What will it profit baseball?

Apparently, Major League Baseball is getting over its moral scruples about gambling. Evidently, the sport is abandoning its claim that gambling would undermine public confidence in the integrity of the games being played on the field.

Back in the old days, it was players—not MLB itself or its member teams—who were at the center of notorious scandals. Now, MLB and some teams want in on the action.

That’s my takeaway from the news that five major league teams are now partnering with Kalshi, the prediction market platform facing state-sponsored lawsuits nationwide for allegedly fostering sports wagering in states where it’s illegal.

The Atlanta Braves, Boston Red Sox, Los Angeles Dodgers, San Diego Padres, and San Francisco Giants have all inked deals with Kalshi. The teams will spread the word about Kalshi through in-stadium advertising, digital and radio promotions, social media, and “fan activations”—strategies aimed at getting fans to engage with, and perhaps promote, the Kalshi brand.

Kalshi is also reportedly talking with MLB about an organization-wide partnership, according to the financial magazine Fortune.

Online sports betting is illegal in California, where the Dodgers, Padres, and Giants are based, and in Georgia, which the Braves call home. It’s not outlawed in the Red Sox’ home state of Massachusetts, but in January, a state court enjoined Kalshi from offering sports event contracts there without complying with state gaming laws.

Through Kalshi, for as little as less than $1, customers buy and sell contracts tied to real-world outcomes of various events, including but not limited to sports events. A purchaser isn’t betting against a spread: The platform offers no lines set by oddsmakers indicating a team’s or an athlete’s expected margin of victory or defeat. Rather, according to the website The Business Rule, Kalshi presents “bettors,” for lack of a better term, with straightforward “yes” or “no” questions aimed at predicting an event’s outcome.

Because contract purchasers can lose what they spend and gain more back if they predict correctly, many states believe—understandably, and perhaps correctly—that what Kalshi offers is no different than traditional sports betting. It’s also why those states, including New York, where Kalshi is based, are hauling Kalshi into court for allegedly violating the states’ sports wagering laws. Kalshi stands to lose billions if the states’ lawsuits succeed.

Kalshi, however, is not a traditional sportsbook, nor does it obtain and operate under state sports betting licenses, which is part of its problem. Rather, Kalshi is what’s called a Designated Contract Market, and it answers to the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

Kalshi claims that because what it does is subject to CFTC regulation—much the same way stock traders answer to the Securities and Exchange Commission—the federal laws that govern its actions supersede state gambling regulations. Some courts, such as the federal Third Circuit Court of Appeals, have agreed. Others, including a federal court in Nevada and the aforementioned Massachusetts state court, have not.

Perhaps it’s not surprising that MLB teams are getting in bed with Kalshi. After all, at least five teams have sportsbooks in their home ballparks. And I don’t know of too many ballclubs that don’t generate revenue from ads for casinos and online betting websites.

Somewhere, though, late MLB commissioners Kenesaw Mountain Landis and Bart Giamatti are smacking their foreheads in disbelief.

Landis, of course, was baseball’s first commissioner, and the creation of his job was made necessary by members of the Chicago White Sox intentionally losing the 1919 World Series in exchange for payouts from gamblers. The hard-nosed former federal judge permanently ran the allegedly offending players out of the game despite their exoneration by a Chicago jury. (I say “allegedly” because there is some question about the guilt of two players, centerfielder “Shoeless Joe” Jackson and third baseman George “Buck” Weaver.) Regardless, Landis declared that any association with gambling at all, however tangential, was enough to taint the game and merit a lifetime ban.

Giamatti was MLB’s commissioner in the late 1980s when Pete Rose voluntarily accepted his exile from baseball in exchange for MLB making no formal finding against him. The agreement allowed Rose to apply for reinstatement after one year, and he did multiple times, to no avail—on the grounds that his actions undermined public perception of the game’s integrity.

Worth noting is that baseball isn’t far removed from other gambling scandals, including the indictment of two-time American League Reliever of the Year Emmanuel Clase and former Cleveland Guardians teammate Luis Ortiz last year. There was also the saga of Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani’s “interpreter” in 2024.

Since many fans gamble on baseball anyway, MLB and its member teams want their cut of the gambling revenue pie. That said, to quote Mark 8:36, “What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, yet loses his own soul?”

If they truly want players to keep their hands clean of gambling-tainted dollars, MLB and its teams should lead the way and do likewise. Sure, it may mean losing out on a multi-billion-dollar stream of revenue, and many Americans would call that foolish. But to quote 1 Corinthians 1:27, “God has chosen the foolish things of this world to put to shame the wise.”

It’s called “integrity.” God has been known to reward it.