It is beyond obvious Ohtani was gambling. The money was coming straight from his account. MLB doesn't care neither will the fans as he's not the only player to be gambling in the millions every year. When all of your sponsors are betting sites you have no leg to stand on as well. This is Pete Rose 2.0 for the MLB and we will see how hilarious the denials are from the front office.
No bookie is going to allow an interpreter to get $4.5million in debt to him. But an MLB player? They could make that much with a commercial and a few live appearances. "Yeah I'm an interpreter that makes five figures a year can I have a credit line of a few million to gamble with?". No bookie would agree to this. But an interpreter placing bets for his multimillionaire client is an easy agreement.
Really ? What gives you such absolute confidence that Ohtani is the one gambling ?
Granted, neither of us can say with 100% certainty but I'll lay out the rationale as to why I think otherwise:
1) There were 2 separate payments of $500 K each coming from Ohtani. Not a steady stream of repayments covering the whole amount, but only 2 separate payments covering a portion of the debts.
2) Ippei earns as much as $500 K per year, which isn't exactly chump change. In addition to this, we don't know what he was telling the bookie regarding his relationship with Ohtani and his confidence that Ohtani would help out if he got in too deep of a debt hole.
3) Look at other cases of people who were prolific gamblers, when it comes to athletes or people around sports: Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Dana White (just to name a few). They all started very early in their careers because they were simply drawn to gambling. We have never had any indication that Ohtani was ever interested in gambling.
4) Ohtani grew up in Japan, where gambling is illegal with the exception of Horse Racing. Ohtani was never involved in Horse Racing gambling (it would have been major news given how every inch of his activities is scrutinized to an autistic level in Japan). If he was ever even remotely linked to illegal gambling then it would have been a huge scandal in Japan.
Again, we'll find out for sure in due time but I'm pretty sure that it was Ippei alone and Shohei was simply trying to help him settle his debts.
With all eyes on him to see how he was mentally handling this complex situation with Ippei's gambling, Shohei swings and gets a hit on his first at bat. Ends up scoring a run as well on Will Smith's double.
Dodgers are in quite the hole at 5-1 but it ain't over yet. Yamamoto looked like dog shit sadly. Hopefully he figures it out.
Edit: In his 2nd at bat, Ohtani blasts a fly ball for a Sacrifice RBI. 5-2 Dodgers and while they're leaving runners out there, the team is fighting back.
Edit: Welp, if you're gonna be down 9-2 then they might as well have kept Yamamoto in the game...
Edit: 9-4 now and the Padres are going into their Bullpen.
Edit: Betts with the clutch 2 RBI double, followed by a Shohei line out to make it 9-6. Still in it boys.
Betts with the clutch 2 run homer to bring the Dodgers to within 10-8 at the bottom of the 5th. Ohtani got 2 bullshit ass strikes called on him before flying out to Right Field.
Freeman gets on base but Smith can't keep his hot streak going.
Edit: Dodgers pitching just doesn't have it tonight. No easy innings at all, other than maybe 1. It's good to have a deep Bullpen but man, none of these guys look consistent out there. 11-8 Padres so far.
Edit: Max Muncy is a fucking scrub fielder. 2nd error today and now it's 12-8 Padres. Fuck, even Betts has had some iffy plays at Shortstop.
Damn, this turned out to be quite a crazy game. Dodgers score 2 runs at the bottom of the 8th to bring it all the way to 12-11.
Ohtani hit a few bombs today but just couldn't clear that right field wall. Regardless, the Dodgers have put themselves within striking distance to have a shot in this game.
Edit: Of course they just have to give up a 3 run homer to Machado in the 9th...
Edit: Down 4 runs, bottom of the 9th. 1 last swing I guess. Honestly, if you give up 15 runs and 17 hits then you're not worthy of winning. Dodgers may as well take those moral victories of having made a game of it and be done with things.