Major League Baseball has fired umpire Pat Hoberg after he shared sports betting accounts with a professional poker player who bet on baseball.

In a news release issued Monday, the league said it found no evidence Hoberg manipulated baseball games, and said that “the data provided by the sportsbooks does not show any baseball bets from his own electronic devices.” However, the league found that the poker player bet on baseball via the account they shared, including eight games that Hoberg was involved with as an on-field umpire or replay official.

One of those contests was Game 4 of the 2021 World Series.

MLB found no evidence that the umpire was involved in these bets or manipulated these games, though the league said Hoberg deleted messages that were central to its investigation.

Over a roughly three-year period, through shared accounts on two sportsbooks, Hoberg’s devices were used to place hundreds of bets totaling more than $700,000. According to the league, the wagers were mostly on football, basketball, hockey and golf.

The league initially fired Hoberg on May 31 last year. He then appealed the process, which called for the hiring of a “neutral factfinder.” However, per the umpires’ collective bargaining agreement, the ultimate ruling on the appeal rested with commissioner Rob Manfred.

“The strict enforcement of Major League Baseball’s rules governing sports betting conduct is a critical component of upholding our most important priority: protecting the integrity of our games for the fans,” Manfred said in a statement. “An extensive investigation revealed no evidence that Mr. Hoberg placed bets on baseball directly or that he or anyone else manipulated games in any way. However, his extremely poor judgment in sharing betting accounts with a professional poker player he had reason to believe bet on baseball and who did, in fact, bet on baseball from the shared accounts, combined with his deletion of messages, creates at minimum the appearance of impropriety that warrants imposing the most severe discipline. Therefore, there is just cause to uphold Mr. Hoberg’s termination for failing to conform to high standards of personal conduct and to maintain the integrity of the game of baseball.”

Hoberg, who can apply for reinstatement in spring training 2026 at the earliest, issued his own statement.

“I take full responsibility for the errors in judgment that are outlined in today’s statement,” Hoberg said in the statement. “Those errors will always be a source of shame and embarrassment to me. Major League Baseball umpires are held to a high standard of personal conduct, and my own conduct fell short of that standard. That said, to be clear, I have never and would never bet on baseball in any way, shape, or form. I have never provided, and would never provide, information to anyone for the purpose
of betting on baseball. Upholding the integrity of the game has always been of the utmost importance to me.

“I apologize to Major League Baseball and the entire baseball community for my mistakes,” Hoberg’s statement read. “I vow to learn from them and to be a better version of myself moving forward.”

The umpires’ union also released its own statement on the matter.

“We thank Commissioner Manfred for his careful consideration of Pat Hoberg’s appeal,” the umpires’ statement read. “As Major League Baseball umpires, we have devoted our professional lives to upholding the rules and integrity of the game. If our union believed that an umpire bet on baseball, we would never defend him. But as today’s statement from the League makes clear, the neutral factfinder did not find that Pat placed bets on baseball. Yet we respect Pat’s unequivocal acceptance of responsibility for the mistakes that led to his termination.”

Hoberg and the poker player, referred to as Individual A in MLB’s release, met at a poker tournament in 2014 and became friends. In either 2015 or 2016, Hoberg began placing sports bets indirectly through Individual A. When sports betting became legal in Iowa in 2019, Individual A shared his account information with Hoberg, allowing Hoberg to place bets from Individual A’s account when Individual A was not in Iowa. The two continued to place bets from the shared account on what the investigation calls Sportsbook A from Dec. 30, 2020, through Jan. 15, 2024, and at some point also began sharing an account on a second sportsbook, referred to as Sportsbook B. Individual A would stay at Hoberg’s home in Iowa 20 to 30 times per year.

Hoberg’s devices were used to place 417 direct bets on the shared account at Sportsbook A over that period, betting a total of $487,475.83. These bets lost $53,189.65. Hoberg’s devices placed at least 112 bets totaling $222,130 at Sportsbook B, losing $21,686.96. Most of these bets were placed on football, basketball, hockey or golf.

None of the bets placed on Individual A’s accounts using Hoberg’s devices were on baseball.

Individual A, however, used his own devices to bet on baseball over this period, placing 141 baseball bets over a three-year period. Individual A bet $213,754.45, and won $34,583.06 on his baseball bets. Nineteen of these bets were placed from Hoberg’s home.

In some cases, individual A bet on baseball games that Hoberg was involved in, either as an on-field umpire or when Hoberg had responsibility for replay review. MLB’s investigation reviewed those eight instances and found that “there is no evidence that Hoberg took any action to manipulate the outcome of the games. Further, a detailed analysis does not reveal any pattern to indicate that Hoberg’s calls were influenced by the bets being made by Individual A.”

The eight baseball bets made by Individual A on games involving Hoberg totaled roughly $16,000; these eight bets were not profitable overall, unlike Individual A’s overall baseball betting record during the time he and Hoberg shared betting accounts. MLB stated in its release that Individual A’s baseball betting pattern “did not focus on any particular Club, pitcher, or umpire, and there was no apparent correlation between bet success and bet size. The eight bets on games Hoberg worked similarly did not reveal any obvious pattern.”

Those eight games did, however, include a World Series game. In October of 2021, Hoberg was the lead replay official for Game 4 of the World Series between the Atlanta Braves and Houston Astros. There was one replay review in the game: The Astros challenged when the Braves’ Austin Riley potentially overslid second base, and was called safe; Hoberg confirmed the call. Hoberg’s ruling was supported by MLB staff working in the Replay Operations Center, according to MLB. Individual A’s bets of $3,000 and $1,050 on the Astros to win the game both lost.

Individual A also placed bets on the Los Angeles Dodgers-San Francisco Giants National League Division Series Game 1 on October 8, 2021, when Hoberg was the third-base umpire. Hoberg did not make any close calls in the game, as determined by MLB’s evaluation system. Individual A’s placed two bets on the Giants to win, one on the moneyline and one on the run line, and the $5,000 in total bets paid out a combined $9,300.

Individual A bet on three other regular season games involving Hoberg.

On April 13, 2021, Hoberg was the third base umpire in a game between the Cincinnati Reds and San Francisco Giants, and made three close calls that were graded by MLB as correct. Individual A’s bets on the Reds to win, totaling $3,000, lost.

On June 15, 2021, Hoberg was the lead replay official for a game between the Chicago Cubs and the New York Mets. There were no replay reviews in the game. Individual A’s in-game $1,050 bet on the Cubs to win paid out $1,550.

And on August 15, 2021, Hoberg was the home plate umpire in the Dodgers-Mets game in New York. Individual A placed a $3,200 bet on the Dodgers to win. MLB stated that Hoberg’s strike zone accuracy score of 98.89 percent was higher than his 2021 season average of 98.59 percent and higher than the league’s staff average of 97.56 on the year. The two calls he missed benefitted the Dodgers, and of the six other calls that were in what MLB calls the “buffer zone, four went against the Dodgers, and two went against the Mets. Individual A’s successful bet paid out a total of $5,200.

Hoberg and Individual A communicated their bets via the messaging app Telegram, and also used the app to maintain a ledger of Hoberg’s direct and indirect bets placed via the shared accounts. The ledger kept track of the amounts Hoberg would need to pay Individual A in the event of losses, and the amount Individual A would owe Hoberg when his bets won. Hoberg never deposited money into the accounts, and all direct betting funds came from Individual A. When they met in person, the league said, the pair would settle their outstanding debts to one another in cash.

The investigation began after Sportsbook A notified MLB that Hoberg had opened an account under his own name in January of 2024, but his device had previously accessed Sportsbook A via Individual A’s account. MLB’s release states that Hoberg opened the Sportsbook A account under his own name after attending an MLB training instructing umpires not to have others place bets on their behalf or to place bets indirectly on behalf of others.

Hoberg said throughout the process that he was not aware of Individual A’s baseball bets.

After being contacted by MLB investigators, Individual A deleted both the Telegram communication thread and the ledger recording their wins and losses. Hoberg then deleted his own Telegram account, resulting in the loss of the threads. MLB’s release states that Hoberg said he was unaware that he was being investigated for potentially betting on baseball at the time, and that he deleted the messages because he was “embarrassed by the frequency and volume of his legal non-baseball betting activity.”

The investigation, according to the league, included witness testimony and the review of electronic records. Hoberg also submitted to an interview, in addition to making available his electronic devices for forensic investigation, his phone records relating to calls with Individual A, and his financial and credit card records.

Hoberg became a full-time major-league umpire in 2017, and started working games professionally in 2009, according to MLB’s umpires media guide. The tracking site umpscorecards.com gave Hoberg a perfect score for a game he worked behind the plate during the 2022 World Series.

MLB disciplined Hoberg under a provision in the umpires’ CBA that broadly requires umpires “maintain the integrity of the international game of baseball” on the field, as opposed to the sport’s famed Rule 21, which specifically addresses gambling.

Sports gambling, which MLB and other professional sports leagues have embraced via sponsorship arrangements, has also produced significant controversy inside sports. Ippei Mizuhara, the former interpreter to Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani, is scheduled to be sentenced on Thursday for stealing nearly $17 million from Ohtani to pay gambling debts.

(Photo: Brace Hemmelgarn / Getty Images)