i see

candybar crushing this thread.

Interpreter’s bio while on Angels has a bunch of lies about his education and work history, could be a Japanese Mr. Ripley!!

Your side: Total fines for Ohtani between MLB (league + Dodgers) and whatever happens in the California legal system are less than $50k

My side: Total fines for Ohtani between MLB (league + Dodgers) and whatever happens in the California legal system are at least $50k or a non-monetary fine that can be reasonably considered worse to him than $50 like community service or mandatory participation in some kind of gambling problem seminar

Obv. just for fun because we don't want to break any anti-gambling laws.

The bet on fines is pretty interesting. I kind of like madlex's line because money even 10x the size of the 50k is basically meaningless for LAD and Ohtani, they could be cleared in an investigation but easily donate six figures to problem gambling as a PR thing (MLB could also fine them 50k+ on perception-type grounds, knowing that they will just pay it and be happy that this goes away).

Lol. He's obviously getting paid more than the average interpreter. Any famous person will overpay just to have someone in their entourage.

That's not how addiction works. Also, watch Owning Mahoney.

Mike Florio had a quote that stuck out to me as odd:

Source - https://www.nbcsports.com/nfl/profoo...-in-a-nutshell

Everything I google says that he makes 300-500k a year, not under 100k.

That's kind of a big miss by Florio. Also, maybe it's because Florio isn't too familiar with gambling, but gosh, over the years, how many different situations have we seen where credit was extended by one party to another for far, far more than they were worth? Florio's method and reasoning are not very good imo.

Agreed.

And the only strong argument that I see for candy's version falling apart, is if baseball was in fact bet on.

But to me, it looks like the most likely situation here is that the interpreter lied his ass off every step of the way and caused a lot of confusion in the process (both within and then of course outside of Ohtani's camp).

I'm not sure what you're getting at here. The point here is that match-fixing is an unrelated phenomenon to gambling addiction and is almost always financially motivated. While it's possible for the gambling addiction to lead to financial trouble, which then creates the financial motivation to do whatever it takes to make money, this is not a possible mechanism for Ohtani specifically, given that he makes like 60M+ annually from endorsements alone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owning_Mahowny

Again, not sure how this is related. Even if Ohtani is the most degenerate gambler in existence, he can make infinitely more money from just playing baseball than from fixing matches and that should be enough to support even the worst gambling addiction imaginable. It's also notable that Ohtani reportedly left a ton of money on the table this offseason (he basically offered the same contract to multiple teams and decided to make a choice without having teams bid against each other), doesn't sound at all like someone that's desperate to fund his gambling addiction.

Match fixing has nothing to do with his motivation. I'm literally talking about this from an addiction perspective which is what you brought up if he has a "gambling problem".

I doubt Pete Rose's motivations were more than what fuels an addict.

Owning Mahowny encapsulates this situation perfectly. At least from Ippei's perspective. Also PSH's acting is top-notch.

This broadly makes sense, but there has to be stipulation on what ends the bet in my favor if nothing happens. I don't think Ohtani will be charged at all for instance, but in theory, one could always argue that something might come in the future. So maybe either the conclusion of the currently announced investigation or some specified amount of time, or whatever comes first.

Thanks for adding that. I thought about that exact scenario while playing with the kids outside just now. A donation of $50k to charity (either by Ohtani or the Dodgers) that's related to gambling would obviously land on my side of the bet, too. Donation of $50k to something like animal rescue would not count towards my side unless there's some verbal connection made between the two things by Ohtani or the Dodgers.

Nothing will happen cause it's at the commissioner's discretion. Manfraud would be the dumbest and worst commissioner of all time to punish Ohtani unless he literally was betting on baseball.

is a baby brain conspiracy theorist. He was still pushing the Joe Burrow injury cover-up angle after the Bengals turned over dozens or maybe hundreds of hours of practice footage to the league office.

Again, this seems to be well beyond the realm of possibility and I don't know how that movie has anything to do with it. Gambling addicts generally spiral out of control into unacceptable behavior out of desperation.

Pete Rose was in genuine financial trouble due to his gambling habits and this is well-documented:

https://www.nytimes.com/1989/06/27/s...port-says.html

https://www.observer-reporter.com/sp...ing-rose-bets/

So obviously some discrepancies given Pete's lack of integrity, but Pete's been gambling on sports for a long time (at least since 1975), but it sounds like he's only started to bet on his own games after he became a player manager. That doesn't sound at all like Pete's compulsion led to betting on his own games, but rather that he was a losing sports bettor (like most) and he thought he could make up some of that by betting on his own games since he had significant influence over the outcome as a manager. Then the bookies probably started giving him lines taking that into account and it all went downhill fast.

Sure, Pete Rose was just insider trading. Your statements are just inconsistent of addiction. If Ohtani was a true addict making a "business decision" isn't necessarily what happens. He might but he might also not have control over that decision. The movie highlights what gambling addiction actually is and does it in an interesting way, but also exactly what Ippei might have done which is why I brought it up.

It's fine if you don't fully understand addiction. I'm just refuting one of your statements. Doesn't mean I don't agree with a lot of what you are saying.

candybar already established if you bet on your own sport it's always a business decision and never degeneracy

#facts

I hear what you're saying here but I think for gambling addiction in particular, it's hard to separate because on some level, all addiction feeds off of personal issues and where it goes off the rail for a lot of people is that the feedback loop between addiction and financial trouble.

With that said, the point is that we have to separate the thing the addict consumes directly as part of the addiction (i.e. alcohol for alcoholics) versus what the addict does desperately to fund that addiction (i.e. crimes the addict commits in order to be able to buy alcohol - this is what I mean by business decisions). And generally speaking, choosing to bet on your own games is going to be more of the latter, which means virtually no one that is doing extremely well financially is likely to engage in it.

There's a wide variety of gambling options available even for the most degenerate, which means those that bet specifically on their own games are doing so as a last resort due to financial trouble.

And when we look at the Pete Rose case, it's fairly clear - he didn't resort to betting on his own games until his gambling habits got bad enough to become highly problematic to his finances and until he had control over outcomes such that this was highly advantageous.

If you can think of a single case where someone casually bet on their own games with no real financial motivation, while being generally aware of the severe consequences, I'd love to know, but I'm not aware of any such case.

Of course none of this really applies to Ohtani - he's not a manager (thus has no real way to influence the outcome of games without blatantly throwing them) and he's literally one of the least financially desperate people on the planet.

pete rose was the only sports professional to bet on their own sport

#facts

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/...-betting-games

That's just one example. I mean he was hurt, so "not playing in said games" technically, but it's his team and he was casually betting pennies while being generally aware of the severe consequences. Basically a "stupid decision with zero upside or major motivation." Something that happens quite frequently in most walks of life.

I'm sure it's happened plenty of times over the years too.

I understand your points in this argument, but I think there are far too many exceptions, you're oversimplifying in general and it's basically just a derail to your larger (stronger) arguments in this thread.

That's a weird story, thanks for sharing. Seems more like a mental health issue leading to clouded judgment than gambling addiction and the access being too casual (download a legal app to bet legally for the most part) for him to consider the consequences of what he's really doing, but I guess we can't possibly know Ohtani's mental state here either.

Doesn't seem super-relevant here, but I stand corrected that such cases exist.

I think Jordan gambled on the Bulls and that's the main reason why "he chose" to go play baseball, because David Stern found out.

This still feels like a conspiracy theory to me. Would be fun to grind through the logic in another thread, but the Stern soft ban feels like such a stretch. The death of his father, the need for a new motivation, the audacity to think he could potentially succeed in a new sport, it all really adds up and fits Jordan's MO to a t by all accounts.

Plus it doesn't really pass the "Clinton couldn't hide a BJ" test, nor the "If people found out, Stern would basically be sacrificing his legacy," and for what? He could've just banned him for a season or two officially. It's not baseball, but even if it was, there have been so many contradictions in punishments (especially for stars), these people could do whatever they want and the fallout would be hard, but not insurmountable. It's not like fan would stop watching Jordan if they found out he gambled on them to win games. Stern was super sharp, I don't think he'd take that risk without a lot more of a reward hanging on the other end of it.

This question is for sports bettors and I ask it in all seriousness. Does anyone care? When I'm playing poker I overhear the players at the table who are also sports bettors always talking about this rumor or point shaving or that. It doesn't stop any of them from betting on whatever game they're interested in. It seems to me that the days when a scandal like the Black Sox shook everyone to the core are long gone. Most seem to accept funny business as part of landscape. I don't sports bet myself so I'd really like to get opinions. Take care.

So according to this press conference apparently shohei, the Doyers and the angels are the dumbest human beings on earth and ippei is keyser soze?