Skip to main content

MLB Bans Tucupita Marcano For Life For Betting on Baseball

Andrew Brennan

Last Updated: June 4, 2024 4:24 PM EDT • 1 min 35 sec read.

Only a couple of months after the NBA banned Jontay Porter for life, Major League Baseball has followed suit after issuing a lifetime suspension to San Diego Padres infielder Tucupita Marcano for betting on the sport.

Marcano was one of five players suspended on Tuesday. The MLB Department of Investigations announced that Marcano, Oakland Athletics pitcher Michael Kelly, and minor-leaguers Jay Groome, Jose Rodriguez, and Andrew Saalfrank were all found to have violated the league's sports betting policy.

Kelly, Groome, Rodriguez, and Saalfrank are all suspended for one year, while Marcano is banned for life.

“The strict enforcement of Major League Baseball’s rules and policies governing gambling conduct is a critical component of upholding our most important priority: protecting the integrity of our games for the fans,” said MLB commissioner Rob Manfred.

Marcano's sports betting violations

Marcano was found to have placed 387 wagers on the sport, including more than two dozen on the team that rostered him at the time.

He placed those bets while a member of the Pittsburgh Pirates in October 2022, and then Marcano continued to do so from July 2023 to November 2023 through one of the best sports betting sites.

His bets on MLB games totaled more than $87,000 or approximately $390 per wager. Of the roughly 200 MLB wagers, it was found that 25 occurred while Marcano was on the Pirates' big-league roster. However, Marcano was on the injured list at the time, so the league found he didn't manipulate any of the games he bet on.

Marcano was found to have won only 4.3% of his MLB wagers, which included moneyline or run-line bets on the Pirates, as well as various parlays.

The other suspensions

None of Kelly, Groome, Rodriguez, or Saalfrank were found to have bet on games involving their assigned time or any events they could have directly influenced themselves.

Rodriguez wagered the most of the four, betting nearly $750 on parlays, while Kelly wagered less than $100 on only five games. Groome and Saalfrank bet roughly $450 each. The four will be suspended for one year.

The best sports betting apps involved notified MLB that these wagers occurred.

Recent MLB scandals

MLB went through a massive betting scandal during the beginning of the season involving Shohei Ohtani's former interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara. Coincidently, he pleaded guilty on Tuesday to bank and tax fraud charges during a change-of-plea hearing. The maximum sentence he can face is 33 years.

MLB is also reportedly investigating Atlanta Braves and former Los Angeles Angels infielder David Fletcher for sports betting violations.

Written By:
Andrew Brennan
Andrew Brennan is a publishing editor for Sportsbook Review. He also heads the website’s MLB coverage, from the various futures markets to daily picks. Andrew believes a math-based approach is the best way to enjoy long-term success in sports betting, and he’s spent the better part of the last year fine-tuning his own process for MLB, NBA, and NFL picks. Andrew uses eight different sportsbooks to find the best odds available and various projection models to gather as much information as he can. His most used sportsbooks are bet365, FanDuel, and theScore Bet. When it comes to daily projection models, he regularly references NumberFire across all sports, as it’s one of the best free tools available. In terms of which daily markets Andrew attacks, he almost exclusively bets on pitcher strikeouts for baseball. When the winter rolls around, you’ll see him providing more variety when it comes to the NBA (points, assists, rebounds) and NFL (almost any offensive-based player prop). He used these tools to go +150 units in 2023. Andrew is also a passionate fantasy sports player. He’s played fantasy football, fantasy Premier League, and fantasy baseball for the last decade. He graduated from Durham College with his diploma in journalism after earning his degree in law from Carleton University. He’s worked in sports media since early 2017, first contributing at FanSided before moving to theScore. He joined SBR in 2022.