14 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY APRIL 11-17, 2024 www.montereycountyweekly.com All Bets are Off Sports betting is good for generating cash, but it’s bad for what makes sports special. By Dave Zirin FORUM Gambling is not just essential to the economy of sports and sports media; it has, in essence, become the economy of sports and sports media. Faced with an aging and fragmenting television audience, the sports world turned to partnering with legal gambling operations to fill its coffers. From a dollars-and-cents perspective, this has been wildly successful, and the revenue just keeps growing. But in the process, sports executives ushered a fox into the henhouse. It’s not a growing addiction among fans that concerns and threatens the corner office. It’s the scandals of the athletes themselves. In the past month, players have allegedly used inside information to place bets, allegedly fixed individual and team outcomes and damaged the credibility of their sports. These stories, once incredibly rare, now come out with the regularity of a metronome. One recent scandal involves Ippei Mizuhara, the former translator for the greatest baseball player on Earth, Shohei Ohtani. Mizuhara was caught betting $4.5 million with an illegal bookie operation that was raided in California. But Ohtani’s name was found on the betting slips. Mizuhara initially said that this was because Ohtani was helping him pay off his debts. But Ohtani says that Mizuhara stole the money from his accounts and that he was shocked—shocked!—to find that gambling was going on. People are skeptical of Ohtani’s account and wonder whose bets Mizuhara was really placing. No matter the truth of the story, it has tarnished Ohtani’s reputation and brought the outcomes of games into doubt. Then, as we were still getting our heads around the Ohtani scandal, Cleveland Cavaliers coach JB Bickerstaff came forward to say that he has been threatened by people betting on games. AllStar Indiana Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton said he feels like a gambling “prop” and, “To half the world, I’m just helping them make money on DraftKings or whatever.” Pro athletes are some of the most competitive people; they have disposable income and they are— like the rest of us—on their phones constantly. This will keep happening. It’s easy to “game a bet” since you are not just betting on wins or losses. You can bet upon the performances of individual players, which is far easier to manipulate. The media has normalized the hyper-focus on gambling. Big-time, award-winning broadcasters talk betting lines with the relish with which they used to talk about touchdowns and slam dunks. ESPN’s Rece Davis, after one gambling segment, said, “You know what? Some would call this wagering, gambling; the way you’ve sold this, I think what it is, is a risk-free investment.” How are we supposed to trust investigative sports media to examine the corrosive effects of gambling on the sports world when its economic lifeblood depends upon more bets? The thing that sports has over other forms of entertainment is the undetermined outcome. If people start to believe that the situation is rigged, they will turn away. Dave Zirin is the sports editor at The Nation, where this story first appeared. He is the author of 11 books on the politics of sports. OPINION Sports executives ushered a fox into the henhouse. MONTEREY’S PREMIER GERMAN CAR SPECIALISTS 249 DELA VINA AVE. MONTEREY 831.373.5355 CCREPAIRMONTEREY.COM R E P A I R CAN YOU SOLVE THE MYSTERY BEFORE TIME RUNS OUT? Follow the rabbit. Rob the bank. Travel through time to save the world....and many more. A 60 minute adventure, 9 rooms to choose from each with a different theme. Great for birthdays or special events. Kid friendly. All locations surrounded by great local restaurants. 3 MONTEREY LOCATIONS 765 Wave St, Ste A2 • 599 Lighthouse Ave and Oscar’s Playground 685 Cannery Row (Third Floor) 831.241.6616 BOOK TODAY! Escaperoom831.com Oscar’s Playground Voted Monterey County’s Best New Business ’23 VIDEO game ARCADE game repairs and mods used games and more ARCADE SHOP 2 PLAYER 398 FOAM ST. STE A, MONTEREY SAT/SUN 12-9 W-F 2-9 (831)324-0669 2playerarcade.com 2playerarcade
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