One of the biggest stories in baseball this year has been the explosive gambling controversy involving Shohei Ohtani’s longtime friend and interpreter Ippei Mizuhara, who Ohtani alleged to have stolen millions of dollars from him to cover for massive gambling debts.
While there had been some skepticism from fans regarding whether Mizuhara was covering for Ohtani being the one gambling, as the way the story unfolded seemed a bit suspect, a federal complaint against Mizuhara that became public on Thursday details extensively the gambling addiction of Mizuhara and the correspondence via text between he and bookies. The texts to the bookie are truly incredible, with the full complaint available to read here, but some of the highlights include:
- “I’m terrible at this sport betting thing huh? Lol . . . Any chance u can bump me again?? As you know, you don’t have to worry about me not paying!!”
- “Fuck I lost it all lol . . . can you ask if he can bump me 50k? That will be my last one for a while if I lose it.”
- “I’ve just been messing around with soccer, there’s games on 24/7 lol. I took UCLA but they lost outright!!!”
That’s just the appetizer in the complaint, which includes a full rundown of Mizuhara’s gambling activity over the course of 26 months from December 2021 to January 2024 in which he had over $320 million in bets out across 19,000 bets, losing a total of more than $40 million.
The 35966 Records reflect approximately 19,000 wagers between December 2021 and January 2024, and nearly 25 bets per day on average. The wagers reflected in the 35966 Records ranged in value from roughly $10 to $160,000 per bet, with an average bet amount of roughly $12,800. During this period, the 35966 Records reflect total winning bets of $142,256,769.74, and total losing bets of $182,935,206.68, leaving a total net balance of negative $40,678,436.94.8.
He was correct that he is terrible at this sports betting thing, as that’s a staggering negative ROI even considering the volume of bets and amount he was betting. If anything, the federal charges being levied against Mizuhara might have saved him as the complaint shows the booki getting increasingly frustrated as losses piled up and payments were slow, with the bookie at one point noting it might be “out of my hands” soon.
Mizuhara is charged with bank fraud for transferring more than $16,000,000 from accounts that he handled for Ohtani to the bookie.