports books in the U.S. The Nevada Gaming Control Board responded the day after the request, noting that the state’s sports books have long had controls in place to minimize concerns about match-fixing by MLB players, and that historically, there have been no problems associated with spring training.
Other casino regulators were not so quick to reject the request. Pennsylvania, which launched legal sports betting last December, was one of the jurisdictions that is honoring the request. The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board agreed to restrict the state’s legal books from accepting spring training wagers.
“We acknowledge the concerns they raised concerning sports wagering on spring training games and we are examining these concerns,” said Doug Harbach, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board. “While we do this, we have requested Pennsylvania sports wagering operators to refrain from offering wagers on spring training games.”
According to the Penn Live website, many Pennsylvania casinos, including Hollywood Casino at Penn National Race Course, indicated they weren’t going to accept the wagers anyway, but others planned to add spring training games to their menus by last week.
“Everybody gets excited for baseball season when it’s here, so we wanted to stay in line with the other sports books around the country,” said Matthew Cullen, senior vice president of iGaming and sports for Parx Casino, in an interview with the news site.
New Jersey regulators were still reviewing the MLB request at press time.
