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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.”
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