Ohio regulator bars bettor over threats to Blue Jays' Schneider

The Ohio Casino Control Commission has barred a state resident from every licensed betting outlet, land-based and online, following a probe into threats made against Toronto Blue Jays manager John Schneider during the 2025 World Series.

Commission chair Thomas Stickrath signed the order against Blake Morgan, finding that around 28 October 2025 he issued what the order calls threats of violence or harm toward Schneider while speaking to Major League Baseball's customer service line about his own wagers.

MLB moved fast once the call came to light, barring Morgan indefinitely from every league venue within days of the incident. The Ohio commission later granted Morgan a hearing at his own request before voting this week to add him to the state's Sports Gaming Involuntary Exclusion List, which blocks him from both retail and online betting in Ohio.

OCCC executive director Andromeda Morrison said conduct that threatens harm to sports participants over gambling outcomes has no place in the market, adding that the commission would keep acting against anyone whose behaviour breaches Ohio law to protect the integrity of sports wagering.

A partially redacted recording of the call, shared with SBC Americas, captures Morgan accusing Schneider of lying in a televised interview about supposedly planning to intentionally walk Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani at every at-bat during the series. When Toronto instead pitched to Ohtani, Morgan told MLB's representative the game was not legitimate and claimed bettors had staked thousands of dollars on Ohtani being walked throughout.

On the recording, Morgan calls the outcome "a gambling grab" and asks the representative, "You just made sportsbooks how many millions of dollars?" He also suggested Schneider or his relatives had wagered on the under for Ohtani's walk total, and told MLB that "if you don't handle it, the public will handle it," claiming he had the manager's home address and personal details.

He went further, asking whether Schneider wanted to end up hospitalised and unable to finish managing the series, before threatening on the call to confront him on live television.

Morrison credited MLB's cooperation with building the case, saying the league's involvement was instrumental in bringing the matter before the commission.

The ban lands weeks after five major North American leagues and their players associations, including MLB and the MLB Players Association, wrote jointly to state gaming regulators on 15 September warning of an escalating pattern of harassment and violent threats against players and staff tied to betting. Major League Soccer, the NBA, NFL and NHL and their respective unions co-signed the letter, which called for lifetime bans for offenders, a common framework for reporting incidents, and a system letting states share exclusion lists with one another.

Separately, the MLBPA told Congress in August that MLB had resisted its push to ban proposition bets and similar prediction markets tied to individual player performance. MLBPA general counsel Jeffrey Perconte wrote that the union wanted a joint lobbying effort with the league to curb those markets, which it believes feed what he called an epidemic of harassment and abuse directed at players and their families, adding that MLB has thus far balked but that negotiations remain ongoing.