The Los Angeles Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani on Monday said that he never bet on sports or knowingly paid any gambling debts accumulated by his longtime interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara.
Instead, he said that Mizuhara lied to him for years and stole millions.
Ohtani gave his version of events during a news conference at Dodger Stadium, five days after Mizuhara was fired by the Dodgers following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts of more than US$1 million.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“I am very saddened and shocked someone whom I trusted has done this,” Ohtani said while sitting next to Will Ireton, the team’s manager of performance operations, who translated. “Ippei has been stealing money from my account and has been telling lies. I never bet on sports or have willfully sent money to the bookmaker.”
Ohtani spoke for nearly 12 minutes in a small room packed with dozens of reporters, describing several ways in which Mizuhara deceived him. He read in Japanese from a document and did not take questions.
Ohtani, 29, still attempted to answer the most important question by repeatedly emphasizing he was never knowingly involved in gambling.
He provided no details on how Mizuhara might have been able to steal his money to pay gambling debts.
“I never bet on baseball or any other sports or never have asked somebody to do it on my behalf, and I have never gone through a bookmaker to bet on sports and was never asked to assist betting payment for anyone else,” Ohtani said.
Ohtani has not addressed the Dodgers in a group since Mizuhara’s firing, but he had explained himself to several Dodgers individually, manager Dave Roberts said.
Veterans Kike Hernandez and Joe Kelly attended Ohtani’s news conference to emphasize the players’ support of their new teammate.
“I think Shohei was very honest in his take of what happened,” Roberts said. “I know that for me, the organization, we support him. I got a lot of questions answered as far as what he knew, what he didn’t know, and I’m looking forward to kind of just moving forward, letting the authorities take care of it, and just focus on baseball. I was proud of him to sit up here and give his take on things.”
The US Internal Revenue Service has confirmed that Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles field office.
Mizuhara told ESPN on March 19 that Ohtani paid his gambling debts at the interpreter’s request, saying the bets were on international soccer, the NBA, the NFL and US college football.
MLB rules prohibit players and team employees from wagering — even legally — on baseball, and also ban betting on other sports with illegal or offshore bookmakers.
ESPN said Mizuhara changed his story the following day, claiming Ohtani had no knowledge of the gambling debts and had not transferred any money to bookmakers.
“All of this has been a complete lie,” Ohtani said. “Ippei obviously basically didn’t tell me about the media inquiry. So Ippei has been telling everyone around that he has been communicating with me on this account to the media and my team, and that hasn’t been true.”
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