Baseball legend Pete Rose, a 17-time all-star and three-time World Series champ, died on Sept. 30, 2024 at the age of 83. Born and raised on the west side of Cincinnati, Rose would go on to become one of the greatest players in baseball history, playing the majority of his career for his hometown Reds.
The obituaries written after Rose’s death conveyed the many athletic achievements that made him an all-time great. But they also detailed Rose’s association with gambling — particularly sports betting — which resulted in his banishment from Major League Baseball and kept the “Hit King” from ever being enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame during his lifetime.
The gambling controversies of Rose’s career show just how far attitudes about sports betting have shifted since his baseball ban. Legal Ohio sports betting launched a year and a half before Rose died. And MLB has widely embraced sports betting through sportsbook sponsorship and partnership deals.
Pete Rose and his complicated sports betting history
Known for his hard-nosed style of play, which earned him the nickname Charlie Hustle, Rose’s death came almost exactly 39 years after he broke Ty Cobb’s record for most career hits. Rose ended his career with 4,256 hits, a record many experts consider unbreakable.
However, while playing and managing the Cincinnati Reds from 1984-1989, Rose was accused of betting on baseball games, including on his own team.
MLB first interviewed Rose about reports that he had been betting on sports in the winter of 1989. Rose admitted he had wagered on basketball, football and horse racing, but denied ever participating in MLB betting. New baseball commissioner Bart Giamatti enlisted lawyer John Dowd to investigate Rose’s gambling habits shortly before the 1989 baseball season.
Dowd’s investigation, delivered to the commissioner in May as the “Dowd Report,” included interviews with bookmakers and bet runners who were determined to have been associates of Rose. The report documented Rose’s gambling activities between 1985 and 1987. In 1987 alone, the report said Rose bet on 52 Reds games and wagered at least $10,000 per day. In addition to interviews with alleged associates, Dowd used betting slips, recorded phone calls and other records to make his evidentiary case against Rose.
Pete Rose accepted lifetime ban from baseball in 1989
Rose initially denied all of the accusations that he bet on baseball. But in August of 1989, he voluntarily signed an agreement confirming his placement on MLB’s permanent ineligible list. As part of the agreement, no formal declaration that Rose bet on baseball would be issued by MLB.
In 1991, the Baseball Hall of Fame voted to approve a rule excluding those on MLB’s permanently ineligible list from being voted in by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. In 2008, the Hall’s Veteran Committee also determined that players and managers on the ineligible list could not be voted in via the committee.
The Dowd Report stated that there was no evidence that Rose ever bet against the Reds. And for the remainder of his life, Rose insisted that he never bet on the Reds to lose. Still, Rose was accused of violating MLB’s Rule 21, which states that players, managers, umpires and other league officials who bet on any baseball game in which they are directly connected will be placed on the permanent ineligible list. There is no stipulation in the rule about betting for or against a team.
Rose sought reinstatement as recently as 2022
Rose would go on to plead for reinstatement with the three baseball commissioners who followed Giamatti. All requests were denied.
Rose applied for reinstatement in 2015 with current commissioner Rob Manfred. Manfred rejected the request, saying that he questioned Rose’s transparency about his past and current gambling activity. He also said he felt Rose lacked a true understanding of what he did wrong. Rose last applied for reinstatement with Manfred in 2022.
Rose had also petitioned the Hall of Fame to reconsider its ban on players who are on MLB’s ineligible list. HoF directors never responded to his 2020 petition. But there’s still a chance that the Hall of Fame may someday lift the restriction to allow Veterans Committee players to vote Rose in.
Rose participated in the launch of legal Ohio sports betting
Many onlookers saw Rose’s refusal to admit that he bet on baseball as a prime reason why MLB wouldn’t reinstate him. Rose would eventually confess that he had bet on Reds games while playing and managing the team in his 2004 autobiography, My Prison Without Bars. Rose wrote in the book that he was hopeful the admission would lead to his reinstatement.
Although Rose continued to express regret for betting on the Reds and how he handled the fallout, he never severed his ties to the gambling world. Rose, who spent his later years living in Las Vegas, made much of his living post-expulsion doing signings and making promotional appearances at various venues, including at legal casinos.
On January 1, 2023, at 12:01 a.m., Rose placed the first legal Ohio sports bet at the then-new sportsbook inside the Hard Rock Casino in Cincinnati. Rose placed his bet on the Reds to win the 2023 World Series.
Meanwhile, BetMGM is the official sports betting partner of the Cincinnati Reds. A retail BetMGM Sportsbook sits directly across the street from the Reds’ Great American Ball Park. Just steps away from the sportsbook sits a statue at the stadium’s entrance depicting Rose performing his famous head-first slide.