Infielder Tucupita Marcano will never be involved in the MLB again. On Tuesday, it was announced that Major League Baseball was permanently banning him. They came to the determination that Marcano had placed hundreds of wagers on baseball.
Most damning in what was found, was that he placed wagers on games involving the Pittsburgh Pirates while playing for the team in 2023. The investigation showed that he violated Rule 21(d)(2) of their betting rules and policies, per ESPN.
“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,” commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement. “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.”
It has been a long time since an active MLB player was banned for gambling. Jimmy O’Connell, a New York Giants outfielder, was banned in 1924. Pete Rose’s ban came in 1989 after he accepted a lifetime sentence for betting on games as the manager of the Cincinnati Reds.
Currently, a member of the San Diego Padres, Marcano was found to have placed 387 wagers on baseball, including 231 that were related to the MLB. Those bets came between October 16th, 2022 and November 1st, 2023, coming in at more than $150,000 total.
Out of those wagers, 25 were on the Pirates while Marcano was on the major league roster. However, he wasn’t playing in games. He was sidelined for the season with an injury and just doing his rehab work at PNC Park.
Marcano was not a good gambler, either. He lost every parlay wager that he made and won only 4.3 percent of the bets he placed. Despite him being inactive, Marcano fell under the, “Betting on a game in which the person has a duty to perform,” umbrella, which carries a lifetime ban.
Oakland Athletics pitcher Michael Kelly was given a one-year ban for gambling on baseball while in the minor leagues. Minor league players Jay Groome of the Padres, Jose Rodriguez of the Philadelphia Phillies and Andrew Saalfrank of the Arizona Diamondbacks all received one-year bans for wagering on MLB games.
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