Just An Amazing Gambling Ecosystem We Have Here
Shohei Ohtani announced he was headed to the Los Angeles Dodgers on Saturday. ESPN’s Jeff Passan quickly followed with the particulars of the eye-popping contract that will last 10 years and pay the two-way superstar $700 million. This was all surprising news to anyone who spent any time online Friday, when rumors of his arrival to Toronto to join the Blue Jays were greatly overstated in a weird, Shark Tank-related way. And it was terrible news for those souls who took that speculation and ran straight to their preferred sportsbook to place a futures bet on Canada’s Team to win the World Series next fall.
The worldwide leader has a front-page story this morning examining the betting rush.
On Friday, with rumors of Ohtani’s interest in Toronto swirling, the Blue Jays’ World Series odds improved from 15-1 to as short as 8-1, behind only the Atlanta Braves and Los Angeles Dodgers, and bets poured in on the Jays. At BetMGM sportsbooks, nearly 85% of the money wagered on the World Series odds on Friday was on Toronto, and the bet ticker at Caesars Sportsbook filled up with wagers on the Blue Jays ranging from $50 to $500.
The good news is that no one seems to have placed a life-changing amount of cash on the prospect of the Jays conjuring up memories of Joe Carter and Devon White. Most of their children will probably have the same amount of presents under the tree even after daddy touched the Hot Stove again.
Most interesting, though, is this quote from an oddsmaker, who pointed to what were perceived as legitimate reports from legitimate outlets as the reason for such a dramatic shift.
“Friday was a really crazy day,” said Randy Blum, a Las Vegas bookmanager who oversees baseball odds for the SuperBook.
Blum said media reports, including from MLB Network, prompted him to shorten the Blue Jays’ odds.
“These [reports] were from legitimate baseball guys, not random people on Twitter throwing things out there. … We had to respect it,” Blum said. “When it turned out not to be true, we cleaned it up.
Again, we are not in the business of lamenting the poor gamblers here. But this seems like a bit of a problem. Major League Baseball makes money from gambling partnerships. So if those partners or the larger ecosystem are offering bum futures based on inaccurate reporting from MLB insiders, well, you can almost hear your most old-school college journalism professor getting worked up.
These are strange times and the toothpaste is so far out of the tube that we should all be more worried about living a stain on the area rug than thinking it can ever get jammed back into that tube. As always, gambler beware. Sometimes a sure thing can disappear quicker than someone pitching Robert Herjavec for a 15 percent investment in their kitten mitten startup.