Shohei Ohtanis Bookmaker REVEALS The $40 Million Gambling Scandal

➡ A famous baseball player, Shohei Otani, was involved in a gambling controversy where his interpreter was accused of stealing money from him to pay off a bookmaker. The bookmaker, Matt Bowers, who was also involved in the gambling business, shared his story about how he started in the business and his experiences. He also discussed his personal life, including his upbringing and how he got into gambling at a young age. Bowers is set to be sentenced for his involvement in the gambling business.
➡ At 18, the speaker found himself expecting a child and needing to grow up fast. He started as a busboy at a restaurant, but his hard work and dedication led to him becoming a popular choice among customers. This caught the attention of a couple who offered him a job at a commodity brokerage firm, where he started in the mailroom but quickly worked his way up. Despite facing many challenges, including a grueling interview process and juggling work with studying for a broker’s exam, he eventually became a successful broker, earning $700,000 a year at 21 and buying back his parents’ lost home.
➡ The text is about a man who built a successful gambling business. He started small, but expanded rapidly with the advent of the internet. He differentiated his business by paying out winnings promptly and accepting various forms of payment, which helped him attract and retain customers. Despite facing some collection issues and threats, he managed to navigate through these challenges and grow his business significantly.
➡ A man who made and lost millions through gambling and bookmaking was raided by the federal government twice due to his high-stakes lifestyle. Despite the financial ups and downs, he always ensured he paid his customers and was known for his honor and respect. However, his gambling habits eventually led to serious legal trouble, with the IRS getting involved. Despite losing everything, his wife remained loyal and they faced the challenges together.
➡ The speaker discusses how his involvement in a money laundering case has led to him being banned from all casinos in Las Vegas. He reflects on how Las Vegas has changed over time, becoming more corporate and less personal. He reminisces about the days when the mafia ran the casinos, arguing that they knew how to treat customers better. He also criticizes the current system of credit and debt collection in casinos, suggesting that it lacks the respect and understanding that was present in the past.
➡ The text discusses a situation where a person, who is close to some Angels baseball players, gets involved in a gambling situation with Ippei, the interpreter for baseball player Shohei Otani. The person provides a betting service to Ippei, who ends up owing a large sum of money. The debt is paid through wire transfers from Shohei Otani, leading to speculation and controversy. The person insists that Otani himself was not involved in the betting.
➡ A man had a gambling problem, betting mainly on soccer, and ended up owing $24 million. He paid off $16.2 million of his debt, but still owes the rest. The money he used to pay off his debt and gamble was likely from his salary, and he would wait for his paycheck to come in before making payments. The man who he owed the money to feels guilty for not managing the situation better and preventing the man from getting into such a bad situation.
➡ The text discusses the issue of gambling, particularly among athletes, using the example of Michael Jordan who sees it as a competition rather than a problem due to his wealth. It also shares the story of a person who lost a significant amount of money due to gambling, leading to personal and financial issues. The text criticizes the government’s approach to gambling, arguing that it should not be criminalized if it doesn’t harm others. Lastly, it touches on the challenges of prison life, particularly being separated from family.
➡ The speaker discusses overcoming adversity, making amends for past mistakes, and moving forward in life. They express remorse for their past actions and emphasize the importance of learning from mistakes. They also discuss the hypocrisy of the government’s stance on activities like gambling and drug use, which are deemed immoral until they can be taxed. The speaker is facing sentencing for their actions and is hopeful for a second chance to make things right.
➡ The speaker hopes that Matt won’t receive a harsh punishment just for not paying taxes, calling it unfair. He criticizes the government for its hypocrisy, as it used to imprison bookmakers but now profits from gambling. The speaker appreciates Matt and wishes him well, ending with a promotion for his own wine brand, Franz East Wine.

A friend of mine calls me and says, are you sitting down? And I said, yeah, why, what’s up? He says, the wire transfer just came in from Shohei Otani. And in my mind I said, holy. Like I’m thinking to myself, that’s great. But the flip side is now I have the most famous baseball player really ever betting through. People ask me all the time, how do you give $40 million credit to an interpreter? I said, well, because I didn’t care who it was. It could have been the interpreter’s grandma for all that matters. The wires were coming, I was getting paid.

We were both happy the services that were provided. He never complained. If you go look at the text messages which the federal government released all of them, he says, I’m terrible at this. Can you give me another 500,000? And to be honest, he might lose 500,000. I probably lost 2 million that week. Long story short, he ended up blowing more and more and got to a point where I cut him off at 24 million. So I bet $4.6 million on the Kansas City Chiefs in the 2023 Super Bowl. Biggest bet I’ve ever made in my life.

And I won. If I didn’t get rated 8 months later, I would have bet 7 or 8 million the next year because it was never enough. I. I always wanted to continue to do bigger and better than I did before. And it wasn’t even about the material things because I already had all that. So why was I even doing it? Hey everyone. Welcome to another sit down with Michael Francis. Hope everybody is doing well, all is very good, very blessed on this end. As always, my friends, I give all the praise, honor, glory and thanksgiving to our God for that.

As you can see, I’m not in my studio. I’m actually in my hotel room in West Palm Beach, Florida. I was just at a three day wine conference. I was a keynote speaker there. But we were sitting with Franz east wine, was sitting with dozens of buyers and people. I got to tell you this, these fruit wines, you know, our BlackBerry fruit wine and our pomegranate fruit wine, they are killing it. Everybody wants it. You can’t get it anywhere. But Franz east wines for the holidays, we can’t keep enough of them. They’re flying off the shelves for the holidays.

People are enjoying it. So different than any other wine variety. You can have people actually taking it home because it’s in the. It looks like a BlackBerry and of course it looks like a pomegranate. They’re taking it home, they’re making vases out of it. They’re putting candles in it and they’re loving the wine. It’s the only place you can get it is through us. We’re in many of the change right now. Also on Franz easewine.com direct to consumer. I’m telling you, scoop it up because this is going to be a holiday hit. Okay, what are we doing today? You know Shohei Ohtani, best player in baseball, hands down.

I know some of you are going to argue. You love your other teams. Shohei Ohtani, he’s unbelievable. He really is. He had a controversy recently about gambling. His interpreter was stealing some money from him and paying off a bookmaker gambling heavily. And there’s still a little bit of a cloud. Was Shohei Ohtani involved? The bank accounts were in his name. Is the interpreter covering up? But. Well, today, today you’re going to hear from Matt Bowers, who was the actual bookmaker. He was the one taking the bets from the interpreter. And he’s going to tell us straight out whether Ohtani was involved in this at all.

He knows he’s the. I had a great talk with him and you’re going to hear from it. He’s getting sentenced. You know, he pled guilty to gambling. He’s getting sentenced on the 29th. So this is a very timely, timely interview that I’ve had with him. So I’m not going to delay anymore. I’m going to bring him right on. He’s a good guy. I have to tell you that I have nothing against gamblers. I was in the gambling business for many, many years. But here we go. Matt Bauer, my very special guest. Matt, pleasure to have you on.

Thank you for being here. And I got to start off by saying this. I get almost offended when I have to sit with anybody that’s been charged with gambling and is going to go away for it. I have so many friends that doing time for gambling for ridiculous reasons and now the government are the biggest ones in the business. And it bothers me. I have friends doing 10, 15, 20 years for gambling, not hurting anybody, nothing like that, just for gambling. And I know you’re pretty well in that situation. So I start off being your friend.

We never met before, but I don’t like what you’re going through right off the bat. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me. No, no, thanks for being here. So obviously we’re going to get into a few things. We know that Ohtani was big news and the interpreter and all that stuff. I’d like to get into that. But Tell me, go back a little bit with your, you know, your experience in the business, how you got started. Sure. Well, I started, I grew up here in Cypress, California in Orange County. And I started as a middle class family where my dad was a bail bondsman, ironically.

And my dad was an entrepreneur, but he had a really bad drinking problem. And that drinking problem escalated from 20 to 40 beers a day. And my mom, after about three or four rehabs when I was 12, had enough. So when she decided to cut the cord there, my whole life went from me and three brothers living a very good life to all of a sudden struggling to buying a baseball glove for the baseball team. And so I learned real quickly it’s time to hustle and figure out how to kind of survive on my own. And so that’s when my gambling at a young age became part of my life.

And so I started taking bets, making bets, and running a poker ring on my house. By about 15, 16, I was running a pretty big little gambling ring in my home. Yeah, yeah. But that led me to learn to hustle and learn how to, you know, find other mechanisms to make money and, and not ask my mom for money, which is really all I was focusing on. Let me ask you, the, the people that were gambling with you, were they your age or older? Mostly my age. A little bit older too, you know, because high school kids, they would come in seniors and I was a freshman, sophomore.

But yeah, mostly my age kids, you know, guys that I felt that I could beat in poker games and kind of, you know, I would hustle. Yeah, for sure. Interesting. So you started at that age. How did it develop from there? Basically what happened was from the ages of, I’m going to say 16 to about 18 years old, I was floating, I was selling weed out of my house. I never did any drugs. But again, I was just finding ways to hustle. Baseball card collections, going around in the neighborhood hustling kids, trading them, you know, common cars for Ken Griffey Jr.

Rookies and things that had value. Any edges I could find, I would do. And as I continued to go through high school, I can. I became my own entrepreneur. And then at 18, my mom found the weed in a scale in my, in our house and she kicked me out to teach a lesson, which was a good lesson because, you know, at the end of the day, I mean, she can’t convey what I was doing. So I went off and got an apartment with my ex wife. So we were. My ex wife and I met at 15.

And so we went and Got an apartment in Huntington Beach, California. And I was basically working odd in jobs at this point. You know, I worked for Mossimo Clothing Co. And the John Wynn Airport, you know, stocking the gift shops and working, you know, basically eight, eight hour shifts on two jobs a day, 16 hours a day, making no money. And so I went from like the hustle to now working as a normal person. And I hated it. I mean, as you know, when you work for somebody else, for the most part, you really never go anywhere in life.

So my future was not bright. So I decided to have me and my ex move in with my mother so we could possibly, you know, figure out my career. And in that process, my mom lost our home that we grew up in in Cyprus. So my mom moved to Dana Point, California and she moved into a double wide mobile home. So it was really like pride swallowing to go from a life of like, not luxury, but very, you know, upper middle class to now I’m living in a mobile home park. And I always envisioned a mobile home park as white trash and Eminem and 8 mile.

That was like my vision. So it was a two bedroom, My little brother was in one and my mom was in the other. So my ex wife and I were on a couch. So here I am, 18, and now she gets knocked up and I’m bringing a child into the world. I’m still a child, don’t even know what I’m doing. And I decided to say, you know what, I got to figure this out, right? I got to grow up fast. So there was a local area there that was developing in Dana Point, and there was a restaurant that was coming to fruition.

And I said to myself, 18 to make any decent money. Being a waiter is kind of my best situation for the moment because I’m not going to go to college. I clearly don’t have any, you know, education. So I got a job, or I walked in to get a job and the GM was hiring it’s brand new restaurant called Chevy’s, a Mexican chain. And he says to me, you have no experience. I can’t hire you as a waiter. And I looked at him and I’m like, yeah, it’s a freaking waiter. You know, I can serve food and take an order.

But long story short, he says, I could start using a busboy. I said, all right. So just took the job. I needed one. So now I’m a busboy serving chips and salsa. Which is demeaning really in my mind, because I knew I was better than that. All right, quick interruption. If you really want to get some insight into me. And I mean insight. Zoom calls Q&As, behind the scenes information stories I’ve never told before. You want to become part of the elite? Then join the family. We have over a thousand members already. Michaelfrancis.com family. It’s an offer that you shouldn’t refuse.

Now let’s get back to the show, but start there. And all of a sudden about three months go by and the customers were coming and asking to sit in my section. Because whatever I’ve done in my life, I’ve always been number one or tried to be. So I took it serious and I started making almost as much in tips as the waiters or waiters. So, you know, when the customers would come in, whatever errors the waiter or waitress would make, I would, you know, make up for. And as they started asking for me, the GM realized, okay, this kid’s ready to do some things.

By that time, I was getting, I got an offer from a couple that kept coming in to come work for them. So I immediately accepted the offer because I had no idea, didn’t care what it was. So I drove in my beater down to Irvine, California for an interview. I walk into this interview, it’s this beautiful building in Corporate Plaza, and there’s Ferraris and Mercedes Benz and all these things that I envision parked out front. So I walk in there, it’s a commodity brokerage firm. I didn’t even know what that was. And I saw the moving, trading, trading places with Eddie Murphy.

And that’s all I knew. So, long story short, I walk in there and I go through this grueling interview with this really nice gentleman at the restaurant. But all of a sudden, he was a different human being. I mean, he was grinding me, telling me, you’re 18. You have, you know, he, he was just made me belittled. You have no degree. You’re going nowhere. You’re serving chips and salsa. Your. Your soon to be wife is pregnant. I mean, what. Basically, what is wrong with you? So after the second interview, I was very excited to come back.

I couldn’t believe it. He belittled me some more. So I finally stood up to him and said, listen, there’s nobody in this building that’s going to work harder than me. There’s nobody that’s going to learn and, and grow and, and actually take the job more serious. So you can continue to tell me what I haven’t done or you can look at what I’m about to do. So he liked a Little fight back and gave me a job. I think that’s what he was leading up to, to try to get that in, testing me, you know. Yeah.

Which is I understand, right. But I loved, I loved that he was pushing me and kind of testing me. So I gave it back to him. Long story short, he gave me the job. I’m working in a mailroom, the mailroom operation of the firm, answering phones. But what I didn’t realize was I was actually his personal assistant. So I got this mentorship from a 28 year old man who was a multi millionaire, who was absolutely making tons of money at a very young age, who was the most articulate man I’ve ever met. So the mentorship alone was worth, you know, any amount of money.

So being his personal assistant, I was able to kind of oversee everything that was going on and learn from him. The calls would come into the brokerage firm and my job was to take the call, transfer it to a broker and let them close the deal. In that process, I would listen to the phone call and I would hit mute and then transfer the call. I’m supposed to hang up. I would stay on the call to learn the sales. Six months go by, I’m studying for the Series 3 exam. No one knows I’m doing this. I’m taking the books and doing it on my own.

Meanwhile, my soon to be wife is pregnant, having a baby. I’m working 65 hours a week for 1200amonth before taxes. And I’m, you know, basically barely getting by. So I got this hunger and this drive and I go to my owner and I say, listen, here’s a stack of flashcards. I want to take the Series 3 exam. And he looks at me and says, kid, we don’t. You’re not a broker. You have to be an assistant broker. Learn the skill set, then we’ll let you take the exam. So I said, how about this? If I don’t pass the exam, you can fire me.

He looks at the flashcards, he asked me a few questions, I answered them all. That’s when you’re willing to risk your job. I said, yeah, absolutely. So I go in, I take the exam, I pass, gives me the best opportunity. I work for the top broker. At 20 years old, I was the number one assistant in the firm. And we broke every record working there. And then at 21, he allowed me to go open a new brokerage firm and run the brokerage firm. So at 21 years old, about seven months later, I was making $700,000 a year, and I went and purchased the home that my parents lost in Cypress, California.

So I moved. You had that entrepreneurial spirit in you from. It was just innate. Yeah. I think watching my family suffer, or I should say my mom, and watching us lose everything had that given me that drive and, you know, entrepreneur thing I learned from my father. But actually applying it and having that grit, grind, and hustle was just watching our family go through that turmoil, which I viewed our family as the. The Beavers. You know, like, it seemed like we had everything, and all of a sudden we didn’t. And it was a drive. But there’s something innate in you when you do that, because you could have went the other way, too and said, you know what? I just can’t handle this, or whatever.

You know, look for sympathy or whatever. But you didn’t do that, you know, so that’s admirable. Thank you. I appreciate it. I know your story has got some grind in it as well. Of course. So you know the feeling. And yes, what’s great about this moment at 21 was when I was driving in a Mercedes to my home that my parents lost, and sleeping in the same room was really weird as where my parents were. It was like these moments of, like, it just felt really amazing to. To do, but also weird at the same time.

So I didn’t want to drive from Cyprus to Irvine, and then we moved the company from Irvine to Lisa Viejo, California. So I ended up selling the house and moving to Elisa Vio and buying a home there. And then I broke a record in Elisa Vio for the most expensive home. So I was, like, really proud because I was still very young, buying this big home, you know, 4,000 square feet. And now I have more kids and, you know, I’m doing the entrepreneur thing. But what happened was at 21, I started making real money. So the gambling never stopped.

I just couldn’t afford it before or couldn’t really be a bookmaker. So I would still take bets here and there. Small. But at 21, I had real money. Question, do you gamble yourself? Degenerate like no other. I’ve lost over $50 million gambling in my lifetime, so I can’t. You know, how many guys I know in your category? I can only imagine. Yeah. I mean, as we get into my story, you’re going to see that I was getting high on my own supply times 10. And that was my downfall to where my money went. But it also was my drive to building my business.

So it was. It was good and bad. Right. So but at 21, I decided to build a business because I have this opportunity where these, these guys were making a million bucks a year and they’re 21 to 50 and their excess money was hookers, gambling, drugs, boiler room, Wall street, all that environment. And I didn’t do any of that except for gamble. So I saw an opportunity and I seized it. So I built this pretty good little business just within that company and it started expanding and expanding, expanding. And then here comes the Internet. And when the Internet came, I went to Costa Rica and I was one of the first bookmakers, as you know, to start a per head shop and breakthe bookie.net was my, my website, the first, one of the first websites.

And now I have a scalable business. So I end up building that to having 48 agents across the country, 1200 customers, and really taking the bigger bets in the country. I was taking million dollar wagers on Super Bowls and I started dealing with celebrities and athletes and. Which, you know, obviously parlayed to me why I’m sitting here today. Let me ask you, how’d you build your credibility coming out of Costa Rica there? Because I know a few guys that had that and they had a rough time getting going. The credibility for me was doing something different than any other bookmaker.

You know, this. Most bookmakers, especially back in the day, would pay you usually on a Thursday or Friday. I paid everybody on Monday. I never waited for Peter and Paul to pay me to pay John. I went and paid John before Peter and Paul even paid. Big. It was really big because they realized, you know, winning is hard and getting paid is even more difficult. So if you pay a guy on a Monday, you have his business for life. And so I realized that. So the other thing I did to build my business was I made getting paid and paying me the easiest function in the world.

The bigger my business got, the more I was able to launder and move money around the country. And what I mean by that is I accepted Venmo cash app, Apple pay, crypto, wire transfers, cash, watches, cars. I’ve taken everything. And by making it so easy so they could hide it from their wives or do whatever they got to do, because we all know gamblers are doing all of the above. It made them continue to play with me and never really becoming so much of a problem. You know, I’m very jealous right now because we didn’t have access to that in my.

Yeah, you had cash and it was much. Yeah, that was it. That was it. We, we had, I had a number of bookmakers that worked under me. I wasn’t the bookmaker myself, but, you know, it was always collection issues. Always. You know, fortunately, that’s why they were under me. So we helped them collect. Of course you found a better way. To be honest with you, I mean, listen, I had a lot of collection issues, but never to the level you were. I mean, I had a guy pull a gun on me in Fresno, California, and I drove to his house and put a little heat on him, and, you know, he literally whipped a pistol out of me.

And I just told him, I said, you better be willing to use that, because anyone pulling a pistol out who owes me money for the wrong reasons is an idiot. And he ended up paying the next day. But long story short, I never had some of the crazy, wild stories that you did. Most of my customers were vetted pretty strongly, and you were in a different bracket. You were actually helping facilitate people you never even knew. Yeah. So I can only imagine the stories you would have anybody try to ever strong arm you. You know, I’ll be honest.

I never got any home invasions. I never had anyone. I had a few instances. I dealt with some Boston mafia when I was 28, and I was. I shouldn’t say Mafia. It was their soldiers more than anyone. The gentleman I was dealing with wasn’t full Italian, so he was, you know, you know, more about this than me. But he definitely was not allowed in the program, as I call it. But he was, you know, I had some good connections, and I bet with him, and he couldn’t pay me. And then he tried to use, you know, his ties to intimidate me, and I was definitely a little nervous.

I was 28, and here I was confronted with somebody who was pretty serious, and we ended up working it out. I ended up putting bets with them in Vegas and built a relationship. And when we’re off camera, I’ll give you some names. I guarantee you know who they are. And honestly, Matt, you. You’re fortunate that you’re out here in California. If you were back east, there’s no way you’d. There’s no way you’d be able to operate without somebody on top of you. Totally. Numbers you were doing. Yeah, not a doubt for sure. And it’s. It’s so interesting because I always grew up in California, and I’ve always heard this.

Right. And I’ve known this. And back in the day, as you know, better than anyone, east coast and west coast, just so different. Totally different. I will tell you this, too, though, because of the Size of bets that you handled. If, if you were doing that back in my day, even out here in California, you would have been noticed and somebody would have been on you. I had a feeling that’s the case. Yeah. And you may have wanted it because you know, there’s always the fallacy out there that we strong arm, we took advantage of everybody bookmakers wanted to work with.

Yeah. Because we helped them collect all protection and collection. It was all about that. Sure. So it was a good relationship. We don’t want to. Yeah. We don’t want to hurt the bookmaker. They’re the ones bringing in the money. So it might have worked out. But you did okay. I was fortunate to where most of my collection issues, which more resulted in the last two years because of what happened to me. I had to walk away from some really big ones. One of them being Epame is a hara, of course, the interpreter. But you know, we all know why he can’t pay me.

But there’s a couple big ones that I had to walk away from because the federal government said if you continue to collect money then you’re gonna, we’re gonna add to your crimes. And of course every debt that was outstanding, they were throwing a party because of course, you know, so that was hard. But at the end of the day, I blamed myself. I learned to because I realized if I hurt somebody or put my hands on people that I’m risking my business. And in California, you’ve probably heard it’s the worst state for collection issues because everybody in this state or this west coast area, they realize it’s not really tied mob wise.

And everybody kind of knew they can get over on bookmakers and not really have any, you know, trouble. And that kind of grew over the last 10 years and then it became worse and worse. So if you didn’t vet people properly, I just learned to blame myself. I didn’t do my homework, I didn’t do. You know, if you’re giving a credit line to a plumber for a fifty thousand dollar credit line, I mean it’s really on me. That’s a really bad decision. Right. So I try to really work on vetting through my agents and people so that I avoided those type of troubles.

You know the amazing thing, back in the 80s in Terminal island, the so called boss out here was a guy by the name of Pete Milano and he originally came out of Cleveland. He was out here and his crew were in jail for shaking down bookmakers. Really? I never heard of that before. Said Pete, shaking down bookmakers I said, they’re doing illegal things. How did you go to jail for shaking down. Oh, Michael. It’s a long story. And then nobody wants to talk about how it happened. You know, it was. It was crazy. That’s interesting. Yeah.

So they treated the bookmakers okay out here back then. Yeah. I mean, if you go back and look at the history of arrest, it’s been more recent than before. They’ve really come hard on California bookmakers in the last, I would say, five years. Yeah. Back then they’ll let you go. Yeah. Especially if you’re not hurting anyone or, you know, you’re paying taxes, which I was paying quite a bit in taxes. But they. I made the mistake of believing that I could write off my losses against my business because part of, like my marketing was when I would go to a lot of these casinos, I roll in with $2 million and I would gamble my balls off.

I put the whole 2 million on the line and they. Sometimes I make 2 million, sometimes I lose it all in literally a day. But the point is, when I would walk in with my entourage off the jet with the Rolls Royces and all the, you know, the people, they would. People would be like, how is this young guy coming in? We don’t know who he is. He’s not a movie star, he’s not a celebrity. And then I’m betting $300,000 a hand, baccarat every 35 seconds. So then I would go over the sports book and bet 500,000 on a football game.

And I wasn’t quiet about it. Even though I was a bookmaker, I kind of knew that everyone knew I was a book, especially in Vegas. Are they giving you credit or you’re just laying down? I have both. I had credit and yeah, the reason I stopped the credit is that got me in trouble. I went to win. I blew three and a half million and came home, couldn’t pay it, had to go borrow money, take money out of my house, which I’ve done many times as a degenerate, you know, And I’ve had moments where I went to Vegas and lost 3 million and then came home to my operation losing 2 million.

They had a winning week and now you’re looking at a five million dollar week. And it’s like, you know, I was liquid, but the up and down of my own gambling would put me illiquid at times. So I always had to make sure I paid my customers, of course, you know, no matter what. But I had a great network, people that knew I was honorable. I Always pay. So I could go to friends of mine and say, look, give me 2 million, I’ll give you back 2.2 within six weeks, whatever. And they knew there was no contracts, handshakes, whatever.

It was just here, here’s the money. Yeah, of course. And if, when you have that kind of code and honor, which you’re very, very familiar with, you can get a lot of money and you can get a lot of things done, you know, which is something I miss. I mean, I miss that respect and relationships that I still have. But you know, I don’t do fin. Financial stuff with them anymore. But yeah. So how did, how did it start to put you in trouble, so to speak? Was it through Vegas? I think so. I still don’t know.

I got raided by the federal government in 2014. I had 14 agents come to my home in Elisa Vo. They had just under a million dollars. They took all the money. I signed an abandonment form and in that form states that if I don’t hire an attorney, give up the money, there’ll be no charges. Really? Cool. Yeah. And I have it in my phone when I’ll show it to you. And that form, I was 39 years old, so it was 11 years ago. It told me, you know, if this is the worst case scenario for what I’m doing, you know, and not to make excuses, but I decided to grow my business even bigger.

And here, that’s. That’s incentive to grow it bigger. Heck yeah. It’s tax, right? I looked at it like, okay, they’re gonna come grab. Yeah, a million bucks. I’ll take it. Absolutely. So what did I do? I built my business bigger. So when did it, when did it start to go downhill? So they rated me October 5, 2023, and 29 federal agents and eight AR rifles at my chest when I’m holding my two year old boy. And they handcuffed my wife and my. I own a jiu jitsu studio. And so my professor happened to be at my home that day and they cuffed him.

He thought he’s being deported. And of course, you know, they secured the premise. You’ve been through all these raids. About 30 minutes later they released everybody and, and then did their thing for the next eight hours. This time I knew it was more serious. It was that they had a dog and they had 29 of them. And it was like crews, they had women for the, for my wife and I have some daughters, of course. So I could just feel the intensity. And clearly IRS was there. It was a lot bigger. So I knew that this was serious.

And they also were asking about Vegas. And I wouldn’t speak to anyone, of course, but they. They mentioned to my wife, who I ended up having as my independent rep casino host, something that no gambler’s ever done. I have her become my license rep so that I can negotiate my deals with the casinos and get her paid as a kickback. That is interesting. Yeah. So she’s making 30 grand a trip. We go to Las Vegas. I’d gamble, I’d win a million, lose a million, she’d make 30 grand regardless, and I could negotiate the deal. Right. Did she share that with you? Probably not.

No, I let her have that. But, you know, to her credit, during all of this, even to this day, she’s never been about the money. I truly, I’ve noticed. Clearly, we’ve been tested every which way. Is that the same girl you met at 15? No, no. So I. I actually met her at 15. I got divorced from her at 29, and we are great friends to this day. Her husband and I are partners on our. My Jiu Jitsu studio. He’s. Yeah. So we have a great relationship. We all hang out and have fun. Everybody thinks we’re weird just because we get along so well, but it’s great.

Our kids, you know, I had three daughters with her, and my. My current wife is a stepmom to him, and everybody gets along great. That being said, my wife now has been tested. We’ve been together 10 years, and she’s never been through a raid. And I’ve always explained as possible because I didn’t. I don’t lie about what I do. Even my kids know what I did. And at the end of the day, when. When this has all occurred, I had to have a little sit down with her right when the feds left about maybe three, four days later, I was kind of realizing the seriousness of this, and I said, look, if you want to leave, I totally get it.

I. I’m telling you, I love you so much. I. I’m. I’m asking you to really consider leaving me, because what we’re about to go through, financially, mentally, obviously, media, was at our home every day because of the Shohei Otani and. And all of that. It made this thing escalate times 10. So I knew that wherever we go, it’s gonna. It’s gonna follow me the rest of my life. And so she looked at me and said, what are you talking about? You know, like. And I was. Good woman. Yeah. I mean, loyal. Really, truly loyal. You know, because we.

They took everything. She had Birkins and I had two Rolls Royces and a Lamborghini. You know, all that shit’s gone, right? And we all know that everybody loves that stuff. And you just find out who’s real and who’s not. And friends wise, too. You’ve been through this. I mean, you got people that you think will be with you no matter what, and they’re gone. Yeah. I gotta say, you’re a better man than me. Because if my wife wanted to go, I’d have chased her. Brought her right back. And she’s with me 40 years and she went through hell and back with me.

Wow. That’s why you guys have such an amazing relationship in connection. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t worried she would leave, but I was worried that if she did, if she chose to, I would chase her because I would want to. But then I would be always thinking, you know, she really doesn’t want to be there. So I was really praying that the answer was what it was. But you’re probably right. I probably would have. I wouldn’t let her go. You would want to have. She’s too doubt. Yeah. I always tell her, don’t worry about it, you know? Why would you do that to the guy that you’re with? Because I’m going to kill him.

Bottom line. Every time. She knows I’m serious. Yeah, exactly. And I’m a Christian. Sorry about that, but I draw the line at somebody taking my wife. You’re still who you are, right? Exactly. In certain cases, yes. Yeah. Well, forgive me. Right. You’re loyal, you love your family, and you’re going to do whatever it takes for him, as I am. I totally get it. Absolutely. But that’s great. I’m happy to hear that. Yeah. So how did. Who led the feds to you, if anybody. How do you think it happened? You know, so there was a bookmaker rated in 2020 here in Newport beach, actually, really, really nice guy.

Very honorable. And my belief is, when they got him, as you know, the phone, I mean, even if you don’t rat or talk. I mean, the phone. My phone had too much in it already. Ippei Mizahara, which we’ll get to. I had to actually talk to them about him because he was in my phone. I would never go to them and just tell them these things, you know. You know how this works. So that. My point is, I believe that the Las Vegas problems that are occurring right now, and why I’m. I’m being investigated, started with this raid in 2020, but I don’t know yet.

Some of the stuff comes out as, you know, and cooperation agreements and this and that, which it’s all still playing out. But I can tell you that Las Vegas right now, if I walk into. I’m not allowed to. But if I walk in, if you say my name in any casino in Las Vegas, I am the most taboo. You know, because of the money laundering and this case. It’s caused all of their casinos, all of them, to change their whole structure of allowing drug dealers, bookmakers, anybody doing anything illegal. The KYC rules and all of that.

Because my bust is so public, every casino has had to tighten their ship. Are they black booking you? Oh, yeah. I’m barred everywhere. You’re in it already. Yeah. Yeah. And I was for counting cards in blackjack. Anyway, I started playing baccarat because I was actually winning and counting cards in blackjack, my favorite game. Oh, it’s the best. Yeah. But I could. I stopped playing it. Yeah. Because I had to. But anyway, in Las Vegas, you know, it’s sad because I was going there every two weeks and I had great relationships. And now I’m known as the guy that’s not taking them down.

That’s the wrong word. But, you know, let’s be honest, Changing the policies, that. That make them more profitable, I gotta tell you, Vegas is losing its luster. Yeah. Big time. Big time. Yes. And, you know, it was losing it for me, but now it’s losing it for everybody. It’s really bad now. I mean, I. I don’t have the experience of you. Because you were there when guys. Yeah. When it was real. And Frank Sinatra days and. And that’s the days that I was too young. But even I caught a tail end of that at 21. And it was.

I would walk into Vegas and it just felt ran properly, not corporate. And let’s be real, the mafia is going to run a casino better than anyone. You know, they treat people the way that should be treated. And now it’s so corporate. I mean, you know, you’re. You’re a button to them. You’re nobody. Yeah. Everybody that was around in that era says that we ran it better than anybody else is running. No doubt. No doubt. Yeah. And anyone actually from the ages of. I say 50 on up would all agree with that. I mean, even if you weren’t really a gambler, you could feel the nostalgia of Las Vegas.

You just enjoyed it better. You know, you liked walking into the casinos. It was. It’s a whole different Atmosphere. It was friendly, to be honest with you. That’s the word. And they know you know this better than anyone. But the Mafia knows how to take care of customers. Yeah. Better than anyone. Yeah. You know, and even, you know, even collection wise, I know everybody think, oh, we’d beat up people at noam, you know, we had collectors there, we’d pay us a little bit every week. We’re okay, keep coming back, you know, to a degree. But it was so much easier.

It was just, it was looser and it was profitable. That’s all you want there. People enjoyed themselves and the gamblers in particular. That’s the key. They were treated as they should be. Yes. You know, whereas now it’s not even close to that. No, I know. Yeah. Terrible. It’s sad because when you walk into any really casino in Las Vegas now, it doesn’t even have a tenth of the feel. You know, you walk into a restaurant, you know, you watch the movie Casino. Right. I know it’s a movie, but it really gives you a good example of what I envision what it was like.

And I know it’s a movie, but, you know, but it does capture that. Yeah, no doubt. I’ll be honest with you, I haven’t, I’m not a gambler to degree, but I haven’t gambled in Vegas in 25 years. Wow. Not even a slot. Nothing really. Yeah. Back then it was different. Sure. I can tell you one story. I have so many, but I was out there with a bunch of guys and by the time we checked into casino, they were broke. Right to the tables are broke. Right. So I went and I took a marker for I think 150 grand.

And I gave them all some money and I said, this is it. I said, if you lose, I don’t care if you lose your plane trip, you’re not going anywhere. No, no, let me go back. I took the 150 and I went and gambled it at Bakara and won about another 150 and I gave them the winnings. Okay. Paid off the marker. Paid off your markers. If you lose this, I don’t care if you walk home, you’re not getting a plane ticket, you’re not getting any. Yeah. And they all guarded that rest of that money. That’s how easy it was.

Hey, give me, give me this and that. Yeah, it was great. Yeah. It wasn’t. Let me run your credit report. None of that. Let me run this down. Like. Yeah. It was just. No, if you had a friend that recommended you, hey, you Know, this is a good guy. Give him. You got it. That was it. Yeah. And it worked out. Sure, it worked out. I mean, we weren’t stupid back then. Don’t get me wrong. It worked out right. But if you had to, you know, if it was a. You had a problem paying, we’d give you some time.

Yeah. It was just the whole big. Much better. Yeah. Well, I think the truth is, just like in the sports betting business, when you have respect, you know, when people know not to cross a line, they’re less likely to cross a line. But now it’s all corporate, so, you know, obviously, you know, if you lose money and you owe a marker, well, you know what’s going to happen? Well, they’re going to come after me through a credit report or and, you know, bankruptcy or. Now, actually, what they have in Nevada is if you right now, if you owe a marker and you can’t pay it, like a bounce check.

Yep. And you come after you, it becomes. Yeah. Criminally. Which is really the best way to get someone, sadly, because they’re gonna end up in jail. I would rather get my ass beat than go to jail, but I don’t want to die. I don’t want to get killed. But at the end of the day, like, that’s a pretty good collection agency. But at. I just feel terrible that though it’s handled that way because what. What’s going on is they were giving credit to people that they shouldn’t. Whereas the mafia was better at reading the situation and knowing, from my understanding, who to give credit to and who not to because the respect level was so high.

You know, you don’t walk in and put yourself in that position. Exactly. You know, we would tell the croupiers, they would be told, listen, we gave this guy X amount. Watch him. And then we’d go over to him, listen, we’re going to cut you off. You’re going to get yourself in trouble. Right. You want to come back here. You love this town. I want to be in this hotel. Relax. Sure. You know, we’ll give you time to pay this off, pay it off, and then come back. And everybody wanted to come back. Right. They don’t want to jeopardize their ability to come to the casino.

So they paid. Sure. You didn’t have trouble back then every once in a while, but for the most part, people. And also the fear of knowing that this is a situation, it’s a little more serious and that that actually helps. It helps people make less poor decisions. So, you know, this Right. If you have consequences for your actions, which nowadays there’s none. That’s why the social media could be so bad. And these people just go on there and say whatever they want to say. I got people saying things to me that if I saw them in person and they said, it’s my face, I mean, the reaction I would really have, I would.

I would end up in a lot of trouble. Right. But I have to just bite my tongue and say, wow, I cannot believe these people, these keyboard warriors are saying, I get a ton of hate, you know, on my Instagram. And it’s just baffles me that people could say that, dick skin. Oh, you do. Even me. I get comments from, you know, once in a while, and you don’t even look. You don’t understand what they were watching to make. The comment that they made comes out of nowhere. Especially, I have to say this. If you support Trump, forget about, yeah, you’re the worst person in the world.

You’re evil. Yeah, they’re nuts. Hard. Yeah, they’re nuts. You could be talking about anything and they bring up Trump has nothing to do with it. Nothing at all. Where did that come from? Yeah, resorts back to what they wanted to attack you on Our sensation. Nothing. The video had nothing to do with Trump whatsoever. They’ll bring them. Yeah. It’s amazing. Yeah. Trump’s in your pocket. You’re in Trump’s pocket. Okay. Who are. They’re great at creating stuff, though. You got to give them credit, these keyboard warriors. I don’t know, like, what’s in their mind or. They’re obviously miserable in their own lives.

That’s why they’re doing this. Exactly. Yeah. So let’s get to the. Obviously, the big conversation. Ohtani. Yeah. And I think I started telling you earlier, I had a camera crew and a media outlet come from Japan to talk to me about Ohtani. And I said, well, let me get this straight for you first. I’m not a Dodger fan, right. I don’t like the Dodgers, only because as a kid growing up, they were from Brooklyn. When they left Brooklyn, all I heard was, those effing Dodgers, of course. So I became a Yankee fan. I’ve been a die hard Yankee fan, especially after what happened.

I hate them more. But they started asking me about Ohtani and I said, look, I don’t know anything about this. I don’t know what he did, what he didn’t do. I have no idea. I said, I would hope that he didn’t get involved because he’s a tremendous ball Player. That’s all I have to say. So maybe he can enlighten us. Yeah, so I met Ippe. Well, let me backpedal. I’m was pretty close with some Angels baseball players, playing golf with them, hanging out with them, going to spring training, going to casinos, even with them. And so we would gamble on the golf course and built a good relationship with a few guys.

And then they would say, hey, you know, we’re playing the Padres tonight, come down. So I drove to San Diego, went to the game. After the game we went to the team hotel. I’m in a private poker game with first base coach, a third base coach, several players. Ippei was there and Ippei was, by the way, is the interpreter for Ohtani. Yes, Few others were just Ohtani. Well, just Ohtani at that time. They were like best, best friends. But yeah, Ippe Mizahara was the interpreter and he was there. Shohei Otani was not at the Booker game.

And so a friend of mine was there and I was in the poker game and he’s sitting next to me and e pay is on his phone and he was putting in some sports bets. And a friend of mine says, you know, Matt does that and it looks like you’re sort of asked a few questions. And obviously he was on like a post up account where he had to put on the credit card and all that hassle. And as you know, betting with a bookmaker is there’s no more convenient way to sports. So he says, you know, he can help you out.

So we started a relationship. It was a thousand dollars a game and 8,000 of our credit line and within three weeks he owed 300,000. I mean, was he betting on for. Was he betting on baseball? He never made one wager in almost 20 months on a baseball bet ever. So to his credit, he knew not to do that. Thank God, because that could have made all of us even more sticky. And as you said, I have a admiration for Shohei Otani beyond belief. I mean, I think he’s unlike any human being ever. So I never really wanted all of this to happen.

I mean, clearly he has a sadly a little taboo to his name the rest of his life. Even though he did nothing. Yes. So, and that’s sad, I feel a part of that. But he’s clearly getting past it by just putting up the most amazing numbers ever. That being said, Ippei owed 300,000. He kept asking for more credit. I felt pretty comfortable knowing he’s the, you know, interpreter, even though interpreters don’t make that kind of money. So he wires a 300,000. And I didn’t even know who the wire came from. Didn’t even look because I was moving these wires throughout.

Other people, for obvious reasons, I was debanked. And I, you know, clearly don’t have a Chase or a Bank of America account anymore. All that’s been done a long time ago. So the wire comes in and he asked for more credit. I open them up to 500,000. He blows that within a week. So he wires 500, 000. So a friend of mine calls me and says, are you sitting down? And I said, yeah, why, what’s up? He says, the wire transfer just came in from Shohei Otani. And in my mind I said, holy. Like, I am in a position where, of course, the greed side of me is like, there’s unlimited funds and this guy can’t win.

He’s terrible gambler. Just lost 800,000 in, I don’t know, five weeks or whatever it was. And I’m thinking to myself, that’s great. But the flip side is now I have the most famous baseball player really ever betting through and sending wires. At that point, you didn’t know. If we show you, I had no idea. Him or whatever. Yeah. And to be honest, after $800,000 just got wired from that name, I probably thought in my mind, sure, it’s probably Shohei. But frankly, there was no baseball bats. And, you know, I didn’t care. You know, I’m greedy and I’m running a business and I’m providing a service and I didn’t think anything of it.

Right. Just want people to know. 800,000 that he lost. What were your expenses on that 800,000? Minimal to $20. Maybe that’s why we become bookmakers. Exactly. I mean, the per head site was maybe 20 bucks. Right. And I did have an agent on the account that I gave a very good portion to. So there’s an expense there. But at the end of the day, you’re absolutely right. Expenses are absolutely nothing. I’ll tell you why I said that. When was it? What was the term that they use when legalized betting came into New York? Off track betting.

Okay. You know, the feds came to me and a couple of guys and they said, we’re going to put you out of business. Off track betting. I said, yeah, watch. They increased our business because what happens, they go there, they got to put down a credit card, they got to pay up front, they lose to otb and then they come and gamble with Us to try to make that up. Well, eventually, just to show you how smart the state is off track betting went bankrupt. Wow. And they increased our business, of course, because more people would gamble that weren’t ever gambling with a bookmaker, because now it’s legal.

And. And that’s what’s happening now. You’re correct. So, you know, as a. Let’s just say you’re a small gambler and you want to just put a thousand dollars in an account, you got to use your credit card. A lot of times it gets declined because it doesn’t see it. You know, they think it’s a fraud. And then you fund the account, and then sometimes it doesn’t load till the next day. And then if you win, the withdrawal process is a pain in the neck. And then you got a report of the irs. You beat me. So my guy’s at your door on Monday with cash.

There’s nothing to talk about, no explanation. In fact, my guy will drive. When I was doing this would drive to your work, your office, wherever you want to your grandma’s house, put under a rug. It doesn’t matter. You know this. It’s the most convenient for. We made it so easy for you. There’s no reason to bet. And I got to tell you this, people, if I start gambling again, it’ll be with a bookmaker. I don’t go through this stuff anyway. 100%. And so would all of you. Exactly. So moral of the story is, you know, I have Shohei Ohtani’s name, and I’m.

I’m sitting here thinking to myself, man, I just. I don’t know if this is good and bad. Right? So what do I do with this? And there’s nothing I could do. I’ve already. I’m balls deep at this point. I got two wires for 800, 000. Guy’s gambling with me. I look at the account, he’s already down another 200, 000. So he keeps asking for more credit. And I never asked him who it was. Didn’t want to know because you refused. Right. And people ask me all the time, how did you give $40 million credit to an interpreter? I said, well, because I didn’t care who it was.

It could have been the interpreter’s grandma for all that matters. The wires were coming, I was getting paid. We were both happy with the services that were provided. He never complained. If you go look at the text messages which the federal government released, all of them between him and I, everyone, because I had my phone and it Says on there, he makes fun of himself, as I have as a gambler. He says, I’m terrible at this. Can you give me another 500,000? And I laugh, you know, with him. And I say, I get it. I’m a junkie too, you know, because I was.

And so we would joke about it, and to be honest, he might lose 500,000. I probably lost 2 million that week. So it was just like aiding and abetting my problems. And long story short, he ended up blowing more and more and got to a point where I cut him off at 24 million. People ask me all the time, why was that the number? Because it would have been 100 million if I allowed it. So I just said, EPAY 24 is the number. Every time you send me a wire transfer, I’ll credit the account and then you can play with that money.

I would open it up, so he would send me 500,000 and I would let him play it and he’d lose it within two days. It was bananas. I started feeling bad for him. I mean, I never. At the end of the day, you want people to win sometimes, you know, you know this, right? They’ll just lose, lose, lose. They just, they go away. So he had some weeks where he won four and a half million, some big weeks. But because his balance was so high, he was always chasing his tail with me. So I was able to kind of relax.

And after I was he. What was he betting on? Soccer. It was soccer. Oh, it was crazy. 80 of the bets were soccer and Michael. The countries he was betting on, I couldn’t even tell you where they’re located. It was wild. And it was all throughout the night. You know when I say I couldn’t even find them on websites to find up the score really, I would wake up one, one night I woke up, he won 4.6 million in soccer in the middle of the night. And I was like, holy, this is. You know, if he catches a heater, he can win 10, 12 million.

Right. But then you, you know, end up losing it back the next day or two. But I was just baffled by the amount of bets he put in. I don’t know if you saw. It was 19,000 something. Yes, yes. You know, $326 million in wagers. I mean, that is absurd. You know, that’s a full time job. Yeah. To put that many bets in in 18 months. The crazy thing is, how did. Well, it shouldn’t be said, not, not notice that the money was missing in Ohtani’s account. I can Understand that. But how did he not realize that this guy was degenerate gay? Yeah, well, here’s.

Here’s the parts that. So let me ask you this first, too, before we answer that. So he paid the whole 24 million, though? No, he paid a total of 16.2. So he still owed you money? 24 million. Right now he owes you 24 million right now? Yeah. And the only reason why it was 16.2 is because he’s very honorable, clearly. He paid every dollar he could when the wires came in. So I figured it out. I think I figured it out. I believe that the account he had access to was the angel’s salary, which if you go back and look at what he was making, it was that in that realm, the big account he had was endorsements, where I believe that he had no access to, clearly, because he would say to me, hey, I can send you a wire, but I need another week.

And I think he would wait for the. The paycheck to come in, to be honest. The wire from the angels? Yeah. And then he would wire and pay it down and gamble. So I never busted his balls, really, until he kind of got a little dark at the end. And that’s when there’s a text message that says ironically, literally across the street is where he lived, these fashion item villas, he said. I said, one of my friends lives in there. And he was walking his dog. Shohei Otani was my friend texted me and says, hey, I see Shohei walking his dog.

He goes, do you want me to go up and talk to him? And the reason he said that is because he knew that the interpreter was not responding to me. And so I text Ippe at that moment and said, hey, I acted like it was me. I said, I’m here at Fashion Island Villas. Do you want me to go up and say something to Shohei? And then boom, he responded real quickly, of course, which is all I wanted. Just as, you know, communicate, work it out. But he was a little dark at that moment because, you know, I think the money was running, you know, thin.

And I think he was tired of, which we all get tired of losing. I mean, he’s lost so much. But the moral of the story is, is that this money was all angels money. I’m almost positive. And then the other money was, you know, endorsements. And if you go back and look at the time frames of the wires and when it was happening, it all made sense to me, but I didn’t ask, didn’t know. And, you know, here we are, poor Guys in Pennsylvania prison. And I feel terrible because. You got four years, right? He got.

Yeah, just over four. And it’s sad because had I known I would have cut it sooner. I would have never. As greedy as I am, I’m human, you know. You know this. Bookmakers don’t want to bury people. We want to make money. You’re running a business. I had no idea that he was stealing the money, but I was happy to take it. So I don’t want to act like I’m an angel. It’s not like I still would have took it, but I would have managed it better and helped him and provided a better service to where it was more entertainment.

So I feel like I failed here. Clearly by not asking more questions and being more involved because other customers, I would stop them from burying themselves and getting in a bad situation. I think the talent that I had as a bookmaker was having a relationship to where if I can keep me as number one on the payment structure. Because to me, a gambler, true gambler, is like this. They pay bookmaker rent, bills, family food, etc. And they’ll continue to feed that addiction as long as they could do all that. Right. The minute that they can’t pay and feed their family and etc, the bookmaker drops down to number dead last.

Unless there’s, you know, added pressure. Right. So I always tried to keep myself in the top three by allowing them to be entertaining and. And not a problem. And it’s hard because they’re lying to you. I’m guilty of the same things. I’ll tell whatever to. To get down on games or have action because you want action. So you have to feed through that. But once you get to know them and you know, kind of what they do for a living, it’s easier to do that. So I had some good relationships. Was she the one that. Did he lead them to you? No, no.

In fact, it was the opposite, really. He’s the one person that I did technically cooperate against and I’ll tell you why I wouldn’t. When they came and raided me and took my phones, etc, there was no word of Shohei Otani on my phone. Never spoke to him, so never said his name. So they had no idea. But ESPN came to my home in January. I was raided in October. The reporter Tisha Thompson literally came to my home in California and sat down and wanted to have a story. And I entertained hearing what she had to say because I was concerned because I did tell people, you know, not the whole world, but I did Tell people I had some, you know, athletes etc and I was worried that she had some information which I was right.

So when she came she said we’re running a story, we know that Shohei Otani was betting through your website. And I said oh holy, now I have a really big problem. So I immediately contacted my attorney. We went in and spoke to the federal government and told them first because I didn’t want them to be told by somebody else as opposed to me. And to be honest, I’d rather be, you know, up front with them as opposed to getting more trouble. And so I’m getting some sort of credit, let’s call it for that. But I would never be a rat or you know, go and, and so I didn’t tell them initially but yeah, that, that’s exactly what happened.

And then, and then they found out that he, where he was getting his money obviously. Yeah, they immediately did their homework and, and you know, wasn’t hard to figure out. No, it’s, you know how this works, they have access to everything. If they want you, you’re, you’re toast anyway. And nowadays there’s a camera slash everything everywhere. So any. That’s why the mafia is, you know, I’m not going to say non existent as you know, but it’s hurt bad because of that. No doubt. Let me ask you this without mentioning names, do you have a lot of athletes gambling? Yeah, I had quite a few.

I probably had 15 to 20. Yeah. I want to present this to you, I always said, and I had experience with this, that Michael Jackson had a terrible gambling problem. Sure, gamble’s on everything. He just can’t do anything without gambling. Right. But then I listened to the, the documentary that they did on him and they asked him, Michael, you have a gambling problem? He said no, I don’t. What do you mean you gamble on everything? He said, yeah, I have a competition problem. Oh, Michael Jordan. Yeah. You said Jackson? Yeah, Michael Jordan people. That was Michael Jordan.

Now Michael Jackson. Michael Jordan. He said, I have a competition problem. And I thought about it for a minute and I said, you know what, in his case it’s true. Yep. Because he never gets in trouble. He can cover all his business, changes lifestyle, he’s got unlimited funds. So for him it’s competition. Right. But for most other people it’s not, you know. Totally. I say that. Yeah. If you can cover your bets and it’s not changing your lifestyle, it’s not putting you in trouble or anything. Well then yeah, it’s a competition problem, especially with athletes. Right.

But I’ll tell you, I saw Michael once. I was doing the NBA, who had a rookie presentation program. The head of security, Horace Bomber, was playing table tennis with Michael, right? Horace is in a warm up suit. Michael is playing. Michael challenges him. Okay. Of course they play. They wait. They play for five bucks, okay? Michael wins. Wins everything. He goes up to Horace, he said, give me my five bucks. And Harris, Well, I got my warm up suit on. My money’s in my room. He said, go get it. Michael tells right now, I’m watching this.

Wow, this is, this is intense. Let me see what happens here. So he, ours comes down, opens the door. Michael’s there. He says, here you go, Michael. He says, michael, five bucks. Michael takes it. And they said, yeah, this is my trophy. I beat you. Puts it in his pocket and walks away. That’s the mentality. Yeah. So I get it. Sure. Raises the stake in the competition. Just makes it more competitive. I get it with athletes, why so many of them enjoy gambling? But, you know, you don’t have the luxury of Jackson all the time, of Michael Jordan all the time, you know, having the money to cover your bed.

So. And I, I think that’s true of anybody. 100. Like, for me, it’s true. Yeah, I was gambling. So I bet $4.6 million on the Kansas City Chiefs in the 2023 Super Bowl. Biggest bet I’ve ever made in my life. And I won. If I didn’t get rated eight months later, I would have had 7 or 8 million the next year. Because it was never enough. Like, I always wanted to continue to do bigger and better than I did before. And it wasn’t even about the material things because I already had all that. So why was I even doing it? I.

I mean, it’s clearly, it’s an addiction. Clearly. I was competition, no question. But I didn’t have Michael Jordan money. You’re right. He. He could lose every bet the rest of his life and he’ll be fine. He makes more money than 99.9. But for the ones who can’t afford it, it becomes a problem. Because you’re right now it’s affecting their life and they can’t feed their family or pay their rent or whatever the case is. And for me, I. I definitely didn’t have Michael Jordan money, but I was making a lot of money and I was gambling so much of it away.

Gambling more than you were making? Depends how you break it down. In 2023, I lost $13 million in one casino. So that year was one of My best years in my business, but it was the worst year I’ve ever had gambling. So prior to that, though, I was holding my own. I was kicked out of some casinos for betting blackjack and I actually had winning years beating him. Yeah. So. But degenerate wise, I still lost to bookmakers all across the country because I. When it was an everyday thing, I couldn’t beat it. As you know this you better be day.

You almost can’t win. Right. If you bet sporadically here and there, of course you can. You can catch a heater, just get lucky, whatever you want to call it. But every day, how are you going to beat the vig every day? You can’t. Yeah. You know, like I said in the beginning, I kind of resent it because the government puts people away for gambling, which, you know, really, at the end of the day, what are you doing? You’re not paying tax on it. Right. That’s the bottom line. Sure. But now they’re in it. They make them believe that they still care about your welfare.

With that BS disclaimer. They put, you know, don’t. Don’t gamble to the excess. And then they’re collecting tax. So they’re. And they’re bookmakers. Right. In essence. Correct. Why do you put people in jail for that? You know, it should be for me a slap on the wrist. Don’t do it again. Maybe a big fine end of that. As long as nobody’s getting hurt in the process. Yeah. If you’re beating people up and baseball batting different. Yeah, I understand that. 100. I feel that way until this day. Right. You know, so I feel bad that you even got a face sentencing.

I hope it works out. I really mean that. Well, thank you. I’m definitely, you know, you know, this going to prison for me is. It’s not. I’m not, I’m not scared or. I don’t fear, especially me. I’m going to a federal camp. I, I definitely would be fearful if I was going to a state prison where, you know, gangs are involved and, you know, whatever, but. So I don’t want to act like I’m not Mr. Tough Guy. That’s not the case. But being away from my family and my kids, it’s really tough because my job is to provide and protect as a father.

And so I feel for the first time in my life as a father, I’ve really let them down. Thank God. They. They understand. They’ve been very supportive, but it still kills me. I’ve been not sleeping well. Clearly. It’s Affecting my health. And I’ll. I’ll rise from above all of this. Of course, I’m already. I wrote my book. It’s being released on Amazon in a few days. Clearly, I’m doing speaking events and I’ll be doing a lot of positive things. My documentary starts filming in two weeks. I got a screenplay in front of me right now, an offer for one.

I feel like my next chapter is going to be bigger, but it’s just the uncertainty in the moment. These times, these waves I’m going through a little tough. Well, you’re no different than anybody else. Even guys on the street that have experience, none of us want to go away. Sure. You know, when I was away, I mean, obviously I visited my father for 25 years, so I knew all about prison life. But my whole. All I cared about was staying in touch with my wife. Sure. And my kids. That was it. Any way I can get to the phone, Any way I can get closer, she can get to a visit because that’s how.

That’s. I mean, look, they can lock in. I was in solitary for 29 months. It’s not fun, but you get through it. Right. You know, people say, how did you get through it? It’s. Well, they didn’t give me a choice. Right. Go, you know. Yeah. Solitary or go home. I said, you got to go. You. You got to get through it. But all I cared about, I had one cop there, co, and he used to put the phone in my cell every night at midnight. And he said it would just leave it in there because I couldn’t get to the phone during the day.

Sure, sure. So at midnight for this poor girl, for two, three hours, I keep her on the phone, you know. Yeah. I mean, that’s all I cared about. I used to tell them, you can lock me away, just let me have my phone and my visits. I don’t care. Yeah. Because when my father was in federal prison, you got one 3 minute phone call a month. One. Wow. And you got one eight hour visit a month. And he at first was in Leavenworth Penitentiary, so we would visit him every other month. Take the last day of the month, the first day of the month.

Okay. But as a result, my father lost touch with the family. Yeah, well, they made it possible, right? I mean. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, things go on. Every day he’s not there, you. You move on. Right. His relationship with my mother, you know, was moved far apart. The kids didn’t know him, my younger kids. It was tough. I can imagine. Fortunately, you don’t have to go through that. Sure. But, you know, you have the right attitude. It’s all about maintaining contact with your family. Yeah. Well, you obviously, you’ve gone through so much and you have the mindset that, that is similar to what I feel that I have, which is like when you have adversity in front of you, there’s.

There’s two ways to go. You either run through the fire or you run away from it. I’m the person that runs right through it. Obviously, you have to. And I believe that that’s in life. You have to be that type of mindset to get through these moments, otherwise you crumble. And that’s why people do drugs and alcohol or, you know, create more problems. Right. It’s easy to be depressed and start pill popping or whatever, and I choose to just deal with it. And just like you have. Well, listen, I think, you know, prosecution and judge, if there’s.

You seem to be very sincere and regretting some of the things that you did, that’s important, I think. Are they doing a pre sentence report on you now? 41 months is. What am I, 41? Yeah. Right. You know, unless the government’s really got an inferior and they press and, you know, extenuating circumstances, they try to, you know, heighten it at all, usually the judge will stay within that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And. And you’re going to push for the lower end of the guidelines. For sure. For sure. Yeah. My attorney is hoping for somewhere around 21 months.

That’s, that’s her goal. Clearly, we were hoping for house arrest initially because of the cooperation with the casinos, but at the end of the day, I’d rather go do two years, a year, whatever, and get it over with and get home and move on with my life and, you know, rectify my situation. I, I do agree with you that this crime is, you know, being, you know, targeted a little harder than I think it should. But I don’t want to, you know, I want to be accountable for my actions. I don’t want to make excuses. I am remorseful for the choices I made.

And the reason I say that is because like you, you’re a talented man. And there’s so many things that I could have done to avoid, you know, this area in life. You know, I could have been a CEO of some major corporation. So I chose to do things that were in the gray area and now I’m dealing with them. But at the end of the day, I’m teaching my children, as you have, that when you have adversity you got to deal with it and come out on top, which you have as well. And I give you a lot of credit.

Like you said, you can go one way or the other. And, you know, for me, what I realized early on is that life was in trouble. And, you know, it was really the racketeering act. That law was so severe and made so many guys become informants. I mean, the life changed dramatically. Yeah. And I saw the handwriting of Wall. And for me, you know, I had seven indictments. I had two federal racketeering cases, one state racketeering case, went to trial five times, beat every case at trial. But I knew it was only a matter of time.

Sure. How many times you’re going to beat these people? Right. So that’s when I decided to take a plea. Basically, my plea was. It was a RICO act, but it was tax fraud. Okay. And So I got 10 years, and they gave me a $15 million restitution. I had 5 million of forfeitures, Jet plane, helicopter. Gave them everything. Sure. And that was so I can have a life with her otherwise. But I knew I had to get out. You had to get out. You know, there comes a time when you realize, okay, I did it all.

I understand. I just can’t continue. That’s it. Stop. You know, I’ll be honored. When I was in the gas business and we were bringing down seven, $8 million, $9 million a week, somebody said to me, michael, why don’t you stop? Because I ran it for about seven years. And I said, you know, you get as much time for $1 billion as you do for a million dollars, so I may as well keep going. Exactly. What’s the difference? Right Attitude. Probably not. But, you know, you start to think that way. But now, forget it. I mean, I don’t care what you offer me.

So it’s easy to justify when you’re in the. In the field of, you know, when you’re doing it right, you always make exc. I had a. People ask me, why didn’t you walk away? Well, because it was. I’m greedy. And it was. It was good. Right. And you look at the good times. But you’re absolutely right. Like, now, I won’t go back down that road, but I will learn from it. And as you have, I’ll rise, and I’m looking forward to the next. Yeah. And you’re a talented guy. I could tell just from sitting here with an hour, you can.

You can excel at anything. I appreciate it. You will? Yeah. And you’ll have all These opportunities now for sure. People put things in front you of of you take advantage. What you have to say and teach is extremely valuable. Pro sports, college sports, high schools, they brought me everywhere. Right. Spoken to high schools, you name it, I’ve been there. And because of the fact that you’ve been through it, you got credibility. And that matters more than anything. Right. You know, they bring FBI agents to talk about nobody pays attention. Yeah, because they haven’t done it. No.

Yeah, you’ve been there and done that. They’ll listen, no doubt about it. And it’ll work out good for you. Well, like you have passion for it, you know, because it’s nice to make the wrongs right by giving back and helping people and hoping that they don’t make the poor choices I made, you know? Yeah. And you said the right thing. Even with the interpreter. There came a point where you felt bad for him. Sure. You don’t want to see anybody get crushed like that? Definitely not. Yeah. Yeah. So learn from your mistakes. That’s it. Well, so when’s the sentencing date has been put up? August 29th.

August. Oh, it’s coming up quick. Wow. Wow. Okay. Well, listen, please keep in touch with me. Let me know how it goes. I wish you all the best. I’m actually going to keep you in prayer, Cam. You hear that? Could be in prayer. Because I hope you get a break. Really. Well, thanks for having me today. I really appreciate it. It was a pleasure to meet. Thank you. Thank you. Well, people, there you have it. I think we can put it to bed. Shohei Ohtani was not in any way implicated in this gambling scheme with his interpreter.

Interpreter was stealing money from him. He took a plea, went to jail. That was it. Shohei Ohtani, great ballplayer, not a gambler. To this point, we have no evidence of that whatsoever. And Matt Bauer is just put that to bed. Listen, he’s a Dodger. I don’t want to see any ballplayer get in trouble. Don’t get me wrong. I’m only kidding. I’m a die hard Yankee fan. You know what happened to them in the World Series. Maybe we’ll get some revenge, but not, not by the way they’re playing so far, you know, but who knows? Anything can happen in baseball.

But you know, I got to tell you something, Matt, really good guy. I had a lot of discussions with him. I think he’s really turned his life around trying to do the right thing, cooperating in a way that he’s, you know, he threw in the towel with the Government, he’s paying off the money that he owed. A lot of stuff going on. People can transform their lives. And let me tell you something. He was a bookmaker. He didn’t put people in a hospital. He didn’t break legs like the government always says, you know, illegal bookmaking, so bad.

And yet what happened now? Now that the government is getting their cut out of bookmakers, they’re supporting it all right now it’s okay because they’re making money from it the same way. Probably Prohibition was no good. It was immoral until it became legal and they started taxing liquor sales. Then it’s okay. You know, the same thing with marijuana. Marijuana is evil. It’s a bad drug. It’s no good. Oh, but we’ll make it legal and we’ll tax you on it. We’ll be in that business. Then it’s okay. And when they’re taxing you, they’re partners, bottom line. Because if you don’t pay, what happens? You go to jail.

Do you know that in Vegas if you don’t pay your casino debt, you can end up in jail? Yeah. Gambling is so bad, so immoral that the government will support putting you in jail if you don’t pay your debt. They give you a chance, you know, obviously first to do it the civil way. But if you ignore it, you don’t pay it, you go to jail for it. All right? This is our government. It’s the height of hypocrisy. I hope, I hope, because he’s been so compliant with everything. I hope Matt doesn’t, you know, get an excessive sentence.

I really don’t. Because. Because you know what? It’s not, it’s not deserved just because you don’t pay your tax on something, you know, you don’t get excessive sentences for it. You know, this is nonsense for me. I had so many friends of mine that went to jail for a long time under the RICO statute for gambling. Come on. But now that the government is collecting tax and essentially became your partner, then it’s okay. You know, in New York, when the government went into off track betting the state of New York, then it was okay. But before, before they were locking bookmakers up, it’s the height of hypocrisy, bottom line.

We know that. So, Matt, you know, I really enjoyed this interview. Thank you so much for sitting with me. I really do hope, I really do hope you do not get an excessive sentence. You’re going to be okay either way because you’re a class act in my view. And you know, I wish you the best. I really do. People. That’s it for today. I’ll be back in my studio next time you see me coming home from Florida. Florida shortly. So how do I always leave you? Same way. Never going to change. Be safe, be healthy. God bless each and every one of you.

Yes. Your family, your community, your loved ones and God bless America. Yes. I’ll see you next time. Stay tuned. My friends and my friends, before I go, I want to remind you, Franz East Wine. I now have a wine branded in my name from the world’s oldest vineyards. We have alcoholic wine, of course, non alcoholic wine, huge seller now. And the taste is terrific, my friends. Really, you’re going to enjoy this family atmosphere wherever you want. It’s wonderful wine. You’re going to enjoy the taste. You’re going to love it, I guarantee it. So go to franziswine.com before we sell out because it’s moving fast.

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