Aggrieved bettors are making life hell for athletes at both the college and professional level. That’s the message Boston Red Sox pitcher Lucas Giolito recently shared with MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred in a private conversation. Giolito related the story, and his pitch for gamblers to take a chill pill, with Baseball isn’t Boring podcast host, Rob Bradford.
The level of abuse that players are enduring from fans has, according to Giolito (and many others), increased significantly in frequency and intensity since the dawn of regulated sports betting in the US. “When it comes to gambling, it’s creating an uptick in insane people online. Well, not insane, just disgruntled, right? I’m getting messages after every game, even games where I pitch well, where they’re mad at me because I hit the strikeout over instead of being under or I was under instead of being over,” he said.
Even worse, in Giolito’s view, is that many of the angriest fans are the ones who can least afford their losses. “Prop bets, all these crazy things. People put hundreds of dollars on it, and they don’t have a lot of money, but they’re gambling it anyway because it’s a disease. And then they freak out,” he added.
While many states, such as New Jersey, have taken measures to protect college-level players from this type of abuse – professional players are left to just keep getting abused. He worries that it will take a worst-case-scenario to bring about true reform concluding, “My worry is that a player gets assaulted or killed or something. Because I am well aware that gambling addiction ruins people’s lives, so you never know if someone’s in a drastic state, what they could get into.”