In collective bargaining talks, the players’ union proposed wiping out every individual player prop bet, at sportsbooks, daily fantasy sites, and prediction markets alike, to stop the harassment that follows a losing wager.
- The MLB Players Association proposed banning all prop bets on individual players during collective bargaining talks with the league, according to ESPN
- The prohibition would cover sportsbooks, daily fantasy operators, and prediction markets, and would apply to every player-specific wager placed before or during a game
- The union framed it as a way to curb harassment from bettors and proposed putting players under betting investigation on administrative leave
- It follows the November indictment of two Cleveland Guardians pitchers in an alleged pitch-rigging scheme, after which MLB and its partner books capped pitch-level bets
- This is only a proposal in private negotiations, an MLB official said the league would respond during talks, and the current labor deal expires December 1
The people whose performances drive baseball’s betting markets want a big piece of those markets shut down. In collective bargaining talks this week, the Major League Baseball Players Association proposed a sweeping prop bet ban tied to individual players, according to ESPN.
Inside the MLB Prop Bet Ban Proposal
The union floated the idea Thursday during negotiations with Major League Baseball, suggesting the two sides lobby together for a prohibition on player prop betting at sportsbooks and daily fantasy operators, with prediction-market contracts on individual player performance banned as well, a union source told ESPN. The scope is total. It would cover every prop bet on an individual player, placed before or during a game, from a pitcher’s strikeout total to a hitter’s odds to go deep. The proposal, reported by ESPN’s David Purdum and Jeff Passan, would also put players who are under a betting investigation on administrative leave and let players punished for betting violations serve part of a suspension on a 15-day unpaid rehabilitation assignment in the minor leagues.
How Much Betting Is on the Table
This is not a small carve-out. Prop bets account for as much as 20 to 30 percent of the total money wagered on a game, according to sportsbook sources cited by ESPN, and player-specific markets are among the most popular bets in the sport. Eliminating them would reshape how sportsbooks, daily fantasy sites, and prediction markets price and sell baseball, and it would pull one of the fastest-growing parts of the betting menu off the board entirely.
Why Now: The Clase and Ortiz Scandal
The proposal does not come out of nowhere. In November, Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz were indicted on federal charges including wire fraud and bribery conspiracy, accused of deliberately throwing certain pitches so that tipped-off bettors could cash in on pitch-level prop bets. Prosecutors alleged the scheme won the bettors roughly $450,000. Both pitchers have pleaded not guilty and are presumed innocent. In response, MLB and its partner sportsbooks capped wagers on pitch-level bets at $200 and barred them from parlays, an attempt to drain the incentive to rig a single pitch.
The Harassment the Players Point To
The union’s stated reason is less about integrity than about abuse. As legal betting has spread, players have become targets for gamblers who lost money on them, with threats and insults arriving in volume on social media. The Clase case captured the ugliness in miniature. After losing a wager, one bettor sent the pitcher a mocking message, even though the Guardians had won the game. For the union, the logic is straightforward. The bets that single out one player’s stat line are the bets that turn that player into a target.
The Catch: Players Still Want the Endorsement Money
There is a revealing wrinkle. In the same proposal, the MLBPA asked MLB to confirm that players may sign endorsement and sponsorship deals with legal betting operators and prediction markets, something the current labor deal bars by prohibiting players from promoting betting on baseball. In other words, the players want to end the wagers that expose them to harassment while keeping the door open to the marketing dollars the betting industry pays. That is a players’ interest position rather than an anti-gambling one, and the distinction will shape how the league and the books answer it.
What the Industry Says
So far, no one on the other side is signing on. An MLB official told ESPN only that the league would respond to the proposal during negotiations, which is not an embrace. Sportsbooks have been blunter in the past. After the Clase scandal, asked whether books would scrap player props, Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook executive John Murray said plainly that they would not, a view much of the industry shares. There is a substantive counterargument too. Integrity analysts note that most player props carry limited manipulation risk because they hinge on many plays and many people, while the real danger sits in micro-bets on a single pitch, the exact market MLB already throttled. A blanket ban on every player prop, by that logic, is far broader than the demonstrated problem. And prediction markets, which are fighting in court to be treated as federal financial exchanges rather than sportsbooks, would resist a ban on entirely different grounds.
The Bigger Fight
None of this is settled, and it may not be soon. The proposal is one piece on a crowded board, dropped into contentious labor talks the same week the union rejected the league’s broader economic offer. The current collective bargaining agreement expires December 1, and a failure to reach a new one could trigger a lockout, which means the prop fight risks being swallowed by far bigger battles over money. It is also part of a pattern. The same Thursday the players floated their ban, the NCAA was asking Indiana regulators to prohibit prop bets on college athletes. Leagues, unions, and the NCAA are converging on the same target, and the betting industry is lining up on the other side.