Quote Originally Posted by Kalam View Post
Quote Originally Posted by Dan Druff View Post
The more I think about this, the more it really does look like a bearding situation.

If Shohei is a soccer degen like Kalam says, and he lives in CA with no legal betting options, using Ippei makes sense. It’s only surprising they didn’t have a coherent excuse prepared in case this got out. Maybe he figured if he didn’t bet baseball, his penalties would be minimal at worst.
Even if it was legal, would non baseball sports betting be permitted under his MLB contract? I assume no, but have no clue. Also, I dont think he payed through Ippei. The money was being payed directly out of his accounts. That is why they had to make up the whole "Ippei stole the money" angle, which still makes no sense.

Also, I think you might not appreciate how 'in the open' all of this is, and 99.9% of the time no one cares and no authorities ever get involved. Pretty similar to the prostitution in Asian massage parlors. Most bookies generally accept and pay out through Zelle or Venmo, which the FBI could easily track if they cared, but they generally dont.

Looks like probably because he was booking action with Ohtani, who obviously is betting WAY BIGGER than guys like me and Druff, and so much money was flowing into the accounts, the FBI took notice. The bookie may have also been involved in some other shady stuff, and discovering he was receiving money from Ohtani and it getting leaked to the media during the investigation was just bad luck on Ohtani's part.
MLB allows non-baseball sportsbetting, but only via licensed and regulated books.

As you know, there is no way to legally sportsbet in California.

This left Ohtani needing a beard to do his betting if he so desired, as he spends most of his time in California.

I liked the people asking, "Why didn't he just go to Vegas to do it?"

Yeah, as if he'll just hop on a plane from LA to Vegas every time he wants to place a sportsbet during the MLB season. They don't understand how regular gamblers operate. Betting a few times a year while in Vegas isn't gonna cut it.

The bookie was already in the process of being busted, and they were going over the evidence. It was found that Ohtani send those big wires, and it blew up from there.