Ohtani and the interpreter

[metirish]

Interpretor charged with stealing $16 million from Ohtani over several years

[metirish]

Absolutely wild

[bmfc1]

How was he such a huge gambler and a thief but he restrained himself from betting on baseball?

[Edgy MD]

Maybe his bookmaker wasn't willing to take bets from him on action where he might have an inside track.

Or maybe it's a lot harder to cover your tracks when you're tracking through your own house.

[MFS62]

I'd like to be in a position where I wouldn't notice if someone stole $16 million from me.
Later

[metirish]

Yeah, seriously, hard to believe he's that naive

[Frayed Knot]

NBA player Jontay Porter banned for life over a gambling scandal.

[Frayed Knot]

Speaking of sports gambling in general ...

Now that the leagues went from a no-dating policy with gambling to going to bed with it on the first date (and second and third and ...)
it's not surprising that the ads for it -- all over the place during any game -- are not only common but are playing to the lowest common denominator.
Their biggest come-on is to invite players to "maximize their profit incentive" which basically means to get in on one of their 'parlay' bets where, in order
to to win the bet, you need multiple conditions to all go your way. So where a win under those conditions would 'maximize your profit' the odds of that
actually happening go way down, but of course they don't say that. Many parlay bets are essentially sucker bets which suck in the amateurs and are,
from what I've read, more common with these new legal platforms than they ever were via those supposedly sleazy old school illegal bookies.

[Edgy MD]

I guess that suggests the proportion of suckers in the betting pool is up.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Money always talks the loudest. That's also why practically half of the teams now make the playoffs.

[Frayed Knot]

I guess that suggests the proportion of suckers in the betting pool is up.

Almost certainly, yes.
More unseasoned newcomers drawn in by the newly legal status in their area and the newly formed association
with their sport which used to shun it. And, 'Hey look, here's a chance to "maximize my profit". The gambling
version of "Supersize it!"

[MFS62]

Maybe also a TWiB moment - Ohtani's homer against the Mets broke Hidecki Matsui's record for most career home runs by a Japanese born hitter.
Later

[Frayed Knot]

The other come-on I've noticed from these in-game gambling ads is some version of: 'make one $5 bet and get 150 (or 200)
dollars worth of 'free' bets'.
I have no idea what they mean by this and, being a non-gambler, I don't really care to know. But would I REALLY get
a couple hundred dollars worth of bets using the house's money just for making one tiny bet upon signing up or are there
a bunch of read-the-fine-print strings attached?

I'm betting on the latter.

[Edgy MD]

I dunno, but it's not like gambling interests haven't made many a fortune by using freebies to get newbies into the house.

[Frayed Knot]

Yup.
And I also doubt it's a free as they make it sound.