Major League Baseball permanently banned San Diego Padres infielder Tucupita Marcano for gambling on baseball.
Four other players—Athletics pitcher Michael Kelly, along with three minor league players, Padres pitcher Jay Groome, Phillies infielder José Rodríguez and Diamondbacks pitcher Andrew Saalfrank—have been declared ineligible for one year for violations of MLB’s gambling policy.
According to MLB, betting data obtained from a sports betting operator revealed Marcano made 387 bets on baseball between Oct. 16, 2022, and Nov. 1, 2023, including 231 MLB-related bets, while a member of the Pittsburgh Pirates organization. He spent over $150,000 on baseball bets including $87,319 on MLB-bets, with the remaining bets placed on international baseball games.
He made 25 bets on Pirates games while he was with the major league club, but he did not appear in any of the games on which he bet. Overall, Marcano won 4.3% of his MLB-related bets and lost all of his Pirates parlays.
“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 said in a statement.
The investigation comes on the heels of the NBA permanently banning former Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter for violating the league’s gambling rules. Marcano is the first active participant in MLB declared permanently ineligible due to gambling since Pete Rose was banned for life while managing the Cincinnati Reds in 1989. MLB previously looked into Shohei Ohtani’s former interpreter Ippei Mizuhara for sports betting. Mizuhara was eventually charged with bank fraud.