Shohei Ohtani's Gambling Story Doesn't Make Sense
Shohei Ohtani's Gambling Story Doesn't Make Sense
Ohtani's representatives have already changed their story once, and plenty of other questionable details exist. But will MLB risk losing its biggest star?
A massive sports gambling scandal broke last night involving MLB superstar Shohei Ohtani. On the surface, the allegations are simple — Ohtani’s interpreter stole $4.5 million from him and lost it gambling on sports. But when you dig into the details, much of what is said doesn’t add up, and this could get messier before it gets better.
The story starts with Mathew Bowyer. The FBI is currently investigating Bowyer for running an illegal bookmaking scheme in Southern California. ESPN and the LA Times were then alerted to Ohtani’s name being included in some of the files, including two $500,000 payments directly from Ohtani’s bank account to Bowyer.
When Trish Thompson, ESPN’s investigative reporter, started asking around, Shohei Ohtani’s representatives said that it was actually Ohtani’s long-time interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, betting on sports and Ohtani had transferred the money to cover his losses.
Ohtani’s representatives then offered up Mizuhara for a 90-minute interview on Tuesday night. According to ESPN, Mizuhara was extremely open, saying he started placing bets on credit with Bowyer after meeting him at a San Diego poker game in 2021. His losses reached $1 million by the end of 2022 and then ballooned from there.
"I'm terrible [at gambling]. Never going to do it again. Never won any money," Mizuhara said. "I mean, I dug myself a hole and it kept on getting bigger, and it meant I had to bet bigger to get out of it and just kept on losing. It's like a snowball effect."
Mizuhara told ESPN that he routinely bet on international soccer, basketball, and football — but never baseball. "I never bet on baseball," Mizuhara told ESPN. "That's 100 percent. I knew that rule. ... We have a meeting about that in spring training."
Mizuhara also said that he promised to pay Ohtani back the money. But after agreeing to cover his friend’s losses, Ohtani wasn’t convinced that Mizuhara would gamble the money away, so he logged onto his computer and sent the money to Bowyer himself.
This is where things get interesting. After hearing that Mizuhara told ESPN that Ohtani had sent the wire transfer himself, Ohtani’s representatives walked back their previous statement that Ohtani had covered his friend’s losses. Instead, they now claim that Ohtani was the victim of “massive theft” at the hands of his interpreter.