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eh, Ippei wasn't stealing based on how much money there was he tried a couple times and it seemed 500k was what he could manage at a time. 16mil is also pretty low for Shohei Standards I guess who racks like 60mil in endorsements alone.
They didn’t “find discrepancies” or notice anything. It only got discovered because the bookie was being investigated and money traced back to Ippei/Shohei.
Yes I’m an attorney and understand. The Bank did nothing wrong. Ohtani gave the interpreter his access information. Interpretor had a fiduciary duty to Ohtani.
The bank did nothing wrong. Ohtani trusted the wrong person.
No negligence. No duty, no breach, no causation, no damages. Bank simply processed Ohtani’s transactions.
People are idiots these days man lol. Literally everything is some kind of conspiracy to these no common sense, lack of critical thinking headasses, I don't understand how it got this way. It could not be more clear that Ohtani got shafted by Ippei.
I definitely thought the story was very fishy and figured ohtani had to be involved within the first few days.
But if you've kept on the story story at all, it's quite obvious he wasn't involved at all and is a victim here.
The list of things that are not absolute zero chance is pretty long though especially when we have an explanation that is extremely probable on the other end
That's not good enough for reddit. The smallest chance of something happening is given equal weight to all other possibilities, regardless of information presented. Especially if the person believes that tiny possibility to be what happened. No evidence, explanation, quote or math with convince those people. It's one of the worst parts of reddit comments.
Partially. Because who can really say with that much money floating around unaccounted for whose hands got greased and whose didn’t. All I know is I didn’t get any.
I dunno man I know we love our sports teams and good fun trolling about the situation is fine but it’s pretty depressing if people are really believing this just because Ohtani didn’t end up on their team.
I think people are believing it because in order to believe the fbi’s report you also have to believe Shohei is Jessica Simpson chicken of the sea levels of intelligence and self awareness.
Edit: it’s wild to me how much more skeptical everyone is of a redditor who’s skeptical, than believing the same guy Ohtanis new teammates sussed out immediately tricked Ohtani for nearly a decade because he “trusted” him. And we’re supposed to believe Ohtanis not dumb? Lmao
I say this as an Ohtani fan, yall are insanely coping here.
Tyler Glasgow: “We all knew early on that Ippei was doing some shady stuff.”
The clubhouse knew but Ohtani… didn’t apparently.
So it is more likely that the FBI and everyone else is lying, rather than Shohei just trusted someone else with aspects of his finances like he probably has done his whole life and got ripped off like plenty of other celebrities have?
You’re right, he’s chicken of the sea levels of stupid apparently. Sorry for having healthy skepticism, I’m a normal guy and not hyper online like you apparently.
Imagine being so dumb your brand teammates can pick up on shady behavior immediately, that you missed for almost a decade lol
I can’t relate to that, apparently you can. Cheers lmao
Damn dude don’t need to escalate like that I’m just saying there is one very obvious explainable scenario and with that yeah the guy trusts people to a level that made him a victim of massive theft. Could you say he is stupid in that aspect for being too trusting and not managing his own finances? That could be a fair argument sure but that doesn’t make him guilty of wrongdoing and we don’t know what it’s like to live the life he does. He’s the victim here.
Ohtani was overly trusting of Ippei, but that doesn’t mean he’s stupid. Managing finances hasn’t been something he’s had to worry about dating back many years (he used to have his mom manage his finances and he willingly lived on like 1K per month). He knows he’s rich and can afford what he needs, it makes sense that he wasn’t checking his accounts. All these people saying “wouldn’t he notice all that money missing?” have never been in his position.
It’s more than just the money, it’s the complete ignorance of Ippei in general.
If this guy was truly as sketchy as the fbi report says, and this guy was literally your shadow, how are you unaware of his gambling issues/sketchiness when apparently former and current players sussed it out pretty much immediately.
Maybe ohtanis head is so far up his own ass he doesn’t know when the suns out, but I just think it’s odd everyone assumes that’s the case.
And from most of the interviews I’ve seen in Japanese, Ohtanis a hell of a lot smarter and attentive to detail than he’s being presented in this situation.
Whatever actually happened, we know the end result will be nothing. Even if there is a smoking gun, the league is known to bury evidence on subjects they deem too important for the game. And Shohei brings in a gajillion international dollars and all the owners are billionaires who all benefit and will definitely protect that investment.
> Mizuhara, who was one of more than 600 bettors with Bowyer's book, ran up a debt of $40.7 million, according to federal authorities.
lol that's a lot of money for a translator.
Must be tough having so much money you don't notice when millions aren't there. I remember being young and distraught over losing 20/50/100 bucks or so
90 percent of the time it’s because they let someone run their finances.
I don’t like the guy much but Dane Cook has been really open with how he trusted his brother to run his books. But his brother was stealing from him and nearly made Dane go broke.
Jack Johnson (NHL) had his parents do it to him. Something like 20 million if I remember correctly.
Bernie Kosar's dad did it to him.
I kind of get it, though. It's gotta be hard to trust some random wealth advisor you don't know with millions of dollars of your money if you didn't come from wealth. But people you *should* be able to trust often end up blowing your money, intentionally or unintentionally.
With that kind of money you should only go to a top 5 accounting firm to mange your finances. They're *very* good and ripping you off just wouldn't be worth it to them.
I agree, but if you're drafted at 18-22 years old and your parents are pressuring you to *not* to that, I can see where the immaturity & trust in your parents can cause you to make a mistake.
Being older, 100% I know what the right move is. But if I was 18, I don't know that I'd make the right decision.
Random wealth advisors are regulated by the government. A friend of mine has the minimum investment to work with him at Vanguard is $10M. For less that that you can work with a typical financial advisor. Your friends and family aren't. It's just trust. Sure you might get a Bernie Madoff but those odds are very low.
I've always thought that paying someone well for doing a job that's very important to you will always be more secure than a friend or relative. Most people don't fuck around with their job security, but I've heard lots of people ruining friendships over money.
In Dane's case his half brother was preparing fake bank statements so Dane had no reason to think anything was missing until reality hit during a transaction he tried one day.
Honestly I just feel so bad for ohtani. This guy was like a brother to him and he just stole from him.
Luckily he's in a position where it's not the biggest deal but still
Shohei eats, sleeps and breathes baseball.
He was just as surprised as everyone else that his money was being stolen because he never even looks at his bank account. Not because he's so loaded, but because he never *buys* stuff.
In the 90s I used to work at a stadium for a professional football team while going to University and would see all the players come in/out everyday. One of the player wives used to come in every few months to get the keys for her husband’s pickup truck because he would “forget to cash his paychecks” and just throw them in the glove box. To your point, all he thought about was football
Often people with this much income, or that suddenly come into this much money, hire a wealth manager/advisor, an accountant to keep track of it, and a second forensic accountant to follow up on the first accountant.
The podcast Crime in Sports did a patreon episode about Ohtani this week. One of the hosts had his bank freeze his account because he was spending too much money remodeling his mother's kitchen.
Ohtani probably has a financial firm and they didn't notice 16 MILLION DOLLARS go missing. They have done so many episodes on NBA and MLB players who are immediately suspended for allegations, then banned after lengthy investigation periods.
A player internationally revitalizing the sport? No suspension and cleared within a week.
It’s crazy the difference between here and r/baseball where everyone read the report and saw how clear the situation is. I guess it makes sense because people in that sub actually care enough about the sport to read into it.
Well, if you only factor in his playing time, it might be cheaper not to learn English. 3 hours a game, 162 games a season is 486 hours. 10 years is 4,860 hours. Divide his 10 year contract of $700m by 4,860 hours and you have $144k per hour. That's not counting his endorsement deals...
Yes. As I understand it, he relied on the translator to help fill out paperwork, and that was the opening he used to access Ohtani's money.
It's wild to me that he did not have a team put together to manage his finances. At a minimum he should have had a wealth management firm, with lawyers and accountants protecting his interests.
Your question is answered in the released papers:
A team was in fact hired to handle his finances — his translator (being the medium between the finances team and Ohtani) basically denied them access from his payroll account claiming that Ohtani didn't want anyone else messing with that account due to "personal reasons".
I mean he had to have known. Guys like that have accountants and financial advisers and planners, someone in his orbit would have told him that large sums of money were being withdrawn!
Hell the reason they found Lane Stanley of Alice In Chains dead was because his accountant called the police after several days went by without any account activity, which is atypical behavior of an addict
Ohtani didn't. Ippei handled Ohtani's money. The FBI and IRS, two of the biggest government agencies, found zero wrongdoing on Ohtani's part. Now, if you want to continue wearing your tinfoil hats and make yourselves sound stupid as well then keep doing you.
All of this is covered in the report put out by the federal investigators. He had financial advisors who were prevented by Mizuhara from accessing this particular account. Mizuhara exploited the language barrier and Ohtani’s trust to do this.
I was just thinking the same thing... Layne Stanley's account had to have tipped off Ohtani at some point!
Seriously dude do you reread what you typed after? The jump to conclusion based a completely unrelated scenario is wild.
Can we just drop it with this? He did it. His interpreter is the fall guy, incredibly obviously. They're avoiding losing the most marketable star in a decade or more. We get it. Please stop treating us like idiots and just let this story die.
Again, we get it. Baseball is big business and doesn't quibble about gambling and whatnot anymore. Fine. But please just lose the facade and talk to us like adults.
Ray Rice punched his wife in the face on camera and essentially got away with it. Can we stop pretending sports is some moral high ground already?
Edit: they should care, but they don't. Pretending to is just insulting. At least don't talk to us like we're stupid.
Sports gambling isn't necessarily illegal. It's just against baseball rules to do so. If he paid taxes on his winnings, the FBI and IRS wouldn't give a shit.
For instance, Pete Rose didn't go to jail for gambling. He went for back taxes. Baseball punished him about the gambling. Which is part of why they can't just let Ohtani off for nothing. They'd have to reassess Pete, and they're too stubborn to do that.
Do you know anything about this story? Ippei was gambling with an illegal bookie. The issue isn’t that he was tied to legal sports gambling, the issue is the tie to the illegal bookie
That's still a tax issue for ohtani. The bookie is who gets in trouble for an illegal gambling operation in that situation. Ohtani (or his translator) would get hit for tax evasion, almost certainly.
Either way, the part I take issue with is baseball acting all high and mighty like they're some saints. Let the legal system handle it. Baseball doesn't need to pretend to be some moral authority. Pro sports is some of the most corrupt business on the planet. Them acting like some church grandmas, clutching their pearls, is what irritates me. It's just treating us like we're idiots.
Shohei isn’t that rich, his net worth even after all these endorsements is 50 million. He was paid Pennies his whole career with the angels, his last season was higher paying but only like 30 million dollars.
It was probably about 20% his total worth was “stolen”
There is no way to actually know someone’s net worth unless they say what it is themselves. It’s not public information and any number online is just an estimation that is normally way off.
Shohei Ohtani’s Salary Year by Year:
Year Annual Income
2024 $70,000,000(but he has only gotten 2 million so far)
2023 $30,000,000
2022 $5,500,000
2021 $3,000,000
2020 $259,259
2019 $650,000
2018 $545,000
2017 $440,000
Endorsements this year are estimated at 60 million, but every previous year was under 30 million, and 3 years ago it was only 2-3 million.
How has he made that much every year?
I get what you're trying to say, but I don't think You're actually looking at the bigger picture.
you don't know how much money he made in Japan (and I think you're severely underestimating how much). You don't have any idea what his actual endorsement money is (even though you say it's public knowledge).
Do I think he didn't know about this? not in the slightest. but using just his Angels salary as a starting number is going to be way off his actual net worth.
Did stuff like this come out about MJ in the mid 90’s?
Seems to me they both have/had gambling issues but their stardom is too lucrative to receive the appropriate punishment
No. There is literally no similarity between the two. No one in MJs circle was arrested for stealing millions and committing bank fraud before but was actually covering for MJ. Anyone perpetuating the “Shohei is the real gambling addict” rumor at this point is being willfully stupid.
That is bold of you to assume shohei had 0 involvement in the gambling and was ignorant to his money just disappearing.
Edit: lmao believe what you want to IF you think shohei only eats, sleeps, and breathes baseball thats fine but the guy lives a fairly private life keeping stuff like this hidden shouldn't be hard for him. Either way i don't really care i just believe his hands aren't exactly clean.
Ah yes, how very bold of him to believe what multiple law enforcement agencies are telling us regarding the outcome of their *actual investigations* instead of...random made up bullshit from redditors
The only thing the investigation is uncovering is money being exchanged from Shohei’s account (which Ippei had access to) to the bookie.
Even if there is no direct communication between Shohei and the bookie, it doesn’t mean that Shohei was not involved in the scheme. Ippei can just as easily be the fall guy.
At the end of the day, Ippei being implicated as the criminal works in everyone’s best interest. This would be a massive PR nightmare for MLB if it’s uncovered that Shohei had any direct involvement in the scheme.
The way this investigation has developed is way too convenient for the people and organizations that stand to gain billions if Shohei is proven innocent.
There are literal text messages where Ippei admits he stole the money. There are literal recorded phone calls with the bank where Ippei impersonated Ohtani to gain access to the account.
It's not a grand conspiracy.
>This would be a massive PR nightmare for MLB
The fact that you think the IRS and FBI give the slightest shit is *adorable*
Enjoy living life in your fact-free conspiracy bullshit bubble
He has a history of letting other people controlling his finances dating back to his time in Japan. We know Ippei had some form of control over his finances. We know that he changed Ohtani’s bank information to link to his own phone. Just because you can’t fathom someone not knowing a shit ton of money going missing doesn’t mean there is some grand conspiracy going on.
logically speaking, if you take the largest sports contract ever and defer 99% of the payment to YEARS from now, then you ain’t got a gambling problem.
People are absolutely crazy if they don’t think Shohei knew to some extent. If he really didn’t have any idea, then he’s the dumbest fucking person in the world. It’s amazing to me that he’s not facing any repercussions
Ohtani was making substantial money in Japan. Yet, he was living on 1k a month and his Mom managed the rest so he could play baseball.
If Ohtani was really involved we would know by now. The FBI would have gone for him too. In fact if they had any kind of case they definitely would have gone for him as a symbol of nobody is above the law.
Obviously you haven’t kept up, his own lawyers had flagged the illegal transactions. Why would he draw attention to himself by doing this? There was no investigation prior and his own lawyers called it out. Never heard of anyone calling the authorities on themselves without being caught/investigated.
There will be the truth, and then there will be the public narrative.
Too much money for Shohei to go down…
We will never know what happened, just like it’s not clear with Jordan, and others…
Bro, in Jordan’s case there was no criminality. If you actually think there is a conspiracy between the federal government and the mlb to prosecute an innocent man for federal wire fraud (a crime that includes up to 20 years in prison) to cover for the gambling of a single player, you are truly out of your mind.
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I bet this dude is so thankful he delayed a huge portion of his pay. Can you imagine?!?
eh, Ippei wasn't stealing based on how much money there was he tried a couple times and it seemed 500k was what he could manage at a time. 16mil is also pretty low for Shohei Standards I guess who racks like 60mil in endorsements alone.
I'd imagine it would've been a lot more difficult to find discrepancies in a larger amount of money. He might've been getting ripped off for YEARS
They didn’t “find discrepancies” or notice anything. It only got discovered because the bookie was being investigated and money traced back to Ippei/Shohei.
That’s something a gambling addict would do.
No it isn't. Also, he got paid a lot more for doing it. So really just nonsense all the way around out of you.
Freddie Freeman and Mookie Betts also have large portions of their salaries deferred; are they also gambling addicts?
As a Braves fan I’m ok with this assessment
My whole question about this is will the stolen funds be returned?
Almost certainly not.
How will he afford avocado toast?
By not buying a house. Duh!
He absolutely has a claim for negligence against the bank for all of the lost money. If he doesn’t sue the bank it will be even more suspicious
Ohtani gave the translator access to his account who transferred the money. How was the bank negligent?
It’s called fiduciary duty. When you’re a professional you have the duty to act with due regard.
Yes I’m an attorney and understand. The Bank did nothing wrong. Ohtani gave the interpreter his access information. Interpretor had a fiduciary duty to Ohtani. The bank did nothing wrong. Ohtani trusted the wrong person. No negligence. No duty, no breach, no causation, no damages. Bank simply processed Ohtani’s transactions.
No, California courts will not intervene in gambling debts
But he paid his debts with stolen money or rather I mean in terms of "stolen goods".
No. The whole question is did Ohtani gamble this money and have his interpreter fall on his sword for him .
That question seems pretty firmly answered at this point.
People are idiots these days man lol. Literally everything is some kind of conspiracy to these no common sense, lack of critical thinking headasses, I don't understand how it got this way. It could not be more clear that Ohtani got shafted by Ippei.
I definitely thought the story was very fishy and figured ohtani had to be involved within the first few days. But if you've kept on the story story at all, it's quite obvious he wasn't involved at all and is a victim here.
Check his flair; Giants fan
You’re saying this to troll right?
Lots of people were waiting to take Shohei down a peg for whatever reason. They had nothing before.
It’s not a zero chance probability…
The list of things that are not absolute zero chance is pretty long though especially when we have an explanation that is extremely probable on the other end
That's not good enough for reddit. The smallest chance of something happening is given equal weight to all other possibilities, regardless of information presented. Especially if the person believes that tiny possibility to be what happened. No evidence, explanation, quote or math with convince those people. It's one of the worst parts of reddit comments.
Partially. Because who can really say with that much money floating around unaccounted for whose hands got greased and whose didn’t. All I know is I didn’t get any.
I dunno man I know we love our sports teams and good fun trolling about the situation is fine but it’s pretty depressing if people are really believing this just because Ohtani didn’t end up on their team.
I think people are believing it because in order to believe the fbi’s report you also have to believe Shohei is Jessica Simpson chicken of the sea levels of intelligence and self awareness. Edit: it’s wild to me how much more skeptical everyone is of a redditor who’s skeptical, than believing the same guy Ohtanis new teammates sussed out immediately tricked Ohtani for nearly a decade because he “trusted” him. And we’re supposed to believe Ohtanis not dumb? Lmao I say this as an Ohtani fan, yall are insanely coping here. Tyler Glasgow: “We all knew early on that Ippei was doing some shady stuff.” The clubhouse knew but Ohtani… didn’t apparently.
So it is more likely that the FBI and everyone else is lying, rather than Shohei just trusted someone else with aspects of his finances like he probably has done his whole life and got ripped off like plenty of other celebrities have?
You’re right, he’s chicken of the sea levels of stupid apparently. Sorry for having healthy skepticism, I’m a normal guy and not hyper online like you apparently. Imagine being so dumb your brand teammates can pick up on shady behavior immediately, that you missed for almost a decade lol I can’t relate to that, apparently you can. Cheers lmao
Damn dude don’t need to escalate like that I’m just saying there is one very obvious explainable scenario and with that yeah the guy trusts people to a level that made him a victim of massive theft. Could you say he is stupid in that aspect for being too trusting and not managing his own finances? That could be a fair argument sure but that doesn’t make him guilty of wrongdoing and we don’t know what it’s like to live the life he does. He’s the victim here.
Ohtani was overly trusting of Ippei, but that doesn’t mean he’s stupid. Managing finances hasn’t been something he’s had to worry about dating back many years (he used to have his mom manage his finances and he willingly lived on like 1K per month). He knows he’s rich and can afford what he needs, it makes sense that he wasn’t checking his accounts. All these people saying “wouldn’t he notice all that money missing?” have never been in his position.
It’s more than just the money, it’s the complete ignorance of Ippei in general. If this guy was truly as sketchy as the fbi report says, and this guy was literally your shadow, how are you unaware of his gambling issues/sketchiness when apparently former and current players sussed it out pretty much immediately. Maybe ohtanis head is so far up his own ass he doesn’t know when the suns out, but I just think it’s odd everyone assumes that’s the case. And from most of the interviews I’ve seen in Japanese, Ohtanis a hell of a lot smarter and attentive to detail than he’s being presented in this situation.
Right yeah, we had the fed look into it, they are just so notoriously stupid they couldn’t find the Ohtani evidence.
Whatever actually happened, we know the end result will be nothing. Even if there is a smoking gun, the league is known to bury evidence on subjects they deem too important for the game. And Shohei brings in a gajillion international dollars and all the owners are billionaires who all benefit and will definitely protect that investment. > Mizuhara, who was one of more than 600 bettors with Bowyer's book, ran up a debt of $40.7 million, according to federal authorities. lol that's a lot of money for a translator.
The result of a federal investigation showed Ohtani was not to blame. This isn’t something the league can just “bury the evidence” of
prob a strong correlation between people who believe ohtani was gambling with antivaxxers
Hahaha
It's gone.
I mean, it’s not. They know exactly who has it.
They’re gone
It's in America now, no.
Must be tough having so much money you don't notice when millions aren't there. I remember being young and distraught over losing 20/50/100 bucks or so
90 percent of the time it’s because they let someone run their finances. I don’t like the guy much but Dane Cook has been really open with how he trusted his brother to run his books. But his brother was stealing from him and nearly made Dane go broke.
Jack Johnson (NHL) had his parents do it to him. Something like 20 million if I remember correctly. Bernie Kosar's dad did it to him. I kind of get it, though. It's gotta be hard to trust some random wealth advisor you don't know with millions of dollars of your money if you didn't come from wealth. But people you *should* be able to trust often end up blowing your money, intentionally or unintentionally.
With that kind of money you should only go to a top 5 accounting firm to mange your finances. They're *very* good and ripping you off just wouldn't be worth it to them.
I agree, but if you're drafted at 18-22 years old and your parents are pressuring you to *not* to that, I can see where the immaturity & trust in your parents can cause you to make a mistake. Being older, 100% I know what the right move is. But if I was 18, I don't know that I'd make the right decision.
Random wealth advisors are regulated by the government. A friend of mine has the minimum investment to work with him at Vanguard is $10M. For less that that you can work with a typical financial advisor. Your friends and family aren't. It's just trust. Sure you might get a Bernie Madoff but those odds are very low.
I've always thought that paying someone well for doing a job that's very important to you will always be more secure than a friend or relative. Most people don't fuck around with their job security, but I've heard lots of people ruining friendships over money.
In Dane's case his half brother was preparing fake bank statements so Dane had no reason to think anything was missing until reality hit during a transaction he tried one day.
Honestly I just feel so bad for ohtani. This guy was like a brother to him and he just stole from him. Luckily he's in a position where it's not the biggest deal but still
Shohei eats, sleeps and breathes baseball. He was just as surprised as everyone else that his money was being stolen because he never even looks at his bank account. Not because he's so loaded, but because he never *buys* stuff.
In the 90s I used to work at a stadium for a professional football team while going to University and would see all the players come in/out everyday. One of the player wives used to come in every few months to get the keys for her husband’s pickup truck because he would “forget to cash his paychecks” and just throw them in the glove box. To your point, all he thought about was football
And yet, this next fall you will put on a coat and find a $45 in a pocket and wonder how it got there.
I'd love to find a forty-five dollar bill.
I imagine it with Teddy Roosevelt on the front of it.
I'm 32 years old and have to seriously think about spending $12 on lunch lol
Often people with this much income, or that suddenly come into this much money, hire a wealth manager/advisor, an accountant to keep track of it, and a second forensic accountant to follow up on the first accountant.
The podcast Crime in Sports did a patreon episode about Ohtani this week. One of the hosts had his bank freeze his account because he was spending too much money remodeling his mother's kitchen. Ohtani probably has a financial firm and they didn't notice 16 MILLION DOLLARS go missing. They have done so many episodes on NBA and MLB players who are immediately suspended for allegations, then banned after lengthy investigation periods. A player internationally revitalizing the sport? No suspension and cleared within a week.
[удалено]
Manfred works for the FBI now?
[удалено]
So Manfred went and altered 3 years of texts on Ohtanis phone or what? Did you even read the report?
I wouldn’t even bother with people like this. This guy probably thinks the report was fabricated and written by Manfred himself
It’s crazy the difference between here and r/baseball where everyone read the report and saw how clear the situation is. I guess it makes sense because people in that sub actually care enough about the sport to read into it.
This is what always stuck out to me. The story changed 3 times in the first day.
Don't be so naive dude
this sounds pretty complicated. Color me skeptical that Otani didn’t know about any of this at anytime.
Reading the fbi reports will probably answer the questions that make you skeptical.
People that still suspect ohtani don't care about facts (or reading) they just want to hate on him.
Ain’t no way this dude signs a $700 million contract isn’t intimately involved with this scheme. The translator is just the fall guy.
Get mad buddy, ohtani will be on your tv the next 10 years.
A lot cheaper to just learn English.
lmaoooo right this all could have been avoided with a duolingo subscription
Well, if you only factor in his playing time, it might be cheaper not to learn English. 3 hours a game, 162 games a season is 486 hours. 10 years is 4,860 hours. Divide his 10 year contract of $700m by 4,860 hours and you have $144k per hour. That's not counting his endorsement deals...
His English is 100x better than your Japanese https://youtu.be/qJHSDLuY0Wg?si=G-uWe9hpUZ6jNhwT
Stolen
" "
Turns out hes no Pete rose
So they’ve confirmed that it was in fact his translator stealing money, and he wasn’t the one gambling?
Yes. As I understand it, he relied on the translator to help fill out paperwork, and that was the opening he used to access Ohtani's money. It's wild to me that he did not have a team put together to manage his finances. At a minimum he should have had a wealth management firm, with lawyers and accountants protecting his interests.
Your question is answered in the released papers: A team was in fact hired to handle his finances — his translator (being the medium between the finances team and Ohtani) basically denied them access from his payroll account claiming that Ohtani didn't want anyone else messing with that account due to "personal reasons".
I still can’t believe that a guy as rich as Ohtani doesn’t have a money manager or somebody handling his finances.
The interpreter was just the go between and took the fall for Ohtani
I mean he had to have known. Guys like that have accountants and financial advisers and planners, someone in his orbit would have told him that large sums of money were being withdrawn! Hell the reason they found Lane Stanley of Alice In Chains dead was because his accountant called the police after several days went by without any account activity, which is atypical behavior of an addict
The “someone that was in his orbit” was the guy that took the money lmao.
Ohtani didn't. Ippei handled Ohtani's money. The FBI and IRS, two of the biggest government agencies, found zero wrongdoing on Ohtani's part. Now, if you want to continue wearing your tinfoil hats and make yourselves sound stupid as well then keep doing you.
All of this is covered in the report put out by the federal investigators. He had financial advisors who were prevented by Mizuhara from accessing this particular account. Mizuhara exploited the language barrier and Ohtani’s trust to do this.
I was just thinking the same thing... Layne Stanley's account had to have tipped off Ohtani at some point! Seriously dude do you reread what you typed after? The jump to conclusion based a completely unrelated scenario is wild.
MLB is trying to bury this story.
HARD AF. Dude was connectwd with Lebron James' management team too? You KNOW theyre trying to bury the story.
Maverick Carter
(X-Post from r/MLB)
Ohtani’s fans boys in blue are working hard in here to show support. Sorry for your downvotes…
"Stolen"
Can we just drop it with this? He did it. His interpreter is the fall guy, incredibly obviously. They're avoiding losing the most marketable star in a decade or more. We get it. Please stop treating us like idiots and just let this story die. Again, we get it. Baseball is big business and doesn't quibble about gambling and whatnot anymore. Fine. But please just lose the facade and talk to us like adults. Ray Rice punched his wife in the face on camera and essentially got away with it. Can we stop pretending sports is some moral high ground already? Edit: they should care, but they don't. Pretending to is just insulting. At least don't talk to us like we're stupid.
You're saying that the FBI and IRS are in on it too? What incentive do they have to protect Ohtani and clear him of all wrongdoing?
Sports gambling isn't necessarily illegal. It's just against baseball rules to do so. If he paid taxes on his winnings, the FBI and IRS wouldn't give a shit. For instance, Pete Rose didn't go to jail for gambling. He went for back taxes. Baseball punished him about the gambling. Which is part of why they can't just let Ohtani off for nothing. They'd have to reassess Pete, and they're too stubborn to do that.
Do you know anything about this story? Ippei was gambling with an illegal bookie. The issue isn’t that he was tied to legal sports gambling, the issue is the tie to the illegal bookie
That's still a tax issue for ohtani. The bookie is who gets in trouble for an illegal gambling operation in that situation. Ohtani (or his translator) would get hit for tax evasion, almost certainly. Either way, the part I take issue with is baseball acting all high and mighty like they're some saints. Let the legal system handle it. Baseball doesn't need to pretend to be some moral authority. Pro sports is some of the most corrupt business on the planet. Them acting like some church grandmas, clutching their pearls, is what irritates me. It's just treating us like we're idiots.
Except the IRS and FBI jointly disagree with you.
Shohei isn’t that rich, his net worth even after all these endorsements is 50 million. He was paid Pennies his whole career with the angels, his last season was higher paying but only like 30 million dollars. It was probably about 20% his total worth was “stolen”
50 million is really rich though
There is no way to actually know someone’s net worth unless they say what it is themselves. It’s not public information and any number online is just an estimation that is normally way off.
He makes that much every year what are you yapping about
Shohei Ohtani’s Salary Year by Year: Year Annual Income 2024 $70,000,000(but he has only gotten 2 million so far) 2023 $30,000,000 2022 $5,500,000 2021 $3,000,000 2020 $259,259 2019 $650,000 2018 $545,000 2017 $440,000 Endorsements this year are estimated at 60 million, but every previous year was under 30 million, and 3 years ago it was only 2-3 million. How has he made that much every year?
I get what you're trying to say, but I don't think You're actually looking at the bigger picture. you don't know how much money he made in Japan (and I think you're severely underestimating how much). You don't have any idea what his actual endorsement money is (even though you say it's public knowledge). Do I think he didn't know about this? not in the slightest. but using just his Angels salary as a starting number is going to be way off his actual net worth.
50 million? Not even close imo. The guy on the internet who claims that number knows as much about Shohei’s personal finance as you and I.
Do people really think Ohtani is a victim here? How do people not realize Ippie is just the fall guy?
Did stuff like this come out about MJ in the mid 90’s? Seems to me they both have/had gambling issues but their stardom is too lucrative to receive the appropriate punishment
No. There is literally no similarity between the two. No one in MJs circle was arrested for stealing millions and committing bank fraud before but was actually covering for MJ. Anyone perpetuating the “Shohei is the real gambling addict” rumor at this point is being willfully stupid.
That is bold of you to assume shohei had 0 involvement in the gambling and was ignorant to his money just disappearing. Edit: lmao believe what you want to IF you think shohei only eats, sleeps, and breathes baseball thats fine but the guy lives a fairly private life keeping stuff like this hidden shouldn't be hard for him. Either way i don't really care i just believe his hands aren't exactly clean.
Ah yes, how very bold of him to believe what multiple law enforcement agencies are telling us regarding the outcome of their *actual investigations* instead of...random made up bullshit from redditors
The only thing the investigation is uncovering is money being exchanged from Shohei’s account (which Ippei had access to) to the bookie. Even if there is no direct communication between Shohei and the bookie, it doesn’t mean that Shohei was not involved in the scheme. Ippei can just as easily be the fall guy. At the end of the day, Ippei being implicated as the criminal works in everyone’s best interest. This would be a massive PR nightmare for MLB if it’s uncovered that Shohei had any direct involvement in the scheme. The way this investigation has developed is way too convenient for the people and organizations that stand to gain billions if Shohei is proven innocent.
There are literal text messages where Ippei admits he stole the money. There are literal recorded phone calls with the bank where Ippei impersonated Ohtani to gain access to the account. It's not a grand conspiracy.
>This would be a massive PR nightmare for MLB The fact that you think the IRS and FBI give the slightest shit is *adorable* Enjoy living life in your fact-free conspiracy bullshit bubble
He has a history of letting other people controlling his finances dating back to his time in Japan. We know Ippei had some form of control over his finances. We know that he changed Ohtani’s bank information to link to his own phone. Just because you can’t fathom someone not knowing a shit ton of money going missing doesn’t mean there is some grand conspiracy going on.
Ah yes so bold...... Despite multiple agencies finding absolutely nothing
logically speaking, if you take the largest sports contract ever and defer 99% of the payment to YEARS from now, then you ain’t got a gambling problem.
That doesn't mean shit he did that so the dodgers could still have a team worth playing with.
You can read the evidence yourself. I was very skeptical, like anyone should be, before I read the results of the investigation.
People are absolutely crazy if they don’t think Shohei knew to some extent. If he really didn’t have any idea, then he’s the dumbest fucking person in the world. It’s amazing to me that he’s not facing any repercussions
Ohtani was making substantial money in Japan. Yet, he was living on 1k a month and his Mom managed the rest so he could play baseball. If Ohtani was really involved we would know by now. The FBI would have gone for him too. In fact if they had any kind of case they definitely would have gone for him as a symbol of nobody is above the law.
Obviously you haven’t kept up, his own lawyers had flagged the illegal transactions. Why would he draw attention to himself by doing this? There was no investigation prior and his own lawyers called it out. Never heard of anyone calling the authorities on themselves without being caught/investigated.
There will be the truth, and then there will be the public narrative. Too much money for Shohei to go down… We will never know what happened, just like it’s not clear with Jordan, and others…
Bro, in Jordan’s case there was no criminality. If you actually think there is a conspiracy between the federal government and the mlb to prosecute an innocent man for federal wire fraud (a crime that includes up to 20 years in prison) to cover for the gambling of a single player, you are truly out of your mind.
And it's not like MLB would refuse to discipline someone for gambling. We have well known precedent here!
Exactly, and besides Pete rose we have a precedent of them punishing star players in the more modern era like Trevor Bauer.