The Corruption of the Game: We Are Losing the Soul of American Sports to Gambling

(BJ Freeman, formerly of Arizona State)

What was once a vice relegated to the shadows has, with stunning speed, become the wallpaper of American life. We are told this new era of legalized sports gambling is merely a form of “fan engagement.” Turn on a broadcast, and you are not just a spectator; you are an investor. The odds scroll by in a constant, mesmerizing ticker, not just on the game’s outcome, but on the next pitch, the next play, the next free throw.

We were promised revenue. We were promised harmless fun. What we have received, instead, is the logical and inevitable harvest of this cultural rot. The past few weeks have provided a terrifyingly clear picture of the cost. We are witnessing the systemic, micro-level corruption of American sports, from its professional zeniths to its collegiate foundations. This is not an aberration. It is the new normal.

The integrity of the game is no longer a given. It is a commodity being sold to the highest bidder, one rigged pitch at a time. Frankly, I’m disgusted by it.

The Rot at the Top

Consider the headlines from just the past few days. They paint a picture not of isolated “bad actors” but of a profound institutional vulnerability. The culture is corrupt and dishonest.

In Major League Baseball, we have the federal indictment of Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz. The accusations are not that they threw a game. It is something far more insidious, something that perfectly mirrors the new gambling landscape. They are charged with taking bribes to manipulate “prop bets.” Prosecutors allege they took payoffs to throw specific pitches, to ensure a ball instead of a strike, all to satisfy bettors who had wagered on the minutiae of the game.

For the game on June 15, 2025, Luis Ortiz was paid a $5,000 bribe to intentionally throw a rigged pitch, while Emmanuel Clase received an additional $5,000 bribe for his role in facilitating the fix. This single rigged pitch reportedly allowed bettors to win approximately $26,000.

This was followed by a second documented incident on June 27, 2025, where the stakes were raised. For this game, Ortiz was paid a $7,000 bribe to again throw a rigged pitch, and Clase was paid another $7,000 bribe for arranging it. This second fix resulted in bettors winning around $37,000.

In total, from just these two games, the indictment specifies that the players accepted $24,000 in bribes ($12,000 each). The indictment also notes that Clase, who allegedly began his involvement in 2023, received other “bribes and kickbacks,” such as directing some of the bettors’ winnings to the Dominican Republic for “country house repairs.” These actions ultimately enabled the betting conspiracy to win at least $460,000.

This shatters the most basic covenant between fan and player: that the athlete is, at all times, striving for excellence. When we can no longer trust that a pitcher is trying to throw a strike, the entire contest becomes a cynical farce. As other reports note, these are not the first players suspended; they are merely the latest in a line that stretches back to 2024’s lifetime ban of Tucupita Marcano.

The situation in the National Basketball Association is perhaps even more dire. This fall, a massive federal probe into illicit gambling resulted in over 30 arrests, sweeping up prominent figures like Portland’s head coach Chauncey Billups and Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier. This follows the lifetime ban of Jontay Porter, who was caught betting on his own team to lose.

The leagues, now partners in arms with the very sportsbooks that create this temptation, are in an impossible position. They are forced to investigate the consequences of the very culture they actively promote.

The Betrayal of the “Amateurs”

If the corruption of millionaire professionals is depressing, the corruption of college athletes is a profound tragedy. These are young men, ostensibly in the care of educational institutions, who are now being offered up to the same cynical market.

On November 7, 2025, the NCAA banned six men’s basketball players for life. Six college basketball players allegedly manipulated games and/or shared information with bettors, violations that carry consequences of permanent ineligibility. These bans, affecting players from the University of New Orleans, Mississippi Valley State, and Arizona State, were not for simple betting. They were for “betting-related game manipulation” and providing inside information to known bettors.

This is the cold, sterile language for point-shaving.

According to investigative reports, the New Orleans players conspired to “throw the game” by intentionally losing by more than the point spread. The Arizona State player shared insider details to help others win fantasy sports bets. This is a complete betrayal of their teammates, their universities, and the very purpose of sport.

And this is not an isolated incident. These bans are part of a widening probe that has ensnared numerous other universities. As Front Office Sports reports, a federal probe is running parallel to the NCAA’s, and some of the same individuals involved in the NBA betting scandals are believed to be at the heart of the college betting rings.

The Mechanics of Exploitation

It is easy to blame the moral failure of the individual player. But this is a naive reading of the situation. It ignores the predatory system we have built and sanctioned. Athletes are not the only actors; in many cases, they are the prey.

For a true understanding of this mechanism, one should listen to the recent commentary of Michael Franzese, the former Colombo family captain. In a recent “Sit Down” on his YouTube channel, Franzese, who once ran massive gambling operations, explains in chilling detail how this world works. He notes that the recent NBA arrests targeted four of the five New York organized crime families. This, he confirms, is their business.

Athletes, Franzese explains, are “easy prey.” Why? Because “gambling is an extension of their competitiveness.” He details the playbook, a playbook that legal gambling has only made easier.

The goal is not to partner with the athlete. The goal is to own him. Franzese describes how his bookmakers would let an NFL player get deep into debt, perhaps $250,000 or $300,000. Once the player is trapped, the conversation changes. The debt does not have to be paid in cash. It can be paid in services.

“You’re a good running back, right?” Franzese recalls. “First three times next game you put the ball on the ground.” Or to a wide receiver: “Make sure that ball doesn’t go into your hands.”

This is the reality of the prop bet. This is the world that Clase and Ortiz are accused of entering. You do not need to fix the final score, an act that is crude and difficult. You only need to fix a single moment, a single pitch, a single play. You own a piece of the game.

Franzese has been warning leagues about this for thirty years. The legal sportsbooks, he argues, are a gateway. When a player loses his money legally, he turns to an illegal bookmaker to get credit and chase his losses. The legal system becomes a feeder for the criminal underworld.

We Have Sold the Soul of the Game

We are now living in the world Franzese describes. The distinction between the “legal” betting promoted by the leagues and the “illegal” betting run by organized crime is a fiction. They are two parts of the same ecosystem, an ecosystem that feeds on human weakness and desperation.

The long, sordid history of sports betting scandals from the Black Sox to Pete Rose has taught us one thing: the game’s integrity is fragile. Yet in a fit of collective amnesia, driven by the promise of tax revenue, we have decided to build a multi-billion dollar industry dedicated to testing that fragility, every single day.

Sport, at its best, is a cultural good. It is one of the few remaining arenas in public life where we can witness genuine merit, discipline, and the pursuit of excellence for its own sake. It is a space for virtue. Well, at least it used to be.

By commodifying every second of the game, we have hollowed it out. We have replaced its telos, its purpose, with a cynical calculus of odds and payoffs. We have invited the very corruption that now threatens to consume it.

These scandals are not a surprise. They reveal the power of dopamine and addiction. We have sold the soul of American sports, and we are now just beginning to count the cost. What’s next? High school sports?