Shohei Ohtani Appreciation & Conspiracy Theory Thread

in b4 he quits béisbol to play for the bulls for a couple years

But seriously wasn't his interpreter with him Earlier today!?!? Something's not adding up.
Gambling is a part of Asian culture. Heck, he should be encouraged to gamble on himself. He'd probably play better.

The classic saying is put your money where your mouth is. How about he put his money where his bat and glove is!

Nice one, Mclovin.

Thanks, my super creative friend came up with it.

Ohtani: no no you idiot! I said MOOKIE Betts.

bet on yourself, they said. it'll be fun, they said

hype! And to think If this mofo could only stay fully healthy

Shohei oh mashMGMi

Lolll

And supposedly Ippei had informed the Dodgers before the game that this story was about to break.

If they found out he really gambled.. what would happen? 1 year ban?

sounds like he's lost money gambling so why would they ban him? he was supporting the economy!

but seriously, I doubt they would be looking hard enough, just have the interpreter apologize again nbd

Shohei O-Parlay
Shohei OBoostay
Shohei O1800NEXTStEpay

Did they confirm the bets were on MLB? Is it against the league rules to bet on other sports?

They claim no bets were placed on baseball. MLB players are allowed to bet on other sports.

Obviously, MLB players aren't allowed to place bets with illegal bookmakers or bet in states like California where sports betting is illegal. That seems to be the issue here.

I found the Bookie that Ohtani was betting with:

Spoiler

Show

Ah.

But I’d think the punishment for illegal betting would be a 90 day deal while gambling on baseball specifically is like the Pete Rose treatment. Like don’t guys get DWIs and whatnot pretty regularly?

Unless they can prove he placed bets on MLB games there's no way he gets a stiffer penalty than a first time PED offender or for a first time domestic violence offense.

I'd assume most people on here have placed bets with offshore bookmakers in the past or gambled in states where it's still prohibited.

Does a non-sanctioned Bingo night at a church count?

Same way as a non-sanctioned poker night at a church. Also same charitable game loopholes.

I just really feel for the idiot crybaby Doyer's last three massive pitching contracts are all crumbled. Yamamoto run on his SP debut after one inning. 12/$325 contract. Bauer obv. Shohei directly wiring money from his account to an illegal book. It really pains me.

People are making a huge deal about the fact that Ippei's initial admission (per ESPN interview that Ohtani paid back Ippei's gambling debt) and Ohtani's lawyers' statement (that Ippei essentially stole from Ohtani) are different as though this is some kind of evidence that Ohtani is strongly implicated and he has something to hide. But I think the most likely scenario is the reverse and fairly boring - Ippei likely misappropriated Ohtani's funds under false pretenses, which Ohtani then later forgave but Ohtani's camp (which might literally include Ippei's wife and/or their mutual acquaintances!) wanted to cover up this part of Ippei's wrongdoing because that's still an astoundingly bad look given how Ippei had become a small part of Ohtani's brand and thought this would mostly let Ippei off the hook (gambling illegally isn't that big of a deal from a legal perspective, being an illegal bookie is). Then his lawyers realized that given the scope of this investigation, not telling the truth is hugely problematic and quickly ensured that Ohtani does not cover up for Ippei's wrongdoing.

Now, there's this other idea on the internet that this pivot is because Ohtani paying back Ippei's gambling debt is itself some kind of a serious criminal activity, with some people quoting clauses from the Wire Act, that doesn't seem to apply at all. Now I could be wrong but it sounds like some idiot made the connection and other idiots are just parroting this without any legal understanding. Instead, I suspect that the real reason why Ohtani's lawyers are forcing the pivot is rather simple: they don't want Ohtani to lie to the authorities during the federal investigation, which would be criminal, nor to lie to the press, which could cast doubt on Ohtani's credibility when he has to tell the truth during the investigation.

The reason why I'm fairly confident is that this is the most likely scenario is that in both scenarios, Ohtani is essentially innocent, which means lying about his involvement massively increases legal liability and there's no way highly paid lawyers would advise their innocent client to lie and conspire with Ippei, who must be seen as fairly unreliable by a neutral party. If the truth is good enough, they would just go with that.

Ippei being the fall guy for Ohtani's gambling also doesn't make a lot of sense. If Ohtani wanted to gamble and he did it through Ippei to avoid this being discovered, why would he send money from his own account to the bookie? That essentially defeats the whole purpose. And why would Ippei even make it known to the bookie that he's close to Ohtani? His #1 job here would've been to protect Ohtani's anonymity.

It sounds like the bookie clearly valued some kind of connection to a famous athlete (potentially to find targets that might be willing to fix matches, or just vanity, who knows), which might have led to targeting Ippei and Ippei might have sent money from Ohtani's account specifically to prove to the bookie that he has access to Ohtani's funds.

sounds like ohtani was betting directly