The MLBPA Is Declaring War on One of the Most Popular Bets in Baseball
Key Facts
- The MLBPA proposed a ban on prop betting on individual players during CBA negotiations, suggesting a joint lobbying effort with MLB to pursue a prohibition at sportsbooks, daily fantasy operators, and prediction markets.<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
- Player props account for 20% to 30% of total money wagered on a game, and more than 70% of same-game parlays include at least one individual stat market.<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
- The current CBA expires December 1, 2026, and both sides are in the early stages of exchanging proposals - meaning the prop ban is not a done deal.<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
- The proposal follows the November 2025 indictment of two Cleveland Guardians pitchers on charges related to an alleged pitch-rigging scheme that centered on first-pitch outcome betting.
MLB Players Put Prop Bets On The Bargaining Table
The MLB Players Association filed its opening proposal in CBA negotiations with Major League Baseball on June 26, and buried alongside salary and discipline items was something the betting industry hadn't seen before: a formal union request to eliminate individual player prop betting from the legal U.S. market entirely.
The MLBPA proposed the ban to help combat harassment from disgruntled gamblers - a problem that has escalated steadily as legal sports betting has expanded across the country.
Under the proposal, MLB and the MLBPA would work together to lobby for a prohibition on individual player prop bets at sportsbooks and daily fantasy operators, covering all prop bets connected to individual player performance. The proposal would also cover federally regulated sports prediction market exchanges.
This isn't a request for tighter limits or better enforcement against abusive bettors. It's a proposal to remove the product category from the market altogether - at every platform type that offers it.
An MLB official confirmed that the league would respond to the union's proposal during negotiations. Neither side's proposals are final, and CBA talks are still in the early stages.
The Pitch-Rigging Scandal That Lit the Fuse
The harassment concern has been building for years across professional sports, but it was a federal criminal case - not a harassment complaint - that gave the MLBPA the clearest argument for action.
In November 2025, Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz were charged with fraud, conspiracy, and bribery stemming from an alleged scheme to rig individual pitches - a scheme that allowed co-conspirator bettors to win hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The indictment alleged that Clase agreed with bettors to rig prop bets on particular pitches he threw, with bets placed on the speed and type of pitches, often those thrown on the first pitch of an at-bat. The case exposed something regulators and operators had long downplayed: that granular prop markets - bets tied to a single pitch's velocity or ball-strike outcome - create direct financial incentives for outside actors to pressure or recruit players.
In the immediate aftermath, MLB and its partner sportsbooks initiated a $250 cap on first-pitch prop bets and prohibited them from appearing in parlays.
What the MLBPA filed last Thursday is the argument that targeted fixes aren't enough - and that as long as individual stat wagering exists in any form, players remain exposed
What the Ban Would Actually Cover
Under the proposal, sportsbooks, daily fantasy operators, and prediction markets would no longer be permitted to offer wagers or event contracts based on individual player performances. Unusually broad, the suggested ban would apply to all player-specific prop bets placed before or during games, including popular markets such as whether a player will hit a home run.
That means strikeout totals, hit props, total bases, home run markets, stolen base lines - the full stack of individual stat wagering that makes up the backbone of baseball's prop ecosystem - would be off the table.
The proposal would cover retail and online sportsbooks, as well as federally regulated sports prediction market exchanges and daily fantasy platforms.
The Part That Raised Eyebrows
Alongside the ban proposal, the MLBPA asked MLB to clarify that players may still engage in endorsements and sponsorships from legal betting operators, including prediction markets - a commercial relationship currently prohibited under the existing CBA.
In other words, the union wants to cut one of the industry's most valuable products while simultaneously opening the door for its members to take money from the platforms that sell it.
Under the proposal, betting companies could still offer plays on sides and totals, so this wouldn't affect the millions of dollars the league and teams make from DraftKings, FanDuel, and others advertising in stadiums and on television - but the hypocrisy optics aren't lost on anyone watching the negotiation.
Why This Matters For Bettors
The immediate impact if this ever became policy is obvious: a major piece of the MLB betting menu could disappear.
Player props aren't a niche product. They sit at the center of how most recreational bettors engage with baseball, and removing them wouldn't just shrink the menu - it would fundamentally change the structure of baseball wagering.
More than 70% of same-game parlays include an individual stat market. That number tells you what's actually at stake for sportsbooks and their users. SGPs are the most-promoted, highest-margin product in the legal betting industry right now, and player props are the engine that makes them work.
Without them, baseball SGPs collapse into team-level bets - spreads, totals, moneylines - which are far less engaging for the casual bettor and far less profitable for operators.
The DFS Pick'em market would take an equally direct hit. Built around individual stat-line selections - over/under on strikeouts, total bases, hits - these platforms will lose their primary inventory if player props are prohibited.
Prediction markets may face the most interesting version of the fight. Their argument has often been that event contracts are not traditional sports bets in the same regulatory sense. But if the underlying product lets users take positions on an individual athlete’s performance, leagues and unions are unlikely to care much about the label.
That fragmentation is the core problem with implementing a ban at all. Sports betting regulation in the United States is primarily handled at the state level, which means Congress would need to act to impose a blanket prohibition across all licensed operators - an uphill climb given how slowly federal sports betting legislation has traditionally moved.
The SAFE Bet Act - federal legislation that would restrict certain bet types - has been filed in 2024, 2025, and 2026 by Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and has yet to clear a House committee.
There's also the offshore migration question. If regulated U.S. sportsbooks can no longer offer MLB player props, bettors who want them don't disappear - they move. If regulated sportsbooks were no longer able to offer MLB player props, some bettors seeking those wagers could migrate to offshore platforms instead of abandoning the market altogether. Unlike licensed U.S. operators, offshore sportsbooks are not subject to state regulations or consumer protection requirements.
The MLBPA's proposal is motivated by genuine player safety concerns, but a federal ban that pushes volume offshore would do nothing to reduce harassment and would strip bettors of the consumer protections that come with regulated play.
What Happens Next
The reported proposal still has a long road before it becomes reality. The MLBPA can push the issue in bargaining, but sportsbooks and DFS operators are regulated state by state, while prediction-market platforms may involve different federal and state questions depending on the product structure.
The most realistic near-term outcome is not an immediate national ban - it's pressure. MLB and the MLBPA could agree to lobby regulators together, operators could preemptively limit certain markets, and states could begin reviewing whether individual MLB props should be treated more like the college player-prop markets already under scrutiny.
Sportsbooks will likely resist any broad ban, especially if player props remain a meaningful share of MLB handle. DFS pick’em operators would have even more reason to push back because individual stat projections sit near the center of their product. Prediction market platforms may argue that their contracts are legally distinct, but the optics will be difficult if the markets look and feel like player props to leagues, unions and consumers.
The bigger signal is that the next phase of sports betting regulation may be less about legalization and more about product control. MLB players are effectively saying that not every bet available in a legal market deserves to survive just because bettors like it and operators make money from it.
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Cole cut his teeth as a sportswriter in Texas, covering everything from Longhorns games to small-town Friday night lights. A lifelong bettor stuck with offshore books for over a decade thanks to Texas' slow path to legalization, he eventually found his way into the world of social sportsbooks - where he uncovered a fast-growing, community of bettors.
Today, he writes for the millions of Americans in states without legal books, helping them explore safe ways to bet without running afoul of the law.
As editor-in-chief, he aims to keep BettingScanner honest, human, and grounded in what bettors actually care about: fairness, fun, and finding your lane - even when the state won’t give you one.
