Headlining Major League Baseball’s (MLB) offseason was not its uniform fiasco, the Players Association’s battles, the new ownership of the Baltimore Orioles or the bickering over broadcast rights. Rather, it was the record $700-million contract the Los Angeles Dodgers accorded Shohei Ohtani, the richest in sports’ history.
Opening the season, Ohtani was back in the headlines this time embroiled in a gambling scandal stemming from his longtime Japanese interpreter’s association with an alleged illegal bookmaker who is under federal investigation. The interpreter is accused of stealing $4.5 million of Ohtani’s money to pay illegal gambling debts.
Ohtani denies gambling and accused his interpreter, who has since been canned by the Dodgers, of “theft and fraud,” saying, “I never bet on baseball or any other sports, [and] never have asked anybody to do it on my behalf.” Ohtani sounds more like Johnny Cochran than the image he prefers as the aw-shucks baseball hayseed where the only thing that matters is the play on the diamond.
To date, there is nothing to support Ohtani’s accusations as the burden of proof rests with him.
To paraphrase Shakespeare, he doth protest too much.
Ohtani’s interpreter would have had to withdraw large sums of money over an extended period of time without Ohtani’s knowledge, where financial institutions require multiple modes of verification for such transactions. Did Ohtani authorize the cash transfers or was the interpreter embezzling?
No bookmaker would extend millions in credit without a guarantee of payment. What bookie wouldn’t string along someone who has inside information on the Dodgers?
Questions remain: Was the interpreter betting for Ohtani on or against the Angels his former team? Did Ohtani bet on games when he pitched? Is what’s happening on the field of play true and without doubt?
It is hard to fathom that Ohtani didn’t occasionally check his cash balances.
After all, we are talking $4.5 million.
When the Supreme Court overturned the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act in 2018, it permitted the states to become bookmakers. Gambling’s growth has benefited greatly from its legalization, and the rise of such sportsbooks as DraftKings and FanDuel are just an app away on your phone.
The Supremes also allowed the dark side to rise like a phoenix among the athletes while unleashing the sportsbook beast. All the professional sports’ leagues welcomed it with open arms and even wider pockets.
Corporate gaming (gaming is what civil society does, while gambling is what criminals do) is another hefty revenue stream. Welcome to the 21st century, where gambling has gone corporate with publicly traded companies on the NYSE.
Once upon a time in America, gambling was the absolute sports’ taboo. Today, it is paraded throughout every stadium, arena, and is a popular back tattoo on prizefighters. It is where the betting line is just another segue of the sports’ broadcast, including commercials.
The Ohtani quagmire has several recent parallels. Front Office Sports reported Cleveland Cavaliers coach J.B. Bickerstaff said he and his family have been threatened by gamblers. The NBA fined Minnesota Timberwolves center Rudy Gobert $100,000 for making a gesture toward a referee implying he was on the take. Former Jacksonville Jaguars employee Amit Patel was sentenced to more than six years in prison for embezzling more than $22 million from the organization admitting a gambling addiction. Last year, the NFL suspended 10 players for gambling. The Temple University men’s basketball team was identified by a gambling watchdog company for questionable wagering on its games.
Gambling corruption has a long-tainted sports’ history. The infamous Black Sox scandal where a group of players fixed the 1919 World Series, to the game’s all-time hit leader Pete Rose banned for life by wagering on games. Not to be discounted are those point-shaving scandals in college basketball, and most recently, NBA referee Tim Donaghy who is serving time for betting on games he officiated.
The NCAA now wants to ban prop bets saying they “threaten the integrity of competition” and are “leading to student-athletes and professional athletes getting harassed.”
You don’t say…
MLB wants this latest scandal buried like Shoeless Joe Jackson.
As baseball philosopher Yogi Berra would pontificate, “It ain’t over, ‘til it’s over.
And for sports gambling, it’s just the beginning.
