Professional baseball player Tucupita Marcano has received a lifetime ban from the MLB after sports betting.
“The strict enforcement of Major League Baseball’s rules and policies governing gambling conduct is a critical component of upholding our most important priority: protecting the integrity of our games for the fans,” MLB commissioner Rob Manfred shared in a statement to the Associated Press on Tuesday, June 4. “The longstanding prohibition against betting on Major League Baseball games by those in the sport has been a bedrock principle for over a century.”
Manfred, 65, concluded: “We have been clear that the privilege of playing in baseball comes with a responsibility to refrain from engaging in certain types of behavior that are legal for other people.”
The MLB launched an investigation into Marcano, 24, after receiving a tip from a legal sports betting operator, the AP reported on Tuesday. The league ruled that Marcano was in violation of Major League Rule 21, which prohibits any MLB players — along with umpire, league official or team employees — from betting on games. It was estimated that he bet over $150,000 in total. (Major League Rule 21 is posted in every MLB team’s clubhouse.)
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Marcano is a shortstop for the San Diego Padres but has been on the team’s injured list after recovering from an ACL surgery that took place in July 2023. He previously played for the Pittsburgh Pirates organization.
The MLB’s investigation found that Marcano placed 387 baseball bets, 231 of which were MLB-related, between October 2022 and November 2023. He was found to have placed 25 bets on Pirates games when he was still playing for the team — and that’s where the lifetime ban comes in. Violating Major League Rule 21 by placing bets on games in which there is “no duty to perform” results in a one-year suspension from the MLB. Betting on games in which “which the person has a duty to perform” has consequences of a lifetime ban.
The AP reported that Marcano bet “almost exclusively on the outcomes of games,” winning only 4.3 percent of his MLB-related wagers.
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The MLB also suspended Oakland Athletics pitcher Michael Kelly for one year on Tuesday along with three minor league players who bet on major league games. Prior to Marcano, the only other MLB players to receive a lifetime ban from the league were Jimmy O’Connell in 1924 and Pete Rose in 1989.
News of Marcano’s ban comes months after Los Angeles Dodgers player Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter Ippei Mizuhara was fired from the team after accepting $4.5 million from the player to settle his gambling debts. Ohtani, 29, denied any wrongdoing in the scandal.
“I’ve never bet on baseball or any other sport or ever asked anyone to do it on my behalf,” the player said in a March press conference. “I never went through a bookmaker to bet on sports.”
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