MLB to monitor betting lines in real time starting in 2016
Ryan Rodenberg, ESPN Contributor
Opening Day of the 2016 Major League Baseball season will introduce another high-tech venture to the diamond -- real-time monitoring of betting lines.
MLB announced Wednesday that it has partnered with Sport Integrity Monitor (SportIM), a sports data and technology firm headquartered in London. The league now has access to high-quality, up-to-the-second data from dozens of sportsbooks and other wagering outlets around the world.
MLB's decision helps the league manage risks from a growing and increasingly mobile-friendly global wagering market on American sports.
The agreement does not include the resale of data to gaming companies.
The partnership was first reported by Bloomberg.
"We look forward to making use of SportIM's expertise and market-leading monitoring solutions in order to ensure that we have accurate and timely intelligence," MLB chief legal officer Dan Halem said in a news release.
SportIM CEO Mark Locke, in an interview with ESPN Chalk, said as part of the partnership, SportIM will monitor the international wagering market for MLB games.
With illegal sports gambling around the country dwarfing the amount of legal betting in Nevada and Delaware, the prior internal and informal approach by sports leagues in evaluating gambling data for unusual statistical fingerprints is giving way to more rigorous and contemporary measures.
"We own and develop sophisticated mathematical models, which are able to very accurately predict the various outcomes on the field of play at any given time," Locke said. "Before and during the games, SportIM will compare, in real-time, the wagering lines offered by global bookmakers covering MLB events, with the lines predicted by its proprietary mathematical models, and when there are discrepancies, a process of investigation will undertake to furnish an explanation."
A year ago, NBA commissioner Adam Silver wrote in a New York Times op-ed that "mandatory monitoring and reporting of unusual betting-line movements" should be a required part of any federal framework for legalizing sports betting.
MLB's move Wednesday is consistent with what European-based sports organizations have done for years.
"MLB is our first partnership with a major U.S. professional sports league," Locke said. "Outside of the U.S., we provide integrity services to several of the most high-profile sports leagues in the world, including the English Premier League, which is the most wagered-on sports competition in the world."
Until now, U.S.-based sports leagues have been slow to adopt formal analytical screening devices offered by private third parties.
An MLB lawyer, along with lawyers for the NBA, NHL, NCAA and NFL, dismissed the practice in a July 30, 2007 joint letter to Congress about Internet gambling. The letter was recently obtained by ESPN Chalk.
"We have heard the argument that Internet gambling can actually protect the integrity of sports because of the alleged capacity to monitor gambling patterns more closely in a legalized environment," the league attorneys wrote. "This argument is generally asserted by those who would profit from legalized gambling and the same point was raised in 1992 when [the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act] was enacted.
"Congress dismissed it then and should dismiss it now."
Such policy positions appear to be giving way to an embrace of how technology can assist in integrity-preservation efforts, however.
"This deal brings the monitoring of wagering markets into the 21st century, with MLB taking a proactive role in helping to protect their fans, players and the sport in general from any potential future issues," Locke said. "I think we will see a growing trend amongst professional leagues worldwide to implement similar big data-driven monitoring solutions in the very near future."
Ryan Rodenberg, ESPN Contributor
Opening Day of the 2016 Major League Baseball season will introduce another high-tech venture to the diamond -- real-time monitoring of betting lines.
MLB announced Wednesday that it has partnered with Sport Integrity Monitor (SportIM), a sports data and technology firm headquartered in London. The league now has access to high-quality, up-to-the-second data from dozens of sportsbooks and other wagering outlets around the world.
MLB's decision helps the league manage risks from a growing and increasingly mobile-friendly global wagering market on American sports.
The agreement does not include the resale of data to gaming companies.
The partnership was first reported by Bloomberg.
"We look forward to making use of SportIM's expertise and market-leading monitoring solutions in order to ensure that we have accurate and timely intelligence," MLB chief legal officer Dan Halem said in a news release.
SportIM CEO Mark Locke, in an interview with ESPN Chalk, said as part of the partnership, SportIM will monitor the international wagering market for MLB games.
With illegal sports gambling around the country dwarfing the amount of legal betting in Nevada and Delaware, the prior internal and informal approach by sports leagues in evaluating gambling data for unusual statistical fingerprints is giving way to more rigorous and contemporary measures.
"We own and develop sophisticated mathematical models, which are able to very accurately predict the various outcomes on the field of play at any given time," Locke said. "Before and during the games, SportIM will compare, in real-time, the wagering lines offered by global bookmakers covering MLB events, with the lines predicted by its proprietary mathematical models, and when there are discrepancies, a process of investigation will undertake to furnish an explanation."
A year ago, NBA commissioner Adam Silver wrote in a New York Times op-ed that "mandatory monitoring and reporting of unusual betting-line movements" should be a required part of any federal framework for legalizing sports betting.
MLB's move Wednesday is consistent with what European-based sports organizations have done for years.
"MLB is our first partnership with a major U.S. professional sports league," Locke said. "Outside of the U.S., we provide integrity services to several of the most high-profile sports leagues in the world, including the English Premier League, which is the most wagered-on sports competition in the world."
Until now, U.S.-based sports leagues have been slow to adopt formal analytical screening devices offered by private third parties.
An MLB lawyer, along with lawyers for the NBA, NHL, NCAA and NFL, dismissed the practice in a July 30, 2007 joint letter to Congress about Internet gambling. The letter was recently obtained by ESPN Chalk.
"We have heard the argument that Internet gambling can actually protect the integrity of sports because of the alleged capacity to monitor gambling patterns more closely in a legalized environment," the league attorneys wrote. "This argument is generally asserted by those who would profit from legalized gambling and the same point was raised in 1992 when [the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act] was enacted.
"Congress dismissed it then and should dismiss it now."
Such policy positions appear to be giving way to an embrace of how technology can assist in integrity-preservation efforts, however.
"This deal brings the monitoring of wagering markets into the 21st century, with MLB taking a proactive role in helping to protect their fans, players and the sport in general from any potential future issues," Locke said. "I think we will see a growing trend amongst professional leagues worldwide to implement similar big data-driven monitoring solutions in the very near future."
