Ippei Mizuhara’s Bookie Wonders About Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani’s Knowledge of Gambling
The Los Angeles Dodgers landed Shohei Ohtani ahead of the 2024 season as the generational talent inked a 10-year, $700 million deal. As festive as Dec. 2023 was for Dodgers fans, a dark scandal soon followed Ohtani’s now-former interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara.
Mizuhara stole nearly $17 million from Ohtani to fund his secret and illegal sports gambling ventures. He falsified his tax returns and even committed bank fraud by pretending to be the superstar baseball player he worked for, leading to a 57-month prison sentence.
The man who accepted those bets from Mizuhara via one of the largest bookmaking schemes in the country was Mathew Bowyer. He is awaiting a sentence of his own for not just his involvement in the Ohtani situation, but also his other illegal activities while running this sports gambling ring.
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Bowyer recently told USA Today’s Bob Nightengale that the notion of Ohtani not having an idea of what was happening to his interpreter was plausible, at best.
“It’s definitely possible Ohtani didn’t know anything, but plausible is a different answer,” Bowyer said. “I gambled bigger than most. I hid my emotions better than most. But you can only hide so much when you’re in serious turmoil. And clearly, he was in serious turmoil.”
The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal wrote that Mizuhara acted more as a de facto manager and assistant, per the U.S. government’s complaint. Ohtani was busy enough with his pitching and hitting efforts, so it wasn’t out of the ordinary for the two to have a closer relationship than the average interpreter and foreign star.
“I truly believe that Shohei doesn’t gamble, but I think he knew some area of demise with Ippei, just maybe not to that extent,” Bowyer said.
From a human standpoint, it’s possible that despite Ohtani’s rigorous baseball schedule, he could still see a level of stress from his interpreter — but in no way does it mean Ohtani knew anything of what was really happening behind the curtain.
Finding out one of your closest allies has stolen almost $17 million from you is unthinkable, but not only did Ohtani battle through the emotional hardship, he earned his third MVP award and opened up the 50-home run, 50-stolen bases club with the nightmarish start to the season ending with a World Series victory.
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Photo Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
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