Ohio’s sports gambling oversight agency has joined Major League Baseball’s investigation of the two suspended Cleveland Guardians pitchers.
In July, Luis Ortiz was placed on non-disciplinary paid leave by the league when betting integrity firm IC360 sent an alert to sportsbooks regarding a pair of his pitches that had received unusual gambling activity.
Less than a month later, Ortiz’s teammate Emmanuel Clase was named in another gambling probe following more suspicions of foul play but the allegations against him remain unclear.
It is unclear if the cases are related.
While the details regarding Clase’s case are unknown, we are aware that the MLB is looking into two specific pitches from Ortiz – both incidents first-pitch sliders that were well outside the strike zone.
The first was on June 15 against the Seattle Mariners and the second on June 27 against the St. Louis Cardinals.
Ohio Casino Control Commission Joins MLB Probe
The Ohio Casino Control commission is familiar with similar cases and even conducted an independent investigation in 2023 when there was suspicious wagering activity on the University of Alabama’s baseball team.
The agency said it was notified on June 30 by an Ohio sports betting site that unusual betting patterns had been detected on a Guardians game before also being contacted by MLB.
The commission will meet next on the 20th of August and Governor Mike DeWine has asked it to ban player-specific prop bets.
DeWine said in a statement: “The evidence that prop betting is harming athletics in Ohio is reaching critical mass. First, there were threats on Ohio athletes, and now two high-profile Ohio professional athletes have been suspended by Major League Baseball as part of a sports betting investigation.
“The harm to athletes and the integrity of the game is clear, and the benefits are not worth the harm. The prop betting experiment in this country has failed badly.”
Ohio is one of 16 states in the country that does not allow prop bets on college sports athletes.
Joe Lyons is a betting industry writer for GamblingIndustryNews with years of experience on reputable gambling websites. Joe specialises in long form content in the world of sports betting and gambling. Joe is recognised as an expert in sports fields such as horse racing, soccer, NFL and NBA.
