The Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) is suing four sports betting operators for what it alleges is unlawful use of player likenesses to promote their offerings.

The MLBPA has filed two separate lawsuits, one in the Eastern Pennsylvania District Court and the other in the New York Supreme Court, asserting that the sportsbooks do not have players’ consent to use their images.

The Pennsylvania suit names DraftKings and bet365 as the plaintiffs, while the New York filing cites FanDuel and Underdog Fantasy. Both lawsuits allege operators have been engaging in the unauthorized use of players’ names, images and likenesses across their marketing, social media, websites and apps without approval to do so.

Both complaints feature numerous examples of in-app and social media usage of an MLB player’s likeness alongside mention of a promotion or wager regarding that player. The MLBPA called the alleged misuse “flagrant.”

Athletes are widely used by gaming operators in their marketing, but players are generally compensated for doing so. The MLBPA argues in the suits that some players might not want to appear to be endorsing wagering.

“For professional athletes, the ability to control the commercial use of their names, images, and likenesses is a crucial return on their substantial career investment.”

Excerpt from a MLBPA court filing

While Underdog has no formal partnership with the MLB, bet365, DraftKings and FanDuel are all authorized as partner gaming operators for the MLB itself and also have deals with individual MLB teams.

The players association acknowledged FanDuel’s deal with the league in the New York filing but reiterated that it did not approve the usage of player images to advertise betting odds.

DraftKings also sued by NFLPA

DraftKings is drawing the ire of the players in more than one major North American sports league. The MLBPA lawsuit is the second it has faced from a players union in the space of a few weeks.

Last month, the NFL Players Association took the Boston-based operator to court for what the group alleged was an intention to violate a contract.

The NFLPA and DraftKings signed a multi-year agreement leasing player likenesses to the operator for its NFT products in DraftKings Marketplace before DraftKings abruptly announced it was shutting down its NFT Marketplace and Reignmaker contests after a judge upheld a lawsuit brought against them challenging the legality of the product.

The NFLPA suit suggests that DraftKings owes it as much as $65 million. The association says it allowed the operator to use players’ names, images and likenesses for the marketplace and Reignmakers and claims the gaming company hasn’t fulfilled its financial obligations.

The MLBPA referenced the NFLPA case in its lawsuits, stating that the defendant operators don’t use NFL player likenesses on their platforms.

The baseball players association argued that seeing players’ likenesses is not necessary to augment bettors’ knowledge or wagering experience and is “a contrast to the way those sites handled similar offerings in football.”

“Users could bet that the Phillies will beat the Marlins, or that Bryce Harper will hit more than two home runs in a given game, without seeing Harper’s valuable image,” said the MLBA, adding that both DraftKings and bet365 offer the same types of bets in other sports without using player images.