Back in the day the belief was he was in deep to whoever was behind killing his father and the year off was an informal suspension while he got his **** in order. He bet on golf and stuff like that.

the concern was misuse of pitching for short term results over long term success

if he had an extra large position on a game he was more likely to use top relievers on days when they probably should have been rested

had he only bet on playoff games which are also must win situations then it wouldn't have been nearly as bad imo

So you have absolutely no idea what types of constraints and incentives that these professionals have, yet feel qualified to discuss what's reasonable and what's suspicious? I have a pretty good idea how these thing work and Ohtani's PR people's behavior is entirely consistent with them having shared extensive information with the authorities.

It's very obvious to me what's going on here and it doesn't take any kind of conspiracy. Unlike your story, which makes no sense when you consider the incentives of individuals, my story makes sense from each person's perspective.

Tisha Thompson has a tip from months ago that connects Ohtani to the bookie, but sits on the information so that she can publish this at the right time (near the opening day, rather than off-season).

Then right around the Seoul trip, she starts asking MLB official, the Dodgers, Balelo about this with an implicit (or perhaps explicit) threat to release the information, unless she's provided with more info. Balelo hires a crisis PR guy (at this point, they have no explanation for this, so they are really concerned) and the PR guy tries to talk to Ohtani but instead hears from Ippei a story that entirely exonerates Ohtani and makes him look good, so he goes back to Thompson, we've got a wonderful explanation and sets her up with Ippei.

Then after all this, they hear from Ohtani directly that they were lied to, they panick and ask Thompson to withhold the story until they can figure out what's going on, Thompson gives them a deadline (because this is a fairly ideal time to get the story out from her perspective) to come up with a statement, they scramble to get that out.

Then Thompson publishes the initial story anyway, just with the new information added making the spokesman look like a complete idiot to his clients (both Balelo and Ohtani). Also by this point, from the spokesman's perspective, Thompson twice used the threat of releasing what she knows to get additional information from him and each time, she released the information she'd threatened to release anyway.

And for once, she has no leverage over the spokesman, because she's used all her bullets, she hasn't withheld any information. And with Ohtani's statement being way more thorough than expected, there just isn't much doubt any more that doesn't come down to, I won't trust anything that comes from Ohtani's camp. And the news cycle is honestly passing by, which means Thompson is desperate to keep this relevant and also desperate to make sure that if there was some breaking news on this topic, she's the one who gets to report it.

That's why this article was published, essentially with no new information - it does two things. First, it does get some additional engagement to keep the story marginally more relevant and second, it's a bluff to Ohtani's spokesman, hey, if you don't share more info, we can make you not sharing into a negative article. Unfortunately, Ohtani's spokesman has been kind of dumb but isn't quite that dumb - it's very obvious that releasing any additional information (now that Ohtani's addressed the situation) essentially just keeps the story in the news cycle. Thompson probably knew that, but investigative journalists make a living out of people talking when they aren't supposed to, so why not give it a try.

The current story being told by Ohtani is fairly straightforward. What can Ohtani's camp share at this point that would make you go, yup, he didn't do it? There is nothing they can do to exonerate him in the eyes of skeptics - they need a third-party investigation (whether the Feds or MLB) to clear him. So what is the point of sharing any information with a party who is incentivized to drag him through the mud?

Who are these mythical reps and why do you think they care or have control over any of this? Also, why do you think it requires unfettered access to one's finances to embezzle 4.5M? It probably takes just one account under Ohtani's name that he has complete access to and some level of access to his other accounts. Then he can move money from one Ohtani account to another (which would not be particularly suspicious) and then use the account he controls completely to complete the transfer.

Nez Balelo probably

cocaine is a helluva drug

It'd be funny if Ippei bet on Ohtani hitting for the cycle, since Ohtani was like a hit short several times.

The only confirmed ones were two payments of $500K each. The way Ippei's interview now reads is that he structured the payments as to evade some sort of detection threshold.

this is quite obvious

Both of rickroll's posts are good in here, but the "typical people get this amount of credit" isn't all that relevant to this specific story.

The bookie doesn't need to be very smart to have made millions in general being a bookie.

Also, just in the poker world over the last fifteen years, I've seen so many examples of guys that have more gambling debt than net worth, and plenty of bookies who just extend credit knowing that's the case.

Especially if the person is paying significant money (like payments of 500k). Sure, they maybe should have a theoretical cap that is lower than 4.5 million or so, but as long as they can pay, a lot of bookies don't want to cut them off/lose out on those payments.

It also helps to answer the question as to why he didn't just stiff the bookie, a question I haven't really seen come up in many places.

I think people are reading too far into the bookie's line of thought here too. Even without the connection to a 100+ millionaire, if a random mid six figure a year guy is making 500k payments to a bookie, I would imagine many bookies would just keep extending the credit, if nothing else just to keep getting paid on the debt. You cut a guy off like that, you really risk not getting paid anymore. They're not hiring PIs to find out where the money is coming from, or cutting them off if a rich friend/uncle is potentially paying it. Which is more +EV from your perspective?

exactly. i know people who can owe 50 to 100k on the sheet in private poker games routinely. now they couldn't borrow 50k on day 1 but worked their way up to it by always paying their debts for smaller amounts. One degen who used to bet 20k a hand bj and punt 100k in a weekend a few times a year at borgata in poker lost a million or so dollars on app games when covid hit in the first month or so and paid it all. he was losing 100k+ minimum each week and obviously more other weeks, he always paid promptly on Monday he was able to keep playing on credit.

I can see Ohtani having nothing to do with this or him being a degen but the amount owed on credit isn't the smoking gun a lot of people are making it out to be.

If the interpreter paid 25k of bets, then 50k of bets etc without issue it's not that far fetched he could get much bigger credit lines over time. The bookie obviously knew he was Ohtani's interpreter and probably didn't care if Ohtani was the one behind the bets or if the money was being stolen from Ohtani as long as he kept getting paid.

I'm trying to figure out what compels candybar to write these walls of text when the information/misinformation out there basically rules nothing out.

The only thing obvious to me is that the odds MLB goes after Ohtani with any significant suspension is about +99999999999.

https://www.tmz.com/2024/04/10/shohe...ppei-mizuhara/

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/10/b...hara-plea.html

Another detail from the NYT article:

japanese oceans 11: guy logs in and changes notification settings. fin


the perfect crime

Feds must be in on it too!

Yet another shocking L for the conspiritards.

lol just saw this.

It doesn't sound at all like "nothing being ruled out" stopped you from sharing uninformed nonsense.

You should instead try to figure out what compels you to write content-free posts like this. Also, was I right about essentially everything by dumb luck or was I able to analyze the available facts to correctly deduce what was most likely out of the three scenarios that were discussed?

Yeah, I am not reading your walls of text to determine if you were right or wrong about anything, or if it even matters. Sorry if that may disturb you.

IRT "Nothing ruled out" I was describing what actually happened. My odds is a reflection of how I suspect MLB desires the outcome.

Are you one of those people that reply to all asking other people not to reply to all when there's an accidental mass email thread?

I can't be 100% sure but you seem to have that level of self-awareness.

Yeah so Ippei stole over $16M. That's wild.

ldo

lol @ the fanboys spiking the ball that Ohtani didn't gamble, he's just a massive massive moron instead. yup, you knew it

That's a pathetic reply.

You were dead wrong and led the crowd who was attacking the most logical poster in this thread over and over again. Unless you think the DOJ has it completely wrong now too!

Tip of the cap to candybar on this one.