With sports betting getting legalized in several states over the past few years, fans of all sorts of different sports have begun to gamble on their favorite teams and players. While it certainly increases engagement and brings in more money for these sports leagues, Paul Sewald helped showcase the negative side of sports betting for the players whose performances are being bet on.
Sewald is currently the closer for the Arizona Diamondbacks, and as you can imagine, that's already a pretty stressful job. Now add in fans who are clamoring for him to do whatever they bet on him to do when he's on the mound, and the pressure increases tenfold. Sewald revealed that when he has a poor outing, he's received as much as death threats from fans due to him not helping them win their respective bets.
“You hear it all, man. You blow a save, you don’t come through, you get it all. ‘(Expletive) you. You suck. You cost me all of this money. (Expletive) you. (Expletive) your family. I’m going to kill you and then kill your family.’ It gets ugly really quickly. It’s scary, and it’s sad. It used to be fans who were upset because you blew the game for the team, but now it’s gambling. These people don’t really care about the Diamondbacks. They just care about their bets, and we’re talking about money they don’t have that they are losing. So, it’s a very scary spot.” – Paul Sewald, USA Today
Paul Sewald highlights the negative impact sports betting has had on players
It goes without saying that no player should ever receive death threats for their play on the field, especially when it comes to betting on their performances. Athletes are humans too, and their jobs are already tough enough. While it's real money that these fans are betting, the mantra of “you shouldn't bet what you can't afford to lose” rings very true here.
Sewald certainly isn't the only guy who has been the victim of this sort of treatment from fans, and some of the stories these players have are somehow even worse than receiving death threats. One of Sewald's fellow bullpen-mates, Logan Allen, revealed that he had a fan stalk him to his house during his time with the Cleveland Guardians after he had a particularly bad outing on the mound for them.
“I remember being followed home one time when I was playing for Cleveland. I had a really bad game, and this guy follows me home, and starts cussing at me, telling me I cost him all of this money. It’s scary.” – Logan Allen, USA Today
Sports betting isn't going anywhere anytime soon, but for an industry that has largely been viewed as a booming positive, it does have some pretty major downsides, especially for these players who are simply going out and trying to perform at the highest possible level they can. Hopefully something can be done to curb this issue, but until then, Sewald and thousands of other athletes are going to have to continue dealing with this sort of unnecessary abuse from fans over their bets.
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