shohei ohtani alert

Bowyer supposedly used Ohtani’s name to attract clients, I guess you could posit that he was generous with Ippei’s credit based on how useful namedropping Ohtani might have been to him.

― Roman Anthony gets on his horse (gyac), Thursday, March 21, 2024 11:50 AM (one minute ago)

src?

Jon Heyman of all people (!) pulling no punches: https://nypost.com/2024/03/21/sports/shohei-ohtanis-camp-wants-you-to-believe-hes-a-financial-dimwit/

Mizuhara’s firing is a huge loss for him since he was said to be extremely well-paid as an interpreter for a guy who almost never speaks (not to the press, anyway). The real job morphed to become Ohtani’s occasional driver, workout partner and constant companion.

xp ESPN:

Sources close to the gambling operation told ESPN that Bowyer dealt directly with Mizuhara, who placed bets on international soccer matches and other sports -- but not baseball -- starting in 2021. A source said Bowyer 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.

Bowyer's attorney, Diane Bass, told ESPN: "Mr. Bowyer never met or spoke with Shohei Ohtani." She declined to answer any other questions.

if it's true that he never bet on baseball then I can't imagine how the public is gonna care about any of this. unless maybe ESPN Bet recommends which side you take on the over/under games suspended line

Cos the bookies operation was illegal maybe?

honestly don't believe Ohtani would risk everything by gambling; but there's no way mlb doesn't look into this?!

MLB only knows it cos the Feds do, they may follow their lead I guess depending what emerges.

Will Shohei Ohtani bat before Mookie Betts at all this season, just so we get “Ohtani-Betts” in the lineup. Pleaseee do it

— Otis B. Driftwood (@OtisDriftwood00) March 21, 2024

omg

Passan, as usual, sums it up:

"When they were in the dugout yesterday Shohei Ohtani knew that there was gambling involved with Ippei Mizuhara..

At some point yesterday the story changed and the statement was then that it was a theft..

What happened during that time we don't know yet" ~ @JeffPassan #PMSLive pic.twitter.com/jkVS2hU98g

— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) March 21, 2024

It would genuinely shock me if Ohtani is implicated directly in gambling. He's got a lot to lose and his track record is pretty clean. Ippei seems like a toxic hanger on who let his gambling addiction get the best of him. That said, as a Giants fan, it would certainly not break my heart if Ohtani comes out of this with some sort of suspension lol

sure but like, what do we really *know* about Shohei Ohtani? all the information we get is second or third hand stuff. he got married recently to a woman nobody seemed to know he was even dating.

i don’t think the public will care at all that bowyer’s operation was illegal in california

Ippei seems like a toxic hanger on

Ippei seems like a toxic hanger on

src? lol

also hello and welcome to ILB!

Craig Calcaterra just dropped a free newsletter on this which addresses the various theories and goes into some of the problems with the bank transfers:

https://cupofcoffee.beehiiv.com/p/cup-coffee-extra-breaking-shohei-ohtaniippei-mizuhara-story

Btw, why do Americans use the term wire transfer? I thought I was going to have to read up and find out it was a bank transaction made in person but no, bank transfer.

Because all the pieces matter.

i imagine because such transactions were long ago done by telegraph?

certain financial shenanigans are still legally referred to as 'wire fraud'

maybe i'm a sucker but i have a hard time reconciling the fact that the bets were largely on NBA, NFL, and college football games and the fact that ippei grew up in america w/ the idea of ohtani being the gambler here. he just does not seem like the most likely suspect given that. maybe you could say that ohtani enjoyed the vicarious thrill of gambling via ippei's wagers even tho i can't imagine he has much understanding of or interest in football, in particular. i do believe he knew that ippei was gambling bcuz i don't think you can be that close w/ someone gambling that much money and not have some inkling. and i do think ohtani likely gave him the money to cover the losses... i think his contract deferral is an indicator that he's somewhat selfless when it comes to money. so that tracks for me. but the idea of ohtani wagering on ohio st-mich... that's a tougher one for me

the bets were largely on NBA, NFL, and college football games

honestly i'd be pretty impressed if he were betting on ohio state-michigan

considering that someone that rich likely has his money carefully monitored and safeguarded

athletes and celebrities frequently get huge sums of money stolen from them by people close to or employed by them, so i wouldn't assume this

just happened to jim palmer!

didn't even know Palmer needed a translator!

Only during mound visits from Earl Weaver.

ESPN updated their story to say that Ohtani’s people reported Ippei to the authorities for theft. So now we wait!

https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/could-shohei-ohtani-face-punishment-for-interpreter-gambling-scandal-what-legal-expert-mlb-rules-say/

"There are so many potential crimes here, state and federal, and the big dangers with violating the anti-gambling laws is they're all written to go after organized crime, which means all the organized crime statutes can kick in, like RICO and money laundering," said Rose, who has served as a government consultant to entities including the Arizona Department of Gaming, the Delaware State Lottery, the Illinois Gaming Board, the Michigan State Lottery and the New Mexico Gaming Control Board.

If Ohtani did knowingly wire the money to pay Mizuhara's debt, either to Mizuhara or directly to the bookie, he could be considered complicit in helping an illegal gambler collect, according to Rose.

"In other words, he's helping the bookie collect the debt. It gets extraordinarily bad if he knew any of this was going on and agreed to it," Rose said.

"Nelson Rose, an expert on gambling law and co-founder of the California Council on Problem Gambling..."--that's funny!

Yeah I saw the name Rose and had to look

lol i really thought it was good ol Pete, just what i get for only scanning

https://i.imgur.com/QYpF4vm.png

Posnanski's always free on Friday; he has some Shohei stuff in here.

https://open.substack.com/pub/joeposnanski/p/free-friday-ohtani-march-madness?r=1jtu0&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

If the IRS finds zero significant transactions between Ippei & Bowyer and then chooses to go public with that information (ie, not backdoor to MLB/LAD for internal discipline), then Shohei is fucked.

Based on IRS/FEDs sports investigation history (notably Jeff Novitsky et al) there is no superstar athlete (eg Lance Armstrong, Marion Jones, Barry Bonds) too big for them to take on.

I’m not on Twitter, but Lincecum is apparently making some wild connections right now.

he hasn’t posted since 2012, does he have an alt?

The gf was sending me screen grabs. I actually do not think that’s him.

There’s like 5 posts and idk how to find the other ones tbh, I fucking can’t stand trying to use Twitter.

Ohtani Throwing Games: A Thread
(1) July 22, 2022, a bet of $1,000,000 was placed for the Atlanta Braves to score over 6.5 runs against the Los Angeles Angels parlayed with Braves -3.5. The bet was placed with a bookie in Mizusawa (Shohei’s home town). The pitcher for the Angels

— TimmySmokes (@timmy_smokes) March 22, 2024

No idea how one would gather that info and no real link to Ohtani himself. But those amounts - IF this is accurate - are huge. But I’m getting big time Ohtani flight tracker vibes from this.

That's gotta by gyac's alt... I'd put serious money on it.

Ha!

Actually I can't read anything beyond the initial post, does UNROLL still function?

Lmao @ comments about my alt

I’ll screenshot the thread for you brb

heres the rest

(2) that day? Shohei Ohtani. That stats for Shohei that day were as followed, 6.1 IP, 6 H, 6 ER and 1 BB. At the plate you ask? 0-3 with 2 strike outs. Was he throwing games? I’ll let you decide that

— TimmySmokes (@timmy_smokes) March 22, 2024

(3) July 4, 2023 (America’s Birthday!!!) a bet was placed in the same hometown with the same bookie for 4.2 million dollars on the over for the Padres run total! Guess who was pitching? You guessed it! Shofraud! 5 IP 5 ER while going 0-3 at the plate….

NOT EVEN 10 DAYS LATER A

— TimmySmokes (@timmy_smokes) March 22, 2024

(4) 10 MILLION DOLLAR BET WAS PLACED. Same bookie, same town….. a parlay with +2500 odds.
•Astros -1.5
•Astros o 6.5
•Shohei o 4.5 runs allowed
•Shohei u 6.5 K
•game total o 11.5
Shohei’s line for that day, 6 IP, 9 H, 5 ER while allowing 2 home runs. Shohei went 2-5 at the

— TimmySmokes (@timmy_smokes) March 22, 2024

(5) plate. The extra motivation to make the over cash really helped.

He has a true addiction and problem. He needs real help. Hopefully the true story gets out and the poor interpreter can be set free from this madness. @espn @JeffPassan @Ken_Rosenthal #Ohtani

— TimmySmokes (@timmy_smokes) March 22, 2024

thnkn' u froggo

kind of useless info unless we know how often giant bets like this are placed with Mizusawa bookies. I like Ohtani as much as anyone but I'm kinda rooting for a big gambling scandal. no real reason just think it would be funny

Lmao too fast

https://postimg.cc/gallery/wD0w4bN/07d7ba6f

Yeah seems like a pretty wild and unsubstantiated series of accusations, source makes no sense, @ing the reporters at the end threw me a bit though

Ok so how do you find out the point of origin data on betting?

Btw Tim Lincecum does have a Twitter account with a total of 8 tweets, this was the last one, RIP sweet king

Just got home from Benihana's and some solid cook-in-front-you-food, now comes the 'food coma'

— Tim Lincecum (@timlincecum) March 13, 2012

That's gotta by gyac's alt... I'd put serious money on it.