Bookie Reveals Extreme Betting Habits Behind Ohtani Interpreter’s $325 Million Fraud
A bookmaker for Ippei Mizuhara said the interpreter’s wagers were astonishing, with roughly $325 million placed over two years.
During a recent documentary, bookmaker Matthew Boyer described the betting activity of Ippei Mizuhara, Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter, as “absolutely bananas,” noting that the man placed about $325 million in wagers across roughly 19,000 bets from late 2021 to early 2024. The average daily bet topped $300,000, far exceeding typical black-market gambling. Boyer said he provided Mizuhara with a $20,000 startup credit even though the interpreter earned only $87,000 while working for Ohtani.
As the stakes grew, Boyer assumed the bets might be on Ohtani’s behalf or a joint venture. Mizuhara is serving a 57-month prison term and owes Ohtani $17 million. Boyer was sentenced to a year in prison, ordered to pay $1.6 million to the IRS, and released to a halfway house after less than six months. He also confessed to using casino gambling to convert cashier’s checks into cash, leading to multi-million-dollar fines for several casinos that failed to verify the source of funds under the Bank Secrecy Act.
Why it matters
The case highlights how high-profile sports figures can be entangled in massive gambling and money-laundering schemes.
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