Good morning and welcome to this week's episode of the Sports Curious podcast. I'm your host, Amy Buchan on Siegfried and I am joined by my co -host, co -founder, favorite brother, the guy who gives me pointers on gambling, which we're gonna talk about today. So let's bring Scott, Scott, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for having me once again. Honor and a pleasure to be here to speak to you about gambling this time. Well, it's interesting. We've been receiving a lot of questions, obviously.
We're going to talk right in the beginning about Shohei Ohtani and his interpreter who's been gambling, but there's been a lot of gambling mishaps in recent, probably the recent times, recent years around athletes and around sports. And so I want to talk a little bit about that. And that's kind of where a lot of those questions came from of like, is this a new thing? Has this been happening? So we're going to cover a little bit of all of that. So let's dive in.
Will you give us a little bit of the Shohei update and kind of what that looks like? And for those who don't know Shohei Itani, he is a pitcher and batter, I guess, for, he's a player for the Los Angeles Dodgers. He just signed with the Dodgers this season. It's his first, he just had his first opening day with the Dodgers. His interpreter has been allegedly stealing his money to pay his bookie, alleged bookie, I should say. And so that's kind of where that story is at this moment.
Ohtani says he has nothing to do with it, had no idea. And so from there, give us a little bit of an update, let us know what's happening, go from there. And this is all alleged at this point. Basically what happened was news broke when the Dodgers run Korea, when the opening series that Ohtani's interpreter had been stealing money from him into the tune of about $4 .5 million, wiring money from Ohtani's account. So Ohtani's name was on the wires.
And once that was revealed, Dodgers fired him and Ohtani's lawyer. Yes, correct. The interpreter. They're not firing Ohtani for any reasons. And lawyers got involved. There was some, there's been some different stories coming out about what exactly happened, but Ohtani came out with a press conference saying that he'd never bet on anything and never asked anyone to bet illegally for him. And it's really interesting.
So normally the leagues themselves, the sports leagues themselves, MLB, NFL are pretty good about staying on top of these investigations and sort of handling them internally. This investigation actually came from the FBI who then passed it down to Major League Baseball. Yes. And this was discovered, like you said, by the FBI when they were investigating an illegal bookie in California. And Ohtani's names, Ohtani's name showed up on some wires that obviously caught the FBI's eye.
And the reason it's a big deal is because in California, sports betting is still illegal. So how they lived in a different state and Ohtani's interpreter could have gambled legally on other sports. I think they said that most of his bets were on soccer, which he's obviously not a very good better on soccer. So, I mean, how do you... million dollars. Yes, yes. And, uh, this bookie has huge ties to Vegas. It's actually a huge deal here.
There's a lot of executives and other casino employees involved in this as well. So there's a lot of people with a lot at stake. So yeah, it's kind of, yeah, it's kind of a wild web of people involved in this all because of this bookie. Yes. So really when you think about it, if the interpreter would have just, when they went on the road, placed his bets on the road through say DraftKings, where sports betting is legal, it would have been no big deal.
I mean, he would have been stealing money, but that's a whole nother thing, but it would have been no big deal. Yes. If he wasn't stealing the money and he was legally placing bets on sports that weren't baseball, it would have been no problem. And that's kind of where legalized gambling is a good thing in a way, because it would have been above board and he wouldn't have been able to get lines of credit and things like that from these sports books.
As to where a book, a book he's going to let him knowing he is associated with Ohtani. give him leeway to bet way more than he probably should have, knowing it's backed by hundreds of millions of dollars. it's interesting you brought up that he couldn't bet on baseball. Now that's a contract you sign as two people who've worked in major league baseball. You cannot bet on the sport that you work in.
That is against the rules, absolutely a no -no. So that's something just to clarify as we talk through the rest of this shenanigans of this podcast. That is a huge piece of that. Yes, so we'll see what happens. Well, it's a lot up in the air at this moment. Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
So, interesting enough, I know the NCAA has come out and they've been running, I think they ran a commercial, but they've been talking about how college players have really taken it on the chin of being harassed on social media and all of these things that they are basically, people are looking at them as a pawn to bet on, and they're children, right? Some of these are 18 -year -old kids, and they're being harassed by betters.
via social media because they're losing, which is obviously not the athletes' fault. You place a better bet next time. But the NCAA has really come out against this and really been pushing back at it. Yeah. And I guess the best way to say it is make better bets, right? Like, why are you harassing it? Why are you harassing an 18 year old? Just make better bets, but, or don't bet at all, which is probably, or don't bet at all, which is probably the best strategy out of all of these.
And along those lines, recently the NCAA came out and said that they were going to start lobbying state gambling boards to ban player proposition bets. to help curb these harassments. And player proposition bets would be like you're betting on an individual player to score over under 20 points or over under assists, things like that, which in college, there aren't as many prop bets just because there's so many different teams.
So that's not necessarily a huge moneymaker in college basketball, but still it leads to a lot of harassment. really interesting. I never really thought about that. So instead of saying just like if you bet on the team, that's one thing. But if you're betting on an individual, then that person is really a target for for harassment. That's fascinating. I think that's really smart.
Yes. And I mean, you're betting on an 18 year old who, who knows, failed a math test before or broke up with his girlfriend. And now he's doing it. Exactly. Yes. So I think that's what they're working towards. There are certain states that you can't bet on colleges when you're in the state. Like if you're in New Jersey, you can't bet on any college. College teams went in New Jersey. And that's a way to curb harassment.
And if you're in Illinois, you can't bet on Illinois colleges on a mobile device. Interesting. So you would have to go into a sports book? Okay. yes. So states, gambling -wise, every state has their own rules. They do whatever they want. They make up their own rules. So states like New Jersey and Illinois are at least trying to curb some of the harassment. Yeah, it's really, I mean, it really comes down, but it's kind of one of those until stuff gets big like this.
And I talk a lot about this and we won't go too far down, but like the government doesn't have the foresight. Usually they come in and they do them aftermath. Right. And so it's like, okay, sports gambling is getting better, getting more available. It's available in how many states can you put in sports now? I believe the number is 39. so majority, almost every state you can bet on sports. And so now they're going, oh, wow, we've got to figure out how to adjust this.
So I think it's really smart. But I would say that sports betting, I mean, we've had some, maybe let's talk a little bit about some more of the recent issues. And then we're going to obviously talk about sports betting is nothing new or betting on sports is nothing new and making illegal sports bets, especially by athletes. So maybe I know we had an NBA incident recently, so maybe talk to that one.
Yes. And with legalization of sports betting, it has brought a lot of irregularities to light because it's so heavily regulated and monitored by so many different states and officials that any irregularities that pop up are much more easier to spot than they would be if it was illegal and a bookie was running it. So very recently, and we still don't know the outcome of this, there's a betting skin on the NBA with Toronto Raptors for Jontay Porter and his player prop bets.
And like we said, player prop bets are going to be over under points in the game, over under assists, over under steals, things like that. And player prop bets, you're going to see a lot of money on guys like LeBron or Steph Curry. You're going to get a lot of money on, but the way this came to light is Porter's not necessarily a superstar. But there were a few nights where his prop bets were the most bet of the night, like by far. So all the money was on him.
And it was too, well, not necessarily, we don't know that yet, but there's people that obviously had potentially inside information that he wasn't going to hit his prop bets. And the two instances that we know of, he left the game for medical reasons. fascinating. it's very obviously very suspicious. And so when things like that come out and I think it was Drafking says it, he was the most bet prop of the night twice.
That's where regulators come out and that's where these companies that do these things notice immediately. Yeah, they're like, wait a minute, this is a little fishy. And all of a sudden, all these people are putting money on the fact that he's not going to make his numbers and he happened to leave. Now talk to me, I'm gonna kind of switch back and forth really quickly. You talked about previously when we were before the podcast, you were talking to me about how you cannot bet in an NFL facility.
So talk to me about like, how does that get regulated? If we're talking all about this regulation, how does that get regulated? And we've, yeah, we've seen a lot of NFL incidences in the past two to three years with legalized sports betting coming to light with players getting suspended. And the NFL rules, you can bet on other sports, not NFL while away from the team facility.
But if you bet at the team facility or subject to punishment, and you may be asking yourself, how do they know the location services that these legal sports betting apps use? can pinpoint your exact location by like the foot. So when they see that these players are in the facility and that's kind of where it comes to light. And if you give, if you give them a reason to look into your bets, they can pinpoint every single bet you ever made.
I mean, it could fly into the radar for a little bit, but once you're on that radar, every, every. something, $5 on, they can't bet on the Super Bowl, but $5 on the World Series, then it's probably not gonna raise any red flags, but. No, but if you give them a reason to look into your account, they're going to find everything you've ever done. So there'll be no secrets. a fascinating part. Like you say, we talk about all these algorithms, all these things that are run.
It's like a credit card company when they call you for fraud. They have the same systems in place. And it's really interesting. Do you remember, I think it was the start of the football season, college football season, there was a photo of, because sports betting is not legal in New York, if I'm correct, but it is in New Jersey. And on the other side of the bridge, do you remember there was like, there's a photo of all these cars parked in New Jersey just across the New York state line.
off a bridge, parked betting on sports because it was legal and the geo -targeting is so exact. Yeah, it was not legal in New York previously, but it is now. But you have instances, like you said, in New Jersey where these guys know exactly where to locate in New Jersey, Tibet. And they might just be like a few hundred feet off the state line.
Yeah. Okay, so there's two, as we talked a little bit about, this is nothing new, and I'm gonna let you pick which one you've talked about secondly, but I do wanna talk about Pete Rose because he is probably one of the most famous athletes who bet on sports, got in trouble, and has basically been locked out of the Hall of Fame, even though he had a great career, locked out of the Hall of Fame because he bet on baseball.
So talk to me a little bit about Pete Rose, because we always see him signing. autographs for $40 in the autograph store in Mandalay Bay. And so, you know, it's a sad scenario to see, because he's in his 70s now, but obviously he broke the rules. So I'm not saying that's not sad that he broke the rules, but talk to us a little bit about what Pete Rose did and how that happened. I mean, this is the most infamous sports betting tale of all time, right?
He, while he was managing and playing, was betting on his team. He never actually admitted to what he bet on, but he was betting on, on or against his team when he was playing and managing for the Reds. And this was all done through an illegal bookie. So you don't, we've never really gotten to hear exactly what he bet on. Yes. But he's, I mean, he's. The hit King and he leads MLB in hits over his, he's the number one guy in hits in his career.
Yes. And, and in 1989, he agreed to a lifetime ban from Major League Baseball, which, you know, removes him from being in the Hall of Fame because of his sports betting, which was, which was illegally done. Yeah. So there's that scenario. And then we have, I'm going to let you, because I don't want to keep people too long. They can look into the other one.
We have the 1994 Arizona State basketball point shaving scandal, which, you know, claim that as my alma mater right now, or the black socks scandal. Maybe let's go to the point shaving scandal since we've already talked about baseball. So maybe talk about the point shaving scandal at ASU. We'll go back to 1994 point shaving scandal, which point shaving would be players knowing what the spread was and intentionally doing things during the game to ensure that they did or did not cover the spread.
Okay, explain the spread real quick too while you're at it. So the spread would be, say ASU was four point underdogs, they could only lose by four points to cover the spread. And so these players were being paid to take actions during the game to make sure that they covered the spread or did not cover the spread. So they wouldn't intentionally travel or miss a three pointer or throw the ball out of bounds.
And I'm sure that was obvious in some, I mean, I don't remember watching these games, obviously, but I'm imagining at some point they're like, oh crap, we've got to pull it together. And the whole last two minutes, they can't make a basket or something like that. That's very obvious. intentionally missing a layup or things like that.
And this was actually unearthed by Las Vegas sports books because they were receiving irregular amounts of money on these games by people who don't normally bet that much in the sports books. And that's kind of how it got uncovered. Interesting. I mean, it really is fascinating to think about the tracking. You know, we hear all this and we think about this soprano level, illegal bookie type thing, but the tracking and I think that is to me is so fascinating on a whole nother level.
It's, it's pretty incredible how good these sports books are at identifying irregularities, especially now that everything's legal and people are doing everything on an app. It's truly remarkable. And with like the ASU thing, I think NIL these days is something that's going to help curb any type of bribery or point shaving. If you guys, if you have guys making a hundred thousand dollars a year, they're not going to be susceptible to. I don't know, a $5 ,000 bribe to throw a game.
So I think that's a good thing that NIL has hopefully ended. Yes. as we get ready to wrap up, is there anything you want to leave us with? This is definitely your area of expertise for those who are listening to the podcast. Obviously, this is the true statement here. So talk to us about, is there anything you want to leave us with? I mean, sports scandals with betting are nothing new. It's just now that it's become legal, it's become more regulated and above board.
Yeah. And I would say the one. like, it's not new, we had the what the 1919 Black Sox Throw the World series. for bribes. So I mean, yeah, this is nothing new that's been happening. It's just become more regulated. Yeah. Well, and I think we have to responsibly end this as people from Las Vegas is that gamble responsibly. This is your livelihood. So gamble responsibly and be smart about it. So. Yeah, and I would say the best bet you make is probably no bet. There you go.
Yeah, don't be like the Jacksonville Jaguars guy who stole money from the team and lost. What did he, how much money did he steal? Like 40 million. I think the number was And he was labeled the worst. He was labeled the worst gambler of all time What? And why is that? because he was entering hundreds and thousands of dollar contests and wouldn't actually submit lineups. So he was just buying these and not even doing anything with them.
And people like the chat boards and things like that label him the worst gambler of all time. And that's how you lose $40 million. Yes, don't do that. don't lose $40 million. Don't be that guy. Don't steal it from your employer. Don't bet at work. I think these are all things we've come to find out. And so seems logical. Well, thanks for sharing your world of wisdom around sports gambling. And if you want more, obviously check out lastnightsgame .com.
We will also include some links in the show notes about if you are gambling and you're having some challenges, places you can go for some help. So. Check us out, lastnightgame .com and thanks Scott for being here today. responsibly. Amen.