Much like David Lee Roth and Eddie Van Halen, sports and gambling have long had an unsteady alliance and history has taught us that the relationship usually tends to be on the rocky side. After all, it seems that every time baseball and betting are mentioned in the same breath, the word scandal is usually not far behind.

The 1919 World Series won’t be remembered as much as a 5-3 series win (it was a best-of-nine) by the Cincinnati Reds over the Chicago White Sox as it will be for the Black Sox Scandal.

Rightly or wrongly—owner Charles Comiskey was notorious for breaking promises to players and had a reputation for pinching pennies—the White Sox threw, or allegedly threw, the Series to aid a bettor.

Although it is unlikely that the Detroit Tigers threw last year’s World Series to the St. Louis Cardinals and although it is just as unlikely that people who live in the UK care about MLB, an idea being bandied about in England could be good for MLB and professional sports across the board.

Last month, governing sports bodies in England demanded that bookmakers and betting outfits give them unlimited access to information concerning the betting habits of sports stars at a seminar with the UK’s Gambling Commission.

It was the contention of the governing bodies that gambling threatens the various sports’ integrity and they asked that athlete accounts be automatically flagged if any of the bets they place look suspicious and seem like a conflict of interest.

The American government probably won’t be allowing sports gambling, or online poker for that matter, for quite some time, but information sharing and red flagging between sports leagues and books is something that would benefit both.

Sharing information and monitoring the actions of athletes who bet, will show that sportsbooks are legitimate and responsible and sports leagues can quash potential betting scandals—like the Black Sox Scandal—if they have access to the betting habits of their players.

Rather than working against one another, sports and gambling would really thrive if they enjoyed a symbiotic relationship, not only co-existing, but helping each other out by books providing information; leagues allowing people to bet on their sport and possibly paying some taxes as well.

Another of Major League’s Baseball’s great betting scandals involves a player who is the All Time Hits Leader and sadly, not in the Hall-of-Fame in Cooperstown.

Pete Rose, as a manager, originally denied allegations that he bet on baseball and more specifically on his own team—a claim he finally admitted to recently.

Rose’s original denials preceded a National Enquirer-like scandal, full of accusations and court injunctions which eventually landed him on MLB’s permanently ineligible list for the Hall.

Sports betting has cost Pete Rose induction to the Hall-of-Fame. Maybe if there were some sort of betting info sharing he’d be immortalized in Cooperstown.