Team managers are voicing their displeasure over offshore bookmakers offering odds on games at the Little League World Series (LLWS).
“I’m not a fan,” South Carolina’s manager Dave Bogan said. “It’s just not appropriate; it feels dirty, quite honestly.”
In news conferences throughout the Little League World Series, US team managers have voiced their displeasure with gambling on their games. Players at the tournament top out at 12 years old.
Photo: AP
“Little League is a trusted place where children are learning the fundamentals of the games and all the important life lessons that come with having fun, celebrating teamwork and playing with integrity,” Little League International said in a statement released last week. “No one should be exploiting the success and failures of children playing the game they love for their own personal gain.”
Panama-based BetOnline and Costa Rica’s Bovada are among the offshore sites offering daily odds on LLWS matchups. They are both illegal to use in the US and not subject to its laws.
BetOnline brand manager Dave Mason wrote on social media that the company is making the moneylines itself and that it “ain’t easy.”
Jon Solomon, the community impact director of Project Play, an initiative of the Aspen Institute’s Sports and Society program, said there are negative effects on young players whose games are the subject of betting.
However, such wagering is fairly common, he said.
In 2018, Project Play surveyed Mobile County, Alabama, and found that “26 percent of surveyed youth said they had played in a game where adults bet money on who won or the final score,” its State of Play report said.
The report said that tackle football, basketball and baseball were more likely to be gambled on by adults, according to the children surveyed.
“This is just, you know, bets that usually sort of happen, maybe at the field, or in the gym,” Solomon said. “Kids are already facing a lot of pressure in youth sports these days. It is a highly commercialized industry with a lot of people already making a lot of money.”
When gambling is involved in the actual performance of the game, the pressure can be even higher, Solomon said.
The report showed that both boys (33 percent) and girls (19 percent) witnessed gambling.
In professional and collegiate sports, athletes are sometimes harassed by gamblers for performance, Solomon said.
“Now imagine the stakes for a more impressionable child, right, or teenager?” he said. “It’s so unhealthy and so unneeded, and I think if anyone is betting on youth sports, they should seriously seek help because you have a serious addiction most likely.”
Hawaii Little League manager Gerald Oda is adamant that gambling on these games takes away from the “beauty” of Little League.
“This is the only tournament where you’re representing your local community,” Oda said. “It’s that innocence, that pureness that these kids show on the field.”
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