Four Questions About The Gambling Scandal Involving Ohtani's Interpreter
If you’re living under a rock, perhaps you haven’t heard the story of the Los Angeles Dodgers firing Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter amid questions about millions of dollars in wire transfers going to a bookmaking operation that’s under federal investigation. Yes, that’s a crazy sentence to type and read. The L.A. Times broke the story, but ESPN has by far the most in-depth reporting on the details; more here.
Here are four questions I have about the brewing scandal :
1. Why are people trying to make this about REGULATED gambling, instead of ILLEGAL gambling?
The story is already leading people on social media and in the media to conflate legal betting and illegal betting. The interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, racked up $4.5 million in debt with a bookmaker in Southern California.
A bookmaking operation in California cannot possibly be operating legally, because it’s illegal to offer sports betting in California. The events described could have happened whether sports betting expanded legally in the U.S. or not.
ESPN mentions that Mizuhara previously gambled at DraftKings, but as long as he wasn’t betting on baseball that’s not actually an issue that anyone needs to be concerned with on its face. It’s not against any rules or laws.
In any event, LEGAL sports betting has nothing to do with the story, at least with the information we have so far. The legal gambling industry has made plenty of mistakes, but to place any blame at its feet here is foolish, in my opinion.
2. What’s with the lying?
It was almost immediately apparent this was some very badly botched PR from Ohtani’s camp. From ESPN:
Initially, a spokesman for Ohtani told ESPN the slugger had transferred the funds to cover Mizuhara's gambling debt. The spokesman presented Mizuhara to ESPN for a 90-minute interview Tuesday night, during which Mizuhara laid out his account in great detail. However, as ESPN prepared to publish the story Wednesday, the spokesman disavowed Mizuhara's account and said Ohtani's lawyers would issue a statement.
"In the course of responding to recent media inquiries, we discovered that Shohei has been the victim of a massive theft, and we are turning the matter over to the authorities," read the statement from Berk Brettler LLP.
If you’re keeping score, Ohtani’s camp went from saying he was helping to cover the debt to saying Mizuhara stole from him BEFORE THE STORY WAS EVEN PUBLISHED. Mizuhara also walked back a bunch of his story from the time he initially talked to ESPN to now.
The story was already bad, but the mishandling of the PR is making it all exponentially worse. Now, just about everything the media and the public hear about this case from Ohtani’s camp and Mizuhara will be questioned.
Mizuhara, for instance, said he never bet on baseball. But can we take him at face value when Ohtani’s camp is alleging that he stole from his friend and employer?
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3. Why isn’t Major League Baseball conducting an investigation?
We learned from The Athletic this morning that Major League Baseball apparently is not planning its own investigation into Ohtani and the scandal.
That seems crazy for several reasons:
Even if you believe Ohtani wasn’t directly involved, Mizuhara was a Los Angeles Dodgers employee and in Ohtani’s inner circle.
Per ESPN’s report, wire transfers literally have Ohtani’s name on them.
The two most likely scenarios:
MLB really doesn't want to know more and saying it’s opening an investigation just keeps the story on the front burner just as the season is getting underway.
MLB already knows a lot of the details — after all, the initial transfers with Ohtani’s name on them were more than six months ago. It’s possible MLB already knows all it cares to know and is satisfied with that.
If MLB wants to pretend it takes gambling and integrity seriously, it can’t just ignore this and hope it goes away. If scenario 2 is what happened, MLB should arguably offer up more of what it knows in an effort at transparency.
4. How was Mizuhara allowed to rack up $4.5 million in gambling debt?
There are lots of things to wonder about in the sorted affair. And one of the biggest questions is how Ohtani’s interpreter was able to bet on credit until he was $4.5 million in debt (again, relying on ESPN’s reporting here).
Mizuhara made a good living, for sure. But it’s hard to believe the bookmaker believed he was good for almost $5 million on his own, once the debt got out of hand.
This detail may shed some light:
A source said Bowyer (the bookmaker) was aware of the name on the wire transfers but chose not to ask any questions as long as payments came in; however, the source said Bowyer allowed people to believe Ohtani was a client in order to boost business.
But it still doesn’t add up, with the information we have, that a bookmaker would let Mizuhara get in this deep. Even if the bookmaker thought Mizuhara had access to all of Ohtani’s money, it smells a little funny. The bookmaker knows the money is not Mizuhara’s in that scenario; is he interested in stealing by proxy from the biggest star in baseball? In any event, it’s another detail that brings up more questions than answers in all of this.
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