SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) — Baseball and bets go hand-in-hand in the Dominican Republic, where professional athletes, musicians and even legislators go public with their wagers.

But for every legal bet in the Caribbean country, officials say there are countless more illegal ones.

It’s a widespread, multimillion-dollar industry that has come under scrutiny following U.S. federal indictments of Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz. They are accused of taking bribes from unnamed sports bettors in the Dominican Republic to throw certain pitches and help those bettors win at least $460,000, according to an indictment unsealed Sunday in New York. Ortiz and Clase have both pleaded not guilty.

The accusations have dismayed and embarrassed many in the players’ native country.

“The case of Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz tarnishes the image of Dominican baseball players,” said José de los Santos, a fan of Dominican and Major League Baseball. “Actions of that nature put Dominican and Latino players in the spotlight.”

The DR has 3,500 registered betting shops, and those are just the legal ones

Sports betting shops are widespread in the Dominican Republic, a country of more than 11 million people where baseball is king.

According to data from the Dominican Association of Sports Betting Shops, there are about 3,500 registered businesses, and countless more illegal ones.

Quico Tabar, head of the country’s national lottery who was tasked by the president to regulate gambling, recently stated in a public letter that officials have been working for years to regulate betting shops but that “circumstances beyond our control” have not allowed that to happen. He did not elaborate.

For Raymond Jiménez, a self-described frequent sports gambler, it’s all the same.

He said he chooses the biggest and closest businesses that allow big wagers, regardless of whether they’re legal or not.

“I don’t know of any illegal betting shops,” he said.

Jiménez said most bets in the Dominican Republic focus on sports including MLB, NBA and NFL games.

“I’ve been gambling since 1998, when I was underage,” Jiménez said. “I used to jump the school fence to go into a betting shop at 14 years old. I’ve heard everything, from athletes who sell themselves to gamblers to others who bet against them.”

Gambling persists amid corruption

Legislators in the Dominican Republic are debating a bill that would create a new entity to regulate and oversee gambling and establish penalties for non-compliance.

Meanwhile, chatter about the Clase and Ortiz cases continues to dominate the news and social media, as does the case of Oscar Chalas, the Dominican Republic’s former director of casinos and gambling. He reached a plea deal with prosecutors in late October and admitted responsibility in collecting money from illegal betting shops to allow them to keep operating.

Chalas told a judge that each illegal shop paid up to $100 a month, but that he didn’t remember the total amount collected because there were “so many” of them. He also claimed that a former treasury minister knew and approved of the scheme, according to local media reports.

The pace of legal and illegal gambling is only expected to surge as local teams and fans prepare for the Dominican Republic’s Professional Baseball League final early next year.

One of the country’s most famous public bets involving the local league took place earlier this year. Hall of Famer and former Red Sox star David Ortiz offered fans a 1 million peso ($16,000) wager on social media in favor of the team that went on to win the championship — he ended up with 15 million pesos ($240,000) on the line. That included a 2 million peso ($32,000) bet with Dominican urban singer Bulin 47, but Ortiz forgave him after winning: “You’re good to those who are poor," he wrote.

___

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB