The story started the previous autumn. Integrity monitoring partners that work with MLS spotted unusual patterns in the betting markets and flagged them to the league. The league pulled both players from all team activities in October 2025 while it looked into what had happened. To run the actual investigation, MLS brought in outside legal counsel, the firm Patterson Belknap Webb and Tyler LLP.
What exactly did investigators find?
The investigation showed that Jones and Yeboah had placed bets on league matches for two straight seasons. One specific incident stood out. Before the Columbus Crew vs. New York Red Bulls game on October 19, 2024, both players bet that Jones would receive a yellow card. In the 35th minute, he was cautioned for a foul. Investigators also concluded that the players had passed confidential information about their plan to get booked to other bettors.
The league made clear that no evidence was found to show the bets had any effect on the final results of the matches.
MLS Commissioner Don Garber said in an official statement that the league will keep tightening its policies and will push for a ban on the yellow card market at bookmakers across all states. Columbus Crew confirmed it had worked with investigators from the start.
Why yellow cards have become a problem of their own
Bets on individual in-game events, including yellow cards for specific players, have been around for years. But this market creates a direct financial reason for a player to act in a way that has no effect on the score but can be planned in advance. A player can go in harder at the right moment and pick up a card he already bet on. That is why Garber wants the market shut down. As long as bookmakers offer it, the temptation will not go away.
This is not the first such case in American sports
This case is not an isolated one. In 2024, the NBA gave Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter a lifetime ban for manipulation of prop bets tied to his own statistics. That same year, Shohei Ohtani’s former interpreter Ippei Mizuhara was sentenced to nearly five years in prison for fraud and illegal gambling. MLS itself had a similar case in 2021, when Sporting Kansas City midfielder Felipe Hernandez was suspended for placing bets on league matches.
The bigger the betting market, the bigger the risk for sports
Since sports betting was made legal in the United States in 2018, the number of cases like this has gone up steadily. A bigger betting market means more points of contact between professional sports and the betting industry. The more markets and events bookmakers cover, the more room there is for violations.
After his ban, Jones did not find a new club. In February 2026, Yeboah signed with Chinese club Qingdao Hainiu and played in the Super League. The MLS lifetime ban does not stop him from playing in other leagues, but his career in North America is over.
