Does Pro Sports Have A Gambling Problem?

less than a week into 2024 M Mo's worst

nightmare happened their Golden Child

was in an illegal gambling Scandal

accused of betting on his own games

being investigated by the league being

investigated by the IRS and even being

investigated by the FBI concerning

$4.5 million in illegal sports betting

Wagers while this was happening the NBA

had a similar issue a better claimed to

have $80,000

on a bet that relied on this player to

get less than 4 and2 rebounds in a game

on this play the ball comes right to him

instead of grabbing the ball he Taps it

to his teammate moments later he tells

his coach he has an eye injury and

leaves the game shortly after the NBA

announced he can no longer play is being

investigated and is facing a permanent

ban simultaneously the NCAA announced

they were investigating Temple

basketball for suspicious betting

activity there have already been 12 NFL

players suspended for breaking their

gambling rules since sports betting

became legal in 2018 and in 2022 alone

there were

1,212 matches flagged as suspicious

potentially being rigged or fixed for

money that is a 34% increase from the

year prior it was not long ago when all

major sports leagues opposed legalized

bet in 2017 Roger Goodell said legal

sports betting could compromise the

Integrity of the game former MLB

commissioner Bud cig said it was quote

evil which creates doubt and destroys

your sport in fact MLB was so paranoid

about gambling when two of their most

legendary players Mickey Manel and

Willie Mays agreed to do a meet and

greet at a casino they Bann these

players for life but now sports betting

is not only legal leagues supported and

are making millions of dollars from it

for years their biggest fear was that

legal gambling would lead to match

fixing Point shaving and games being

rigged a scandal like this could break a

sport and in March M Mo looked like it

could be facing worst case scenario Shi

Otani had just gotten his first hit his

first deal and was about to get his

first win in a Dodgers uniform he was in

Korea as part of MLB's opening Series

playing the first game of the 24 season

cameras caught him and his interpreter

joking around in the Dugout sh at epe

are best friends they are never seen

apart and regularly seen having fun in

The Dugout so everything seemed normal

but less than 10 hours after this news

broke that otani's attorneys were

accusing epe of a quote massive theft

minutes later we learn epe has been

fired by the Dodgers early reports from

the LA times say that otani's attorneys

discovered epe conducting a massive

theft from Otani in order to pay off

sports betting debts that he had with an

illegal bookmaker before the baseball

world could even make sense of this news

ESPN dropped their own article and made

this story a lot more suspicious ESPN

reported that while investigating any

legal bookmaking operation in California

Federal investigators had found that

there had been multiple six figure

transfers from sh otani's bank account

to this illegal bookmaking operation

presumably to pay off gambling debt that

totaled over a million ESPN had

interviewed epe a day before opening day

epe told ESPN that this was not a theft

and that Otani had voluntarily paid off

ep's gambling debt to help him out as a

friend another spokesperson for Otani

also told ESPN this version of the story

leading to a ton of questions why is

otani's team suddenly saying epe stole

the money when the day before they had

said Otani transferred the money

voluntarily Otani had known about this

Scandal before opening day if it was

truly a massive theft you wouldn't think

the two would act so friendly with each

other the very next day nobody seemed to

fully trust otani's side of the story

people began speculating that he was

actually the one doing the illegal

betting and epe was just covering for

him or that Otani had known about ep's

gambling debt and paid it off for him as

a favor this would be considered illegal

in the eyes of the law and could lead to

an MLB suspension so Otani and his team

now had to lie about it and based on

their relationship this was very

plausible shohi met epe mizuhara over a

decade ago he was born in Japan but

raised in California after briefly

interpreting for Japanese pitcher Hideki

okajima in America he moved to Japan to

interpret for the nepon ham Fighters

This just so happened to be sh otani's

rookie year otani's Locker was right

next to a foreign players Locker who had

to use epe to translate so naturally epe

and shohi became friends 5 years later

when Otani went to play for the Angels

it was only natural for him to HDE epe

as his full-time interpreter however epe

became much more than that when Otani

first came to America he arranged to

have epe live in the same apartment as

him Otani had no license so epe also

became his personal driver he would buy

groceries for Otani the two ate

breakfast together every single day

before games he trained with Otani

tracked his progress during workouts and

when Otani didn't have anyone to play

catch with he would do it with epe epe

was with Otani

365 days a year saying he spent more

time with Otani than he did with his own

wife and when epe married his wife in

2018 Otani surprised them with a gift he

paid for the couple's entire honeymoon

Otani trusted epe so much that he was

not just in charge of his onfield

relationships he became the middleman

between Otani and his sponsors and even

his friends during the MLB lockout team

employees were not allowed to interact

with players so epe quit his job with

the angels just so he could continue

helping Otani when Otani was in the Home

Run Derby in 2021 he had epe be his

personal catcher when he played for team

Japan in the WBC he didn't need a

translator around his Japanese teammates

yet he still had epe accompany him

throughout the entire tournament Otani

star power exploded since he was always

next to him so did epace he has over

400,000 Instagram followers and barely

post when the Angels were introduced in

2023 epe an interpreter was not only

introduced with the team he got the

second loudest Ovation at the stadium

trailing only Otani eepe legitimately

became one of the most recognizable

faces in the league his close

relationship with Otani made it hard to

believe that he would actually steal

this much money from him and get away

with it they spent so much time together

it's hard to believe Otani would have no

idea whatsoever about his gambling

addiction also how would it even be

possible to rack up 4.5 million in

gambling debt if according to epe he

only made around 500k a year

interpreting for Otani to many Otani had

to have had some sort of invol

involvement in ep's gambling and if this

was the case Otani was screwed MLB and

pretty much every major sports league

has what is close to a zero tolerance

policy when it comes to gambling four

years ago a minor Leaguer got caught

betting on the Oakland Athletics he is

still suspended he wasn't even a major

league player had no impact on the game

argues that since the Minor League

season was canceled at the time he

wasn't even a professional player but

still presumably is banned from baseball

for life all major sports leagues in

America ban their players from betting

on their own sports however in 2023

three NFL players got punish for betting

on a sport other than football NFL bans

players from gambling on anything while

in a team facility so even though they

made 100% legal bets since it happened

at a team facility they still got

suspended in the NCAA players are banned

from betting on any sport in 2003 Rick

neis Washington 's head football coach

entered a NCAA March Madness bracket

pool with his friends who he played golf

with he was the football coach and

Washington wasn't even in the tournament

but after filling out a bracket entering

it and winning a cash prize from his

golf friends the NCAA found out and

threatened to suspend him the university

almost immediately fired him for his

involvement he later won a $4.7 million

wrongful termination case but this just

shows how paranoid leagues are about any

kind of sports betting and it's all

because of situations like this before

this English Premier League game in 1997

a Malaysian crime syndicate went to the

stadium paid off a security guard got

access to the electrical system and

rigged the lights so that they could be

turned off with a rigged remote whenever

they wanted they then bet millions of

dollars that West H would at least tie

Crystal Palace at the beginning of the

second half Frank Lampard scored this

clutch goal to tie the game at two the

criminals pressed a button on the remote

the lights went off no one could figure

out how to get them back on and since it

was already the second half the game

ended in a 22 tie the Malaysian

criminals bet cashed and they made

millions of dollars match fixing like

this happens way more than you think in

2013 FIFA estimated that organized crime

was making as much as $15

billion a year by fixing matches in a

study done in Germany they found that

onethird of amateur soccer players have

seen match fixing take place in 2022

alone there was a

record 169 individual sanctions handed

to people who got caught fixing matches

and that's just the people who got

caught this can legitimately destroy

entire leagues and the Chinese

professional baseball league the major

leagues of Taiwan there have been 64

different players caught fixing games in

only an 11-year span that ended in 2008

that year the government investigated

102 illegal baseball betting cases

involving

222 people the situation was so bad the

league was pretty much bankrupt the

president of Taiwan got involved and had

to pass a law that punished people

involved in match fixing with up to 10

years in prison just to save the league

but for the most part match fixing in

America has been extremely rare for

decades every major sports league in

America was against legalized sports

betting match fixing almost exclusively

occurs when someone bribes a player or a

ref to affect the outcome of the game

since they know the outcome they can

make a bet on the outcome and basically

make free money sports leagues in

America argued legalizing betting would

create more Temptation for players to

throw games for money and create

skepticism amongst fans who will start

to believe the games were being fixed

even when they weren't but in 2018 the

leagues did a total 180 legalized sports

betting was up to individual states

League started lobbying for more states

to legalize and now the major sports

leagues are making hundreds of millions

of dollars directly from sports betting

and just like they fear this has led

some fans to become skeptical of the

Integrity of the game in January

DraftKings released data that said the

winningest bet of the the night was prop

bets on jont Porter they were predicting

that Jon Porter was going to have a

terrible game if a ton of people were

predicting LeBron to have a terrible

game that would make sense he's a star

who gets a ton of attention Porter is a

bench player who splits time in the

D-League you'd expect there to be little

to no money placed on his performance

yet these betters were right after only

playing 4 minutes Porter ended up

leaving the game after aggravating an

eye injury the team said he had hurt 4

days prior fans became skeptical they

dug up footage of him making this three

and looking somewhat disappointed in a

different game people were theorizing

that Porter was making bets that he

would play bad then purposely playing

bad in order to make extra money but

this was just a conspiracy theory then

this was released on March 20th jonte

Porter prop bets were once again the

winningest bet turns out this betting

volume in large part was due to one bet

who put

$80,000 that jont Porter would get less

than eight and a half points less than 4

and a half assists less than one and 1/2

threes less than one steel less than one

block and less than 5 and 1/2 rebounds

that game video shows him looking like

he purposely misses this rebound then

almost immediately goes to his coach and

checks out of the game saying he felt

sick his unders all hit and this better

made 1.2 million shortly after the NBA

announced they were placing him on the

ineligible list and launching an

investigation where they found that

Porter had bet on NBA games including

his own team to lose however he never

directly bet on a game he played in he

did give confidential information to

betters and purposely left games early

it seems likely that Porter had told

someone he was going to leave a game

early knowing this they placed a

ridiculous amount of money on Porter to

play Bad and possibly agreed to pay

Porter a cut of the winnings since he

agreed to check out of the game and

because of this the NBA has banned jonte

Porter for life this is the first time

the NBA has had to ban someone for

gambling in over 70 years the NFL has

suspended 12 players since legalization

and the NCAA has had over

175 violations since legalization in

2018 this sounds terrible but in reality

legalized sports betting might actually

make match fixing less likely but before

we get to that a quick word from today's

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now you would think legalized Bing would

create more betting and more

opportunities for match fixing but the

leagues don't see it that way since 2018

League have begun paying tens of

millions of dollars to companies like

these they're essentially surveillance

Services whose job it is to spy on

players analyze betting lines Track

Betting activity and find and Report

anything suspicious when signing up for

a legal betting account your identity

has to be verified if you're a

professional athlete betting on a sport

you play they're going to know

immediately if you use a friend's

account to bet but make those bets in

your home or in the arena you play in

they also have a tracking system that

knows your location within a 3 ft radius

and are going to know immediately if

they find suspicious betting activity on

a specific player they can track who and

where the bets were made if this lines

up with areas that specific player

frequence they are likely involved and

will get caught betting lines are

constantly changing based on how much

money is being wagered on certain

outcomes using AI Services these

companies track every single beding line

on Earth and about

16.5 million million bets a day they

compare the betting line movement to the

historic data and flag the lines that

are moving in suspicious ways if people

start randomly wagering hundreds of

thousands of dollars on a bet like jonte

Porter unders the system is going to

instantly flag it as suspicious before

legalized betting Porter would have had

to make these bets through an illegal

bookmaking operation these systems

wouldn't be able to trace it and would

make it easier to get away with sports

radar Integrity services who does this

for multiple sports leagues found over

1,200 suspicious matches in 2022 alone

this is a

34% increase than the year before but

it's hard to know exactly why legalized

betting made sports betting more popular

more people betting on sports means more

potential match fixers but legalized

betting also makes betting more

traceable according to these Services

the increase in suspicious matches is

solely based on how much better their

systems have become in Catching people

with these systems in place in order for

someone to bet on a game they could

influence they'd have to go through an

illegal bookmaker which is still

possible but it's always been possible

and as legalized betting keeps getting

bigger it makes sense that the demand

for illegal bookies will continue to

decrease making them rarer and rarer

players coaches or refs could tell a

friend to make a bet that team a was

going to lose then in the the game make

sure team a loses and win money however

for athletes in America who are

millionaires in order for it to be worth

it they'd have to bet a ridiculous

amount of money on this outcome any bet

of this size without a doubt would cause

suspicion and be investigated athletes

who don't get paid High salaries are

almost always the ones who end up fixing

matches and that's why betting could

become a massive issue for college

sports in fact it always has been on

average the NCAA has had a verified

match fixing SLO shaving incident once

every 7 years and it's usually

situations like this running back Dennis

Lundy was northwestern's all-time

leading rusher in a game against Iowa he

put a $400 wager that his team would

lose by more than six points Iowa was

dominating but after a turnover

Northwestern had the ball on the goal

line a touchdown here would make this a

two-possession game it also would have

made Lundy the all-time leader in

touchdowns for Northwestern but instead

of risking the bet he fumbled the ball

on purpose Lundy's team suspicious of

his actions turned him in turns out he

did this multiple times and due to his

involvement and lying about it he ended

up having to serve a 1-month sentence in

prison and all of this was caused by

only a

$400 bet to my knowledge the most a

college athlete has gotten paid to fix a

game happened at Arizona State when a

player got paid

$20,000 to ensure his team wouldn't

cover the spread in all likelihood

20,000 couldn't convince an NBA player

to throw a game but college players have

done it for a lot less a Toledo player

accepted $900 to shavee points a San

Diego State player made around a grand a

game to do the same thing and one player

even got caught accepting groceries as

part of a payment to manipulate a game

if someone is betting Millions it's easy

for the surveillance companies to catch

them but if someone bets $100 on

themselves to lose that's a lot harder

to track which is why the NCAA is

already trying to ban prop bets for

college games instead of betting on a

team to win or lose prop bets allow you

to bet on an individual player to score

more or less than x amount of points get

more or less than x amount of strikeouts

rush for more or less than x amount of

yards Etc almost any starting running

back in the country could just get a

friend to bet $100 that they will get

less than x amount of yards then leave

the game in the second half with a fake

injury and make $100 tens of billions of

dollars is BET on college sports every

year so a $100 bet can can fall through

the cracks but it's still risky the NCAA

invests Millions into surveillance to

find suspicious activity and this past

season they might have found their next

Scandal on February 8th Temple was a 6

and 1/2 Point Underdog vers Memphis when

all of a sudden so many people bet on

them to lose they became a 10 and 1 Half

Point Underdog in only 4 hours the same

exact thing happened 3 weeks later after

a ton of money was B on the under 4 days

later it happened again then in their

last game of the season they were a 2

and 1 Half Point Underdog when so much

money was wagered on them to lose they

became an eight-point underdog in all

four cases so much money was placed on a

specific outcome it dramatically changed

the betting line and in all four cases

the people who caused the betting line

to change were correct the NCAA has

since opened up an investigation because

someone being this confident on an

outcome historically is caused by one of

these scenarios either several players

or a single notable player who plays

enough to impact the final score bet his

team to perform poorly then purposely

performed poorly someone inside the

program knew a star player was injured

and wouldn't play then sold that

information to a better who bet the team

would lose before the bookmakers could

adjust the line accordingly or somebody

within the organization racked up an

insane amount of gambling debt with an

illegal bookmaker unable to pay off the

debt the bookmaker tells them they will

forgive the debt but only if they lose a

game on purpose the bookmaker ends up

making even more money betting on the

outcome and the person in debt can walk

away without paying this last scenario

historically has been one of the most

common ways match fixing takes place and

it's why professional sports have always

shied away and punished players for any

type of illegal betting even if it

wasn't on Sports it's also why it looked

like the relationship between epe

mizuhara and Shi Otani could bring down

the entire sport while working with

Otani epe developed a crippling gambling

addiction according to a federal

complaint epe made around

19,000 bets gambling as much as a

160 Grand on a single wager during this

time he won

$142 million but also lost $180 million

meaning he was $40 million in gambling

debt and all of this took place in just

a span of a little over 2 years epe made

less than a million dollar a year so how

is it even possible to bet enough money

to get that much debt if if he did it

legally it wouldn't be possible

regulated betting in the United States

forbids Sports books from taking bets on

credit this prevents addicts from

racking up debt they can't afford to pay

off but sports betting is illegal in

California so epe was forced to go

through an illegal bookmaker knowing epe

was so close to a multi-

multi-millionaire athlete the bookmaker

likely let him rack up a debt knowing he

couldn't afford it because at the end of

the day he knew Otani could pay it off

for him there was only a few logical

ways epe could ever afford to pay off

this massive debt either have Otani pay

it off or even worse have Otani fix a

game in exchange for debt forgiveness

both of these scenarios are illegal so

Otani had no choice but to make a

statement on March 25th 5 days after the

news first came out Otani sat down with

a new interpreter and for the first time

addressed the media saying epe had

stolen money from him and quote told

Lies made it clear that he never bet on

baseball never bet on any sport and

never asked anyone to place a bet for

him according to shohi basically

everyone around him had learned about

this Scandal before he knew about it the

Press was trying to contact him about

the payments from his account but could

only ask him about it through ePay ePay

not wanting Otani to to find out just

lied to the press and never told Otani

otani's management also found out

obviously concerned they also tried to

ask Otani about it but also could only

do it through ePay epe told his

management that Otani had paid off the

debt for him trusting epe they went to

ESPN and told them that Otani had never

gambled but did agree to pay off the

debt to help out his friend didn't need