I thought I read the immediate 1 year suspension was if a player/coach/ump worked for or ran an illegal bookmaking operation and that punishment for anyone who placed a bet with one of those was under the discretion of the commissioner?
Shohei Ohtani’s attorneys accuse interpreter of ‘massive theft’ tied to alleged gambling
- Thread starter soxhop411
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Agree with evan here, WTF is the point of the DOI if you are just going to try and pretend like it never happened. Doubly so given how intertwined gambling is in sports this year
View: https://twitter.com/evandrellich/status/1771168606442680591?s=46
View: https://twitter.com/evandrellich/status/1771168606442680591?s=46
Generally speaking, the advent of legalized sports gambling has opened the door for a much wider range of gambling related issues. The fact that professional sport leagues have embraced, endorsed and partnered with these entities has put them in the very position that they find themselves in today. I'll shed no tears as these leagues have backed themselves into a corner of hypocrisy with these partnerships. There was a time when there was one standardized policy for MLB players concerning gambling. I imagine that there still is, but amended or clarified pertaining to legalized sports betting. Granted this particular case involves illegal betting, but it's going to be very interesting to see what disciplinary actions (if any) the league will impose on the game's biggest star.
RR put his finger on the key question to me. Why did he change stories?
Is it a violation of the law to pay a friend’s illegal gambling debt? I can’t imagine it is. Violation of MLB rules? Maybe. But really “I didn’t want my friend to get shot in the kneecaps, he promised to get help” seems like a good story.
It doesn’t make sense to change stories to avoid that, or for the interpreter to take the fall just to avoid that. If the interpreter actually gets charged, once he lawyers up is that going to stay the story?
Is it a violation of the law to pay a friend’s illegal gambling debt? I can’t imagine it is. Violation of MLB rules? Maybe. But really “I didn’t want my friend to get shot in the kneecaps, he promised to get help” seems like a good story.
It doesn’t make sense to change stories to avoid that, or for the interpreter to take the fall just to avoid that. If the interpreter actually gets charged, once he lawyers up is that going to stay the story?
“No, it’s all good, its not mine, it’s for a friend.”
Knowingly paying an illegal business a large sum of money for any reason… I can’t imagine that’s in the clear. Everyone would just route money through their “friends”
Is there any sort of compliance efforts done by US banks when certain transactions are done that do not fit a profile? There is a lot of that over here, somif we send or receive a wire that looks unusual for whatever reason the bank’s compliance officers think, we have to provide with the documentation before the money is released.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the only thing we know for a fact is that a large sum of money went out of Ohtani's bank account and into a bookie's account. That's it. Doesn't Occam's Razor tell us that Shohei was paying off his own debts? Is there any reason to think the interpreter has anything to do with this, other than the fact that he says he did, although he has claimed two totally different stories.
This seems like a pretty good summary of what’s known or at least what was known as of yesterday, written by a former lawyer:
https://cupofcoffee.beehiiv.com/p/cup-coffee-extra-breaking-shohei-ohtaniippei-mizuhara-story
https://cupofcoffee.beehiiv.com/p/cup-coffee-extra-breaking-shohei-ohtaniippei-mizuhara-story
Yes, under the Bank Secrecy Act and other regulations, banks are required to look for unusual activity and lots of other things. It's not as simple as "over $10,000," though. I also don't know if we know what bank he used? Is it a US bank?
This is a fair question, but the waters are still very murky at this point. The bookie is the big prize here where the feds are concerned. I think it's been intimated up thread that he may have bragged on Ohtani being a client. That may or may not be true, but if he maintains that position and the feds have evidence of the transfers someone has a lot of explaining to do. In a non legal sense, MBL will do their own investigation and will come up with their own conclusion and punishment which will likely be less damning unless there are some sort insurmountable findings that shake out via the legal process.
Agreed. I feel the way about gambling advertisements as I do about cigarette ads: the product is easily accessible and causes real harm to nearly everyone who participates in it, and the ads should be banned (I feel similarly about alcohol ads, and a lot of other products, to be fair, but gambling and cigarettes are on a higher level to me).
It was probably less than half a decade ago that teams flat out refused to even talk about gambling, but their greed got the better of them and here we are with GambleBros from Draft Kings having regular spots on Red Sox NESN broadcasts, and literally every ad break having some sort of gambling advertisement. They made their bed, and they need to sleep in it.
I just hope we don't lose a significant portion of the career of the most exciting player of my lifetime because of it. But I am selfish, too.
Potential for something like the Goodell-Ray Rice situation to evolve for Manfred here.
It's sad because the writing is already on the wall for how this all plays out. They'll just be following the NFLs lead.
- Hope it goes away.
- Public backlash causes MLB to investigate; MLB feigns concern/outrage
- MLB "investigates" and either (A) seriously limits transparency or (B) hires an outside firm that specializes in working backwards from a desired outcome.
- Minimal/No punishment to Ohtani.
MLB is going to drag their feet here but it would be a real shame if they did so and then he gets dropped with a 1 year suspension or something that stretches well into 2025 when he would once again be slated to do the two-way thing. And if MLB does nothing (assuming Feds don’t get involved), then this will hang over his head forever.
There are several unnamed sources that ESPN cites which repeatedly say that Mizuhara was the gambler in question. Some of those seem tied into the investigation of the bookie. It's not definitive, but it's something.
I just read it. There's not much that's not already touched on here in the thread, except what MLB rules might apply, which is important to understand the potential flip-flop here.
That said, it's well-organized and is probably anyone's time to read. I agree with much of it.
One thing he didn't explicitly point out is that rule 21(f) suggests why there was a need to assert Ohtani didn't text, call, meet with, phone, or speak to the bookie.
Also, the timeline of Mizuhara's bets (to the extent they can be established/corroborated), and the timeline of the wire transfers can create a sort of free-standing problem for Ohtani. Was he at any point funding his translator's illegal betting, as opposed to paying off illegal debts (which in itself may be a violation of the law and also of MLB rules.)
Post #55 in this thread is someone in Japan who states several of their pro-baseball players have gotten into trouble for gambling, it's not like it's just an American thing. That they're trying to pin this on the interpreter is gross.
The feds are already involved and that's going to lead to MLB needing to delay or limit their own investigation ATM.
RR - are any of those laws applied differently if he was physically in Japan using an account from, say, MUFG Bank?
I'm assuming he does, but I don't know if Ohtani has actually been accused of anything by anyone other than poor judgement at this point.
Good question.
I'm not familiar with CA law on this, but sometimes states are more concerned with the trigger activity, which here might be the placing of illegal bets. That said, even if that was the case, if Ohtani made a Japan to CA payment which participated in an illegal CA financial transaction, then that starts to look like accessory activity or money laundering. (In the colloquial sense - I don't know the CA statutes that would apply or even if one would.)
That does not really go away if Ohtani made a Japan to NJ payment to be then secretly lateraled to CA to participate in an illegal CA financial transaction. In fact, it gets worse, because the structure of the activity itself suggests he had knowledge of what was really going on.
As far as the federal statutes go, I'd have to take a closer look. Some of the statutes might specifically address funding or paying illegal gambling operations, but generally though, this sort of activity is again in the orbit of money laundering, again in the most general colloquial sense. Prosecutors do have to charge under a specific statute, but there's often something that applies. Think of it this way - if Mizuhara were a drug dealer and lost $4.5M in product, it is allowable for Ohtani to secretly wire the US drug cartel cash to cover that loss? There's usually a liability net for those sort of things.
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Now, if the money was somehow stolen behind Ohtani's back, or was sent pursuant to some kind of fraudulent representation, that's a pretty good defense. If theft/embezzlement, Ohtani would be an unknowing victim of an independent crime and not responsible for what the thief did with the funds afterward. If defrauded, he probably wouldn't have the requisite mens rea (bad mind/criminal intent) to have done the crime. He would have thought he was doing something else that wasn't illegal in any way. Like sending $4.5M to an animal rescue shelter as a "loan." (Or whatever the story would be.)
All that is established/proven/weighted by inferential evidence. For example, what do texts between Ohtani and Mizuhara say? What do the communications between Mizuhara and the bookie say? And if those avenues are destroyed/silent/non-conclusive, what do the facts say? Is it believable Ohtani sent $4.5M to an animal rescue shelter as a "loan." (Or whatever the story would be.) For example, did he subsequently claim it on his taxes, or contemporaneously text his fiancé that he just saved a bunch of puppies?
Depending on what's there, the inferences may be strong enough to avoid criminal charges, particularly if he's cooperative and does not lie and isn't a target anyway. Also, possibly, depending on the believability of the facts, he might also avoid MLB sanctions. But if there's any murkiness or questions. . .maybe he avoids the first but not the second.
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Assuming Ohtani is a bad actor and would lie, "Mizuhara stole the money and I never knew" is the easiest lie to establish, but even there it's subject to all kinds of corroborative/inferential evidence concerning account access, etc.
Saying, "He lied to me about what it was about" is in some ways a harder lift. Because you still have to concoct a story about what the lie actually was and why it was believed. Again, corroborative/inferential evidence will factor in significantly.
Either way, the flip-flop is probably going to severely undercut whatever the Ohtani camp says next. I don't think it's a needle that's easily threaded, but who knows?
@Rovin Romine - based on what you know about this now, what do you think is a likely outcome of all this?
It’s crazy to me that people think it’s no big deal/difference for a player to be 9 figures in debt to a criminal organization because the league advertises legal gambling.
It's not just that the league advertises illegal gambling. It's that players are allowed to gamble.
I see a difference, of course. But there's also massive hpyocrisy. It's not like one is bad and one is good. One is worse than the other. I don't think any of us is saying illegal gambling isn't bad. I think the point is actually that legal gambling also is bad and can lead to almost all of the same consequences that illegal gambling can, so to draw these lines in the sand just feels like a question of who is writing the checks to whom.
Do you think it would be hypocritical if he bought a baby from human traffickers, given that adoption is legal? What about buying a gun on the black market? We make these distinctions all the time. He was dealing with literal felons. DraftKings is not going to pressure a player to do something nefarious because they lost a bet. It’s completely different.
It's so early we're in blind guess territory.
But if you want a hip-shot based on the behavior of the actors thusfar. . .I think the most likely outcome is a consensus/finding that there's no definitive evidence Ohtani gambled, but he actively tried to help Mizuhara, who may have exaggerated or lied to Ohtani. Then Ohtani's camp publicly deceived, but did not directly lie, for PR reasons.
If so, I think it's unlikely a cooperative Ohtani is charged criminally by the feds or CA. As far as MLB goes, they'll do an investigation, and ultimately say that Ohtani showed poor judgement but was also in part deceived. Probably a minor sanction, which may or may not include a suspension, but if so not in a way that affects post-season play or the like.
There are many complicating factors here though, including not just facts, but how Ohtani's camp interfaces with any criminal investigations, and with MLB's expected investigation. The attorneys can make a huge difference here, both in the strategies they pursue, and the speed which they do so. Some of that we'll just never know.
And, as a related caution, we should keep in mind that any active criminal/MLB investigations will not be making comprehensive public statements about what they're doing and what they know at any given point in time. Ohtani's camp may. Think A-Rod/Trevor Bauer. Or they may not - Wander Franco. But I'd be skeptical of whatever they say publicly. Perhaps there's a needle to be threaded here, but they're under no obligations to publicly point out problems with their own story.
Yeah, I agree with you on much of this. But just because a line is arbitrary, or fuzzy, or bleed-over or hypocrisy exists, does not mean we're not looking at a full spectrum of behavior. And regardless of anyone's personal opinion on gambling, some of the far ends of that spectrum are just simple no-go-zones. (Maybe so obviously so you've already carved them out in your mind.) For example, we don't want to allow players to directly bet on baseball and throw games - it makes the sport meaningless.
And there I think @uncannymanny is correct; it's massively significant for "a player to be 9 figures in debt to a criminal organization" whether or not the league hypocritically promotes/allows legal gambling.
Manfred has to take this seriously and open an investigation. There's no other choice.
To be clear, I do not think this is no big deal. I do not know what the fallout from this will be, but it looks really bad for Ohtani right now, and whatever judgement he gets falls on him.
My issue with sports leagues pushing gambling is the gambling getting pushed, not the hypocrisy. It has grossed me out since they put their fingers in those pockets, and this doesn't change that.
As a PS (while my conference call winds down), I am curious to hear Camp Ohtani's next story. In part because I'm truly having trouble calibrating where Mizuhara stood in all this. Does Ohtani have no attorneys that speak Japanese? Was Mizuhara only and always his interpreter? Did he and Mizuhara keep this entirely between themselves? Who else was looped in re: financial planning, management, etc.?
It's just so interestingly weird.
It's just so interestingly weird.
No argument there, generally. I don't think, however, that "don't get involved with criminals or break federal and state laws" is egregious for the league to require. TBH, the fact that you CAN legally gamble makes this worse.
Edit: yes, not legal at all in CA, but still
Are we talking about the individual hypocrisy on the part of a player or the league? I think most of us might see it as the latter in which case I'm not sure if your examples fit. For me the league's hypocrisy is sort of baked in. IIRC there was a time when sports leagues were very anti legalized gambling and fought hard against it. It's now legal and they've adopted a "if ya can beat em, join em" attitude. IMO while there are rules in place, they've opened themselves up for criticism and scrutiny no matter what the outcome is in this case and any others. The spotlight shines brightly now that the sport's marquee player and international superstar is under suspicion of some level of involvement in what appears to be a sizable illegal gambling operation. No matter the outcome in all of this, MLB is going to have to make some sort of decision. Regardless as to if there is no wrong doing found, if there is a slap on the wrist or if the hammer comes down hard, MLB and ALL sports leagues have put themselves the uncomfortable position of losing some credibility because of their partnership with these sports betting juggernauts.
Come on. This is the worst form of argument. You have to address the seriousness of the crimes on their own terms. I could easily come back and ask, do you think it's hypocritical that you can go to a brothel in Nye county Nevada, but if you pick up a prostitute 1,000 yards over the county line into Clark, you and she spend the night in jail. Prostitution and human trafficking and gambling are all different.
I personally believe that legal gambling and lotteries are really bad news and I'm very troubled by the extent to which sports leagues are actively embracing them while adhering to theater about giving a shit, like banning players if they tapped the app in the parking lot as opposed to outside the parking lot. Not everyone has to agree, but that informs my view on this and makes it so that I don't see a very huge divide here. I mostly view problem gamblers as victims, not criminals, whether it's a white collar guy betting his mortgage or a sports interpreter in to the mob.
So, to break it down:
Adoption: Socially useful, designed when done correctly to increase societal good, happiness, and relationships.
Legal Gambling: Destructive, addictive, and dangerous in an existential way to the integrity of sports.
Ok? Can we maybe just have the discussion on its own terms?
This definitely has vibes of that or deflategate. Thankfully the act isn't as horrible as Ray Rice, but the protection from the league very well may be comparable.
I don't see a scenario where this simply "goes away".
Perhaps the most recent baseball comp was the Ryan Braun tainted sample situation.
I guess I’m in the minority, but I think there’s a massive difference between legal gambling and illegal gambling. The MLB rules aren’t in place to protect the moral character of the players, it’s to prevent the players from becoming compromised. As has been stated, DraftKings isn’t going to kneecap someone. You can bet legally on sports other than baseball, you can’t bet on baseball or bet illegally. That seems like a real line to me, not something arbitrary at all, so I don’t really see the hypocrisy. I also think all “vice” type crimes (drugs prostitution etc.) should be legal and regulated, so perhaps that’s leading me to think this way, but I have no problem at all with legal gambling and don’t think it’s hypocritical to advertise for legal books while at the same time saying you can’t bet illegally
I don't think it's hypocritical. It's just stupid for pro sports leagues to get in bed with gambling interests. Is Draft Kings going to break someone's leg? No. But when player x borrows money from some "lender" to cover his perfectly legal gambling debt, the lender might. These players could obviously gamble anyway, even if DraftKings didn't pay Manfred's salary, but the sport's relationship with DraftKings encourages the gambling and obscures the potential for problems.
Of course they’ve adopted it. It’s legal and they’re a for-profit corporation. MLB didn’t pass gambling laws in either direction, governments did. “Don’t do crime” is a super fair thing to ask.
Absolutely agree on the bolded and fair on the hypotheticals. I wasn’t trying to compare seriousness of crimes.
But they *were* committing a crime and they were waaaaay in debt to felons that were being targeted by the FBI. It’s well outside of any gray area.
You owe @cromulence $2.00; you'd better pay up, he doesn't fuck around...............
View: https://youtu.be/FsxJfcFVnpo
You and others whose opinions I like seem to be pretty consistent on this point, so I'm listening. I just have a visceral reaction the other way, but I appreciate the discussion.
yeah, at least to me the Occam’s razor answer is the easiest here -
the first story (he covered his friends gambling debt because to Ohtani $5M is nothing now) was accurate, and then someone in his orbit realized ‘hey guys, what you just admitted to is technically a crime and can get you banned from MLB’ - so they panicked and threw out a poorly thought out ‘oh it was theft’ PR argument.
After which, someone (maybe a smarter person in the LAD org) said to them privately ‘hey guys, how about you just shut the f up until we figure out what’s actually at stake here’
Unless he’s been lying to federal investigators or something can be proven that he was actively gambling, I think he’ll get a slap on the wrist (and I don’t think it’ll be that inappropriate- I can easily believe he didn’t know he was doing anything wrong, and just thought he was helping a friend)
I think the issue with illegal vs legal gambling (and as it has been expressed here) is that while both are dangerous, an "illegal" bookie can threaten to harm a player or his family unless he throws a game. While true, any player on the hook for a lot of money in gambling has the incentive to bet and then insure that he wins the bet by throwing the game. It can be innocuous such as missing a fly ball because of the sun, or making an errant throw.
I do find it abhorrent that the leagues'' official channels (NFLN/MLBN) are actively promoting placing bets on draft day and such (this is besides having commercials for betting books and sites). This is besides the restrictions placed on players. I mean there are conducts that are legal but not allowed in sports/leagues.
I do find it abhorrent that the leagues'' official channels (NFLN/MLBN) are actively promoting placing bets on draft day and such (this is besides having commercials for betting books and sites). This is besides the restrictions placed on players. I mean there are conducts that are legal but not allowed in sports/leagues.
If his translator doesn't want to go to jail for "massive theft" on top of illegal bet placing, it seems like there's a real chance he would try to clear his name with the FBI, thus implicating Ohtani in at least the crime related to intentionally paying an illegal bookmaker.
I would think a legal gambling establishment could also threaten to harm a player, through back channels and, um, "associates", in a way that insulates them from probing law enforcement.
Well yeah, I guess so. But ay the end of the day a legal gambling operations has legal means to collect on a debt, whereas an illegal bookie does not.
True. But I wouldn't trust any gambling institution to always do things legally, especially with huge dollars at stake. They'll find ways to collect.
That is another form of law-breaking, though. Any legitimate business COULD be committing and hiding crimes. An illegal bookie is already operating outside the law by definition.
You think a highly regulated company with billions of dollars on the line would cross into criminal enforcement of a debt? Really?
