Massachusetts Attorney Files Class Action Lawsuit Saying Astros Sign Stealing Impacted Daily Fantasy Results
(SOURCE)
Baseball’s sign-stealing scandal threatens to get in the way of the new and still strange-bedfellow embrace Major League Baseball has made with sports betting.
A class-action lawsuit filed last week by a Massachusetts resident in US District Court against Major League Baseball, the Red Sox, and the Astros seeks to recover damages sustained by DraftKings fantasy sports participants who did not realize they were wagering on Astros and Red Sox games in which players may have been cheating.
Coming at a moment when MLB has voiced enthusiastic support of legal sports betting, the lawsuit is likely to compound the substantial damage already inflicted to the integrity of the sport by the scandal, which was exposed by The Athletic last November.
Link to the suit for those who care
One thing you shouldn't ever fuck around with is a person's money. Two things real quick:
1. I'm far from a legal expert - I know just enough to have not gotten arrested in about 10 years and
2. I'm far from a financial expert - I know how to spend money and that's it
But I do know that there are a lot of people who are flat out degenerates as well. I said on Red Line Radio a few weeks back that I had a feeling there were going to class action lawsuits in Vegas or otherwise that are fallouts from the Astros' sign stealing scandal. Well here we have it. Now will anything come of this lawsuit or the inevitable lawsuits that follow it? No idea. But I do know that there has got to be people straight up foaming at the mouth to get their hands on any sort of settlement because the Astros, Red Sox and whoever else seemingly cheated them out of money.
The bad thing for MLB is that they partnered with DFS organizations and casinos for the last few years. From The Boston Globe:
Ever since the Supreme Court allowed states to legalize sports betting in May of 2018, MLB has been going ahead with partnerships and associations with gaming industry leaders such as DraftKings and MGM Resorts in an effort to gain more revenue and push away illegal betting.
Yeah… not a good look to have two of your previous three World Series champions accused and/or convicted of cheating people out of their money while simultaneously having partnerships within the gaming industry. I'm of the opinion that MLB can't go back and say "the Astros didn't cheat their way to victories" while simultaneously saying, "they didn't cheat people out of their money". They more or less encourage people to legally bet on their sport while but also punished a team for cheating, perhaps on their way to victory. No bueno.
Again, I'm not a legal expert in any single realm. But I do think this is a story worth following, as MLB has its back to the corner against those who filed this lawsuit. Are they going to have to cut a massive settlement check? Not a clue. Could very well get thrown out immediately. But once again, you can't fuck with people's money and expect there to be no repercussions. At the very least this will be another pain in the ass for MLB to deal with over the coming months.
That said, it's gotta be damn near impossible to prove X player hit a dinger off Y pitcher resulting in Z daily fantasy player losing money? No idea. I mean, I could file a lawsuit today against Dente for whatever I wanted and that doesn't mean anything comes of it, but big shot bettors have got to be furious they potentially lost money because of all of this.
MLB has its hands full with this shit, but they made their bed and now they have to lie in it.