Offshore Sportsbooks Are Taking Bets on 10-to-12-Year-Old Little League Players. Little League Says Stop.

The Little League World Series is underway in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and so is the betting on it. Not on state-regulated apps like DraftKings or FanDuel, which won't touch youth sports. On offshore sportsbooks that operate outside U.S. law entirely.

BetOnline, one of the largest offshore operators, has posted odds on which state will win the U.S. championship bracket, along with player-specific prop bets on strikeout totals and home run counts for individual kids aged 10 to 12. BetOnline brand manager Dave Mason confirmed the offerings in posts on X and in a company press release, saying California opened as a heavy betting favorite at -150 odds and that "almost half of the bets are on the youngins from the Golden State."

Mason didn't downplay the scale of it. He said BetOnline expects to take more money on the Little League World Series over the two-week tournament than on the WNBA, Major League Soccer, professional tennis, or golf combined, according to CBS News and TechCrunch. He also claimed betting volume on the LLWS doubled from 2024 to 2025, a figure reported by northeasttimes.

Little League International responded Wednesday with a statement it first issued last year and reposted this week. "Little League International stands by its statement first issued last year that there is no place for betting on Little League games and players or any youth sports competition," the organization said, according to CBS News, Breitbart, and multiple other outlets. "Little League is a trusted place where children are learning the fundamentals of the games and all the important life lessons that come with having fun, celebrating teamwork, and playing with integrity, and no one should be exploiting the success and failures of children playing the game they love for their own personal gain."

Legal in name only

Betting on youth sports is banned in every legal U.S. jurisdiction. No state-licensed sportsbook offers it. Federally regulated prediction markets Kalshi and Polymarket won't either, though Polymarket did briefly list LLWS markets in 2024 before pulling them, according to northeasttimes and TechCrunch.

The catch is that offshore books like BetOnline aren't based in the U.S. and don't answer to U.S. regulators. They operate out of places like the Caribbean, Panama, Costa Rica, or tribal lands in Canada, according to Rotowire.com analyst Bill Speros, speaking to CBS News. That puts them outside the reach of American gambling law even though American bettors are the ones placing the wagers.

"That someone would either know that, or think they know that, is as troubling as it is the fact that you have illegal offshore sites wagering on competition involving children," Speros told CBS News. He was blunt about the odds of this ever becoming legal anywhere in the U.S.: "0.0% chance you'll ever see that legally sanctioned anywhere in the United States."

Joe Maloney, president and CEO of the Sports Betting Alliance, which represents legal operators including DraftKings and FanDuel, has been pushing federal regulators to act. "The Feds and law enforcement have all the powers in the world to stop this nonsense, yet we look the other way," Maloney posted on social media, as cited by CBS News. "It needs to end."

Maloney's position warrants context: legal operators have a direct financial interest in shutting down offshore competitors, since every dollar bet with BetOnline is a dollar not bet with DraftKings. That doesn't make him wrong that offshore books are skirting the law with zero consequence, but it's a reason his call to action isn't a disinterested one.

Why nobody's stopping it

All 50 state attorneys general signed a letter last August urging federal action against illegal offshore gaming operations, according to Futurism. Nothing came of it. Speros told CBS News he expects the cycle to repeat: "Oh, it'll happen again next August, 100%."

Futurism's report pointed to President Trump's business ties to the gambling industry as one reason meaningful federal crackdown on offshore books seems unlikely anytime soon, though no administration official has been quoted confirming that as the reason enforcement hasn't happened. That's a reasonable question to raise given the money at stake in domestic gaming, but it remains speculation about motive rather than a documented policy decision.

Meanwhile ESPN, which broadcasts the tournament as Little League's official media partner, has built out sportsbook advertising and betting-focused programming across its other coverage, a tension Breitbart flagged directly. Little League isn't just fighting an offshore industry it has no jurisdiction over. It's fighting a gambling culture its own broadcast partner helped build.

What happens next

Nothing, unless federal prosecutors or Treasury regulators decide to go after offshore operators directly, something they've done in past crackdowns but haven't signaled is imminent. BetOnline shows no sign of stopping. Mason's own comments make clear the company sees rising demand, not liability, in taking bets on middle schoolers.