If you thought the online sports betting industry was running out of controversies, think again: they’re now letting users bet on ten-year-old baseball players in the Little League.
As gambling experts Dustin Gouker and Eric Ramsey noted in a newsletter over the weekend, offshore sportsbooks are now allowing users to bet on the Little League World Series, an annual baseball tournament for children aged ten to 12 years that’s set to kick off later today.
While the practice is forbidden on state-regulated sportsbooks, offshore ones aren’t beholden to those rules.
“California is getting bet like they are the 1998 Yankees,” offshore sportsbook BetOnline brand manager Dave Mason boasted in a tweet on Sunday. “Almost half of the bets are on the youngins’ from the Golden State.”
Users on the Elon Musk-owned social media platform were appalled at the implication.
“Betting on children is repulsive,” one user replied. “Get help.”
Worse yet, it’s a practice that’s been going on for a while now.
“It feels like every summer we go through a cycle of discovery and outrage when people learn/remember that offshore sportsbooks take bets on kids playing baseball,” Gouker and Ramsey lamented.
Indeed, the Little League was forced to issue a statement almost exactly a year ago clarifying that “we feel strongly that there is no place for betting on Little League games” and that “no one should be exploiting the success and failures of children playing the game they love for their own personal gain.”
Over the last 79 years, the Little League has grown into an international phenomenon, with ESPN broadcasting entire games live. But that notoriety has also gained it plenty of attention for all the wrong reasons.
“We offer Little League World Series odds because there’s a massive demand for it,” BetOnline’s Mason wrote in an press release. “Our customers request these odds every year, and we’ll take more bets on the LLBWS over the next two weeks than on established markets such as the WNBA, Major League Soccer, pro tennis or golf.”
BetOnline even had the gall to argue that it’s prioritizing “responsible gaming” by not “forcing anyone to bet,” claiming that “our platform is strictly for adults who choose to participate.”
It’s unlikely that regulators will step in. For one, president Donald Trump has strong personal ties to the gambling industry, making new rules to rein in domestic participation in offshore betting improbable. That’s despite all 50 state attorneys general signing a letter in August of last year to “address the rampant spread of illegal offshore gaming operations.”
Although they deemed it “unlikely,” Gouker and Ramsey called “for offshore sportsbooks to decide that betting on youth baseball is gross and stop offering it.”
“In a world where athletes are getting harassed over gambling, it would be neat if we could avoid the possibility of people yelling at 12-year-olds over wagers,” they wrote in their newsletter. “The world will continue to spin and offshore sportsbooks will be just fine without the added revenue from Little League betting.”
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