In the story first told by Shohei Ohtani interpreter Ippei Mizuhara to ESPN, the two men logged into Ohtani’s bank account together on eight or nine occasions in 2023 and wired an additional $500,000 to Mathew Bowyer, an alleged illegal bettor under federal investigation. In the story Ohtani told the public days after Mizuhara recanted his initial claims and was fired by the Dodgers, the interpreter stole the money to pay off his gambling debts.
Both versions of the story raised a question that puzzled the general public: Why would a bookie extend a line of credit of at least $4.5 million to someone who said he was getting paid $85,000 as an interpreter for the Los Angeles Angels? The script was easier to understand for those familiar with the inner workings of gambling markets.
“Credit is the lifeblood of illegal betting,” said Chris Grove, a gaming industry entrepreneur and investor. “So we shouldn’t be surprised when an illegal bookmaker uses credit to attract a high-value customer, especially when that customer has shown they’re good for it.”
The scandal has captivated the baseball industry and the wider sports world at a time when gambling has become intertwined with the consumption of sports. Ohtani, the 29-year-old two-time American League MVP who recently signed a 10-year, $700 million contract, said he has never bet on baseball or any other sport and has not been accused of wrongdoing.. He described himself as a victim who was defrauded by a friend. “Ippei stole money from my account and lied,” he said through his new interpreter, Will Ireton. Major League Baseball has launched an investigation. The IRS Los Angeles field office has been working with the Department of Homeland Security to investigate Mizuhara and Bowyer.
The story also opened a gateway for the public to the less understood world of illegal betting. Since the Supreme Court struck down a 1992 federal law that effectively banned sports betting in most states, the majority of the country has gained access to legal sports betting. However, a 2022 report from the American Gaming Association estimated that Americans bet a total of $63.8 billion at illegal bookmakers and unregulated offshore locations in 2021. So why do these bookies and offshore businesses keep such a thriving business?
The allure of credit — the ability to gamble money you don’t actually have — is the primary reason, according to interviews with gambling lawyers, entrepreneurs, researchers and professional gamblers. These experts framed most of their comments about the wider world of illegal gambling, rather than the saga of Ohtani and Mizuhara. However, they also pointed to a variety of additional factors that drive players to bettors, such as the promise of privacy, the ability to avoid taxes on winnings, the removal of artificial betting limits and the enduring appeal of convenience.
“The Ohtani situation is a good reminder that there is still a thriving illegal market because there are still people in the illegal market willing to offer things to consumers that the regulated market can’t or won’t,” Grove said.
The prosecution team pursuing Bowyer is the same team that investigated a different gambling ring run by former minor league baseball player Wayne Nix. the Los Angeles Times reported. One of the dozens of people charged in that investigation is former Dodgers shortstop Yasiel Puig, who has pleaded not guilty. The Nix detector showed the modernization of the practice. The idea of meeting a bookie in a dark alley or murky parlor is outdated. Nix used a betting network that collected bets via website and phone line, according to the Washington Post.
Convenience adds to the appeal, especially when placing an illegal bet only requires clicking a few buttons instead of walking into a Las Vegas casino, one professional gambler said. “The last thing a guy wants to do is go to Circa Sportsbook every day and put $20,000 on (games),” Ingram said. “Some people just text a person or go to the website.”
Bookies often maintain a personal relationship with their customers, forgiving certain bets, offering free play points or condoning ‘bad beats’, the unlucky results that bind all players. “They offer customer service that sometimes can’t be offered through an app,” said Timothy Fong, co-director of UCLA’s Gambling Studies Program.
Fong, a psychiatrist, studies the causes and treatment options for gambling addicts. Some of those who bet through illegal bookmakers wish to remain anonymous. Others don’t want to pay taxes on a potential jackpot.
Daniel Wallach, a Florida sports betting and gambling attorney who has previously written The Athlete, suggested that a sense of loyalty can keep players connected to bookies. “These patterns can be hard to break, given all the incentives,” Wallach said. “There may be better lines, better returns” for a regular.
Bookmakers also offer bets that legal bookmakers either can’t or won’t, depending on state laws or exposure risks. Some states, for example, bet on their local college teams, and with the March Madness college basketball tournaments as a backdrop, the NCAA is trying to further restrict college betting. Last week, NCAA president Charlie Baker urged states to ban betting on college athletes altogether. Bookmakers exist in a world unconcerned about these developments, which can be attractive to punters looking for certain types of action that the legal books may not offer.
“Instead of 30 types of cereal that they offer,” Fong said, “I can get 100 different types of cereal that my bookie offers.”
Spectators watch March Madness NCAA Tournament games at the Borgata Casino in New Jersey this March. (Wayne Parry/Associated Press)
In the case of Mizuhara and Ohtani, location matters. California is one of 12 states without legal sports betting. In 2022, voters there rejected a pair of competing ballot measures to keep it that way, showing how difficult it will be to legalize betting amid a costly and often bitter fight between tribal casinos and private betting companies. Proposition 26 would have legalized in-person betting at tribal casinos and horse tracks. Proposition 27 would allow online sports betting.
By the time voters rejected those initiatives, Mizuhara was already facing more than $1 million in gambling debt, he told ESPN. Mizuhara said he had met Bowyer at a poker game in San Diego in 2021. To boost his business, Bowyer told associates that Ohtani was his client, the Los Angeles Times reported. Diane Bass, Bowyer’s attorney, said her client had no contact with Ohtani.
In many cases, a player must be referred to a bookie by an existing customer, with the existing customer sometimes getting a referral bonus when the new player bets. If the new player does not pay the bookie when due, the referral will be discontinued. Peer pressure often serves as a sufficient first resort to keep players paying their gambling debts.
Bookies also offer incentives to customers to pay in the form of free play or other forms of free bets. the player is incentivized to pay and use the free bets to continue chasing their losses and get back in the black. In cases where bookies are deeply in debt, bookies accept partial payments or put customers on weekly or monthly payment schedules. Payments are often made to cash transfer apps like Venmo or PayPal, although sometimes cash is sent, depending on the size of the transaction.
Mizuhara told ESPN that Bowyer extended him a line of credit that allowed his losses to stretch into the millions, which experts described as common for a bookie who felt confident in a player’s ability to pay.
Bookies can make a lucrative living, especially if they can attract a few high-net-worth customers with deep pockets — assuming they can stay out of the authorities’ crosshairs. Bookies themselves rarely, if ever, face legal consequences for betting with illegal bookmakers. the government has generally sought to prosecute operators rather than customers when pursuing illegal betting. At the same time, however, the lack of government oversight can also come back to spur high-stakes players. If the bookie decides not to pay out a significant win, players are left with few options.
Some of the largest unregulated gambling operations are outside the jurisdiction of US state regulators. – because they are based in foreign countries. These so-called “offshore” sites often look like regulated American sportsbooks and have domain names like “.lv” that indicate they are based in Las Vegas (in this example, lv stands for Latvia). These usually don’t offer the personal experience that US-based illegal bookies do, they generally don’t offer credit and transferring cash in and out can be difficult. some players use cryptocurrencies to transact with these books. A small subset of punters have placed bets on sites like these without knowing they were illegal, having stumbled upon one of the unregulated sites that offer the veneer of decency.
“You look at it: it’s clean, it’s fresh, it looks like a set thing,” Fong said. “It doesn’t seem any different than a cheap version of DraftKings or FanDuel. He’s got all his bets on it.” The uninformed consumer, Fong explained, “has no idea that what he’s really participating in is an unregulated, unprotected gambling activity.”
If they do well enough — and can be sure of getting paid — betting on an illegal feature can be profitable for the player as well. In addition to taxing a player’s winnings, regulated sites also sometimes limit the action of gamblers who are considered winners, experts said. The bookmaker can offer more freedom, certainly from taxes but also from limits. “In the illegal market, you’re not likely to find restrictions or limitations on the amount you can bet,” Wallach said.
The evidence suggests that Mizuhara is far from winning the bettor. Mizuhara painted himself as an addict who could not regain his losses. In these cases, the use of credit also helps the bookmaker.
“What they’re doing is letting these people get deep into money they don’t have,” the professional gambler said. “It’s very predatory. It’s sad, really, because that’s how a lot of people operate, in gambling.”
(Top photo of Mizuhara and Ohtani at a Los Angeles Rams game in December: Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images)
