Little League Criticizes Betting on Its Child Athletes

This week, as usual, sports bettors can get action on MLB games from US-based gambling sites. They also can get odds on games at the Little League World Series offered by at least a couple of offshore bookmakers, the AP reports. Team managers, and Little League itself, are not pleased. "I'm not a fan," said South Carolina manager Dave Bogan, noting he goes to Las Vegas twice a year. "It's just not appropriate, it feels dirty, quite honestly." In news conferences throughout the Little League World Series in Pennsylvania, US team managers have voiced their displeasure with gambling on their games, in which players top out at 12 years old.

Little League International also released a statement last week denouncing sports betting on youth competition. "Little League is a trusted place where children are learning the fundamentals of the games and all the important life lessons that come with having fun, celebrating teamwork, and playing with integrity," the statement said. "No one should be exploiting the success and failures of children playing the game they love for their own personal gain." Jon Solomon, the community impact director of Project Play, an initiative of the Aspen Institute's Sports and Society program, said there are negative effects on young players whose games are the subject of betting, per the AP.

In 2018, Project Play found that in Mobile County, Alabama, "26% of surveyed youth said they had played in a game where adults bet money on who won or the final score." In professional and collegiate sports, Solomon noted instances of athletes being harassed by gamblers—think any kicker who missed a last-second field goal. "Now imagine the stakes for a more impressionable child, right, or teenager," Solomon said. Hawaii Little League manager Gerald Oda is adamant that gambling on these games takes away from the beauty of Little League. "This is the only tournament where you're representing your local community," Oda said. "It's that innocence, that pureness that these kids show on the field." Online betting sites such as FanDuel, Draft Kings or ESPN Bet are not offering lines on the tournament.