Lucas Giolito said he recently raised concerns with Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred about the prevalence of abuse players and their families are subjected to by sports bettors.
The Boston Red Sox pitcher appeared on Rob Bradford’s Baseball Isn’t Boring podcast this week and detailed his conversation.
Manfred met with Red Sox players during the team’s three-game set against the Philadelphia Phillies.
“I asked him about something that has been on my mind this year that’s been a little worrisome for me with the rise of sports betting: the access that exists now with social media and everything,” Giolito said told Bradford. “The threats when a player doesn’t perform well, threats to their family, threats to their life, it’s getting very tiring. I worry for guys that are maybe new to the league and aren’t ready for something like that.”
Sports betting was legalized by a Supreme Court decision in May of 2018. Legalized sports wagering came to Ontario in 2021.
Giolito said that it doesn’t even take a poor performance to receive abuse online.
“I’m getting messages after every game, even games where I pitch well, where they’re made at me because I hit the strikeout over instead of being under, or I was under instead of being over like prop bets, all these crazy things,” Giolito said. “And people put hundreds of dollars on it and they don’t have a lot of money, but they’re gambling it anyways because it’s a disease. They freak out.”
A 31-year-old native of Santa Monica, CA, Giolito told Bradford that he hopes for something actionable coming from his conversation soon.
“It only goes so far,” Giolito said. “Is it going to take a player getting assaulted in front of their apartment building by some disgruntled guy that lost a bet for real action to be taken?”
The 16th overall pick of the 2012 MLB Amateur Draft, Giolito is in his ninth big league campaign and first with the Red Sox. He missed the entirety of the 2024 season after undergoing ulnar collateral ligament surgery. An All-Star in 2019, Giolito has previously suited up for the Cleveland Guardians, Los Angeles Angels, Chicago White Sox and Washington Nationals.
In 15 starts this season, Giolito is 6-2 with an earned run average of 3.97 and WHIP of 1.261 over 81.2 innings pitched.