San Diego Padres shortstop Tucupita Marcano was banned from Major League Baseball for life on Tuesday, but it's not because he was a big winner.
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Instead, he lost almost nearly all of the 231 best he placed, as relayed by the New York Post.
"Consistent with Marcano's overall baseball betting activity, almost all of Marcano's Pirates bets were on which Club (the Pirates or their opponent) would win the game or whether there would be more or less than a certain number of runs scored in the game," MLB officials said in a release. "Ultimately, Marcano lost all of his parlays involving the Pirates and only won 4.3% of all of his MLB-related bets overall."
Well, that's one way to go out somewhere other than on top. And while we already know Marcano no longer has a future as an MLB player, he may not have won as a gambler, either. Not based on those odds, anyway.
Marcano made his bets while injured with the Pittsburgh Pirates last season. As the Post wrote:
"Marcano, 24, was found to have placed 387 baseball bets, some of which were international games, from Oct. 16, 2022 through Oct. 23, 2022 and July 12, 2023 through Nov. 1, 2023 through a legal sportsbook. The Venezuela native, who was named after his hometown, bet more than $150,000 on baseball, which included $87,319 on MLB-related bets."
Commissioner Rob Manfred released a statement on the situation.
"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," Manfred said. "The longstanding prohibition against betting on Major League Baseball games by those in the sport has been a bedrock principle for over a century.
"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. Since the Supreme Court decision opened the door to legalized sports betting, we have worked with licensed sports betting operators and other third parties to put ourselves in a better position from an integrity perspective through the transparency that a regulated sports betting system can provide. MLB will continue to invest heavily in integrity monitoring, educational programming and awareness initiatives with the goal of ensuring strict adherence to this fundamental rule of our game."
