As sports gambling becomes more popular, Braves players hear about it from fans

As it turns out, these people are not fans of Strider or the Braves. They are sports gamblers. And Strider did not hit the strikeout total on which they bet money. So to them, his seven scoreless innings are meaningless — even though they led a Braves victory — because the performance did not win money for these people.

And so the messages flow.

“They’re violent in nature, mostly. Degrading,” Strider told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “You can’t help but see these things, so it’s not like anybody’s going out and looking for it. It’s just odd that even when you do well and the outcome that most people are interested in is achieved, there are still people that are frustrated with your performance. I’m always frustrated with my performance and myself, so I can appreciate that in a person. Yeah, it’s a weird dynamic. The messages are always — sometimes people say, ‘You owe me money. You didn’t do this.’ Stuff like that, so it’s odd.”

Sports betting isn’t yet legal in Georgia, but 38 states and the District of Columbia have legalized it. In 2018, a Supreme Court decision let states allow sports betting. It began with Nevada. It has since spread throughout the country. Of course, illegal sports betting would occur before this. That it’s now legal has only increased its popularity in American culture.

In February, the American Gambling Association reported a record $13.71 billion revenue for sports gambling in 2024, which easily topped the 2023 total of $11.04 billion — a record at the time.

At the center of all this: The athletes on whom people are betting.

“One of the biggest problems in my mind with sports gambling and how that manifests itself in a number of ways is that it’s so popularized now that people are interacting with a team or with a player or with whole games that their first desire is not for the team to win the game, or not for the player to do well — it’s for a certain circumstantial or inconsequential thing to occur toward the outcome of the game,” Strider said. “So, before everybody was addicted to sports gambling, it was, ‘I want my team to win. I want my favorite player to do well’ — not, ‘I need them to catch four passes regardless of the outcome of the game.’ So, that’s a weird thing. So I get — and other guys obviously do, too — negativity from fans that are gambling regardless of how we perform, which is a weird thing.”

Now, not everyone shares as passionate an opinion as Strider, who is well-versed in so many issues inside and outside of baseball. Austin Riley, for example, took a lighter tone. So, too, did Michael Harris II.

“I guess whenever you go on social media, you see something about a sports betting app or somebody that bet on somebody that didn’t really do what they needed them to do,” Harris said. “I guess sometimes you hear about it. But I always tell them, ‘That’s your fault for betting the wrong thing. You picked me to do something good, and I did something bad. You should’ve picked me doing something bad.’ It’s their fault.”

“I think the biggest thing is getting tweeted at (about) parlay bets,” Riley said. “A guy puts a parlay in, and I’m the only one that didn’t hit, and he lets me know about it. So I think that’s probably the biggest thing, is just occasionally getting tweeted at. But that’s really about it. Nothing crazy, no.”

Harris and Riley aren’t as impassioned. Angry gamblers? They don’t care.

Harris can chide them.

“That’s their fault for putting up that much money,” Harris said. “If you can’t afford to lose that much, then don’t put it up. That’s kind of my response to it.”

Riley doesn’t bet on anything. “I like my money,” he said. “I’d rather keep what I know I have.” But he understands the business is booming. And he lets the mad bettors roll off his back.

“I find a little bit of humor in it, just because,” Riley said. “But hey, sounds like I need to perform better.”

It’s a positive that neither Harris nor Riley seem to have had a super negative experience with bettors. But it’s difficult to discount the feelings of others who have, like Pierce Johnson.

Johnson, a right-handed reliever, often pitches late in games. Fair or not, some fans see him as important to the outcome — maybe more consequential than, say, an at-bat in the third inning. To be clear, that view of the game lacks nuance, but the casual fan often sees it this way.

Over the past few years, as sports gambling has become more popular, Johnson has noticed the impact.

“It’s awful,” Johnson said. “I mean, you have one bad outing and you ruin somebody’s bet, you just get absolutely harassed. And honestly, most of it is fun, friendly banter. I don’t really care. You can dog me all you want, I’m fine with that. But when you start bringing my family to it and then start trolling my family and friends, that’s where I draw the line, and it really infuriates me. But I have no control over that besides what I do on the field, right? Back before 2020, they had no betting thing on any of the tickers, and now every day you look up and there’s a plus-minus on every single game, no matter who’s starting, whatever it may be. And it’s just part of the game now, so it’s something that we just have to endure, even though they don’t seem to really care.”

Could MLB be prioritizing the money it makes over player safety? Is that a legitimate concern that makes sense?

“It does. But I don’t have an answer for that because I don’t think they care to find an answer,” Johnson said. “I mean, look, gambling is a huge asset to baseball because of how much money they make. I mean, shoot, our new thing is FanDuel Sports Network? It’s not changing.”

This is true. Bally Sports is now FanDuel Sports Network, which broadcasts Braves games. FanDuel, the online betting platform, and FanDuel Sports Network are run by two independent companies, according to FanDuel Sports Network’s website. They have a naming partnership.

Still, it furthers the stigma of the sports betting takeover in America — fair or not. And to Johnson’s point, betting odds are much more prevalent on television now than ever.

Strider mentioned Shohei Ohtani’s situation as an example of sports betting affecting a player. Ohtani’s former interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, was sentenced to almost five years in prison for stealing money from Ohtani to pay off gambling debts.

Where does player safety fit into this?

And for MLB, how much money is worth the potential risks?

“Now we’re into a far more philosophical conversation,” Strider said. “What’s any amount of money worth? What values are you willing to compromise to attain better profit? And I say that as a millionaire pitcher — I understand. It is an addictive behavior. I’m happy to get into the extent of the data on what it’s doing to young men and what it’s doing to suicide rates and what it’s doing to the financial crisis, and all kinds of things. Violence, drinking. It’s a gateway behavior to other addictive behaviors and substances.

“So, I do think it is very concerning that industries like Major League Baseball and other sports and whatever, while they’re making tons of money and I suppose that I stand to benefit from their financial gain — they’re making tons of money, but what are they exposing their society to? What risks are we taking on as a result? I think that this has moved so quickly that nobody’s stopped to really think about that conversation.”

As the betting goes on around them, players, managers, coaches and umpires are forbidden from betting on baseball. Last year, MLB announced suspensions for five players it found to have bet on baseball.

Players know the rules.

“It’s crazy because, yeah, some teams are sponsored by these companies and it’s just plastered on the stadium or commercials,” Harris said. “I don’t know. I guess they make the rule every year: Just don’t bet on baseball. You can bet on everything else, but nothing related to baseball.”

They cannot bet on baseball, but others can. Those people will wager a lot of money on specific outcomes.

If those don’t pan out?

The players often hear about it in the form of nasty messages.

“They’ll incorporate your family by name if they can and your spouse, your whomever,” Strider said. “I anticipate being very protective over my family as it grows, the image and information around them, as a result of sports gambling. And I think that, especially as it becomes more — as it seems like it is going to — prevalent and larger, and more groups and more powerful people are involved in it, I think that safety absolutely needs to become more of a concern.”