American sports has been shaken by a new scandal, just weeks after the FBI dismantled an illegal betting scheme in the NBA and fixed poker games. This time, the focus is on Dominican MLB pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz, who have been accused of participating in a manipulated betting system. According to investigations announced by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York, Clase and Ortiz provided bettors with advance notice of the types of pitches they intended to throw and intentionally sent balls instead of strikes to ensure winning bets. This corruption system, according to the prosecution, generated at least $400,000 in profits for the bettors, who 'compensated' Clase and Ortiz with payments of around $5,000 and $7,000 for their manipulated pitches. Ortiz, 26, was arrested this Sunday in Boston and will be prosecuted in New York. Clase, 27, is not currently in custody in the United States. The news caused a new earthquake in an American sports scene already bruised in recent weeks by a betting scandal involving Miami Heat basketball player Terry Rozier, and another one involving fixed poker games with former Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups. The Rozier case, dismantled by the FBI, is also linked to an internal sports betting conspiracy that exploited confidential information about NBA players and teams. Rozier is away from the Miami Heat, without pay, pending the case's development. The Billups case also garnered the spotlight. The 2004 NBA champion with the Detroit Pistons and now a coach, Billups was allegedly part of a fixed poker game plan that had been going on for nearly five years. Mafia families such as Bonanno, Gambino, Genovese, and Lucchese were behind a system of rigged poker games using high-tech devices. Card shufflers that scanned decks and X-ray glasses that allowed marked cards to be detected were part of the fraud, with Billups among the 'luxury' participants who attracted the victims.
