Gov. Mike DeWine is calling on the Ohio Casino Control Commission to remove prop bets from the list of legal bets that can be placed in Ohio after Major League Baseball placed two Cleveland Guardians pitchers on leave in July related to a “sports betting investigation.”

DeWine also announced he will be asking the commissioners and players unions of the six major sports leagues in the United States — MLB, the National Football League, the National Basketball Association, the Women’s National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League and Major League Soccer — to support the effort to ban prop betting to ensure the integrity of their leagues.

DeWine said he had a particular problem with micro prop bets – prop bets placed on highly specific events within games that are completely controlled by one player, according to a news release.

“The evidence that prop betting is harming athletics in Ohio is reaching critical mass,” said DeWine. “The harm to athletes and the integrity of the game is clear, and the benefits are not worth the harm. The prop betting experiment in this country has failed badly. I call on the Casino Control Commission to correct this problem and remove all prop bets from the Ohio marketplace.”

DeWine spoke out against threats that began to emerge shortly after Ohio’s sports gambling laws became effective in January 2023. Threats against the University of Dayton Flyers basketball players and players from other teams emerged and brought focus to the conduct occurring in Ohio. DeWine sought changes in the biennial budget bill, House Bill 33, which addressed some marketplace issues.

Following a letter from NCAA President Charlie Baker in January 2024, the OCCC enacted rules that removed collegiate prop bets from the list of legal bets in Ohio. Under the changes, bettors in Ohio now no longer are able to place prop bets on individual player achievements, including in-game statistics and in-game achievements for collegiate sporting contests. Bettors still were permitted to place bets on the overall outcomes and final scores of collegiate sports contests.

The rule changes did not affect professional sports contests, and bettors in Ohio may still place prop bets on professional sports contests.

In separate incidents last month, MLB placed Cleveland pitchers Luis Ortiz and Emmanuel Clase on non-disciplinary paid leave due to a league investigation. Multiple media reports have alleged the investigation follows allegations of unusual prop betting activity in New York, New Jersey and Ohio during Guardians games in June, according to the release.