How Long Will Bookie For Ohtani Aide Serve In Federal Prison?

As beads of sweat appeared on Matt Bowyer’s carefully groomed beard, one of the nation’s largest illegal bookies apologised profusely to Shohei Ohtani on Friday outside a southern California courthouse.

Minutes earlier, Bowyer learned he will spend roughly a year in prison in connection with his vast illicit sports betting enterprise. That time falls shy of the 15 months recommended for the ex-bookie by federal prosecutors earlier this month and reflects Bowyer’s cooperation with federal authorities leading to charges against others in the case. U.S. Federal Judge John W Holcomb also ordered Bowyer to pay $1.6 million in restitution.

Bowyer expressed dismay for at least temporarily tarnishing the reputation of the world’s most famous baseball player. Bowyer, the bookmaker for Ohtani’s former interpreter Ippei Mizuhara, remained calm when a federal judge imposed the sentence on Friday morning.

Last summer, Bowyer pleaded guilty to three charges related to his multi-year gaming operations. The sweeping case has ensnared several prominent casinos on the Las Vegas Strip and has led to minor reforms on how the properties deal with sophisticated bookmakers.

A co-founder of an Orange County jiu-jitsu studio, the toned Bowyer learned his fate on Friday in Courtroom 9D of the Ronald Reagan Federal Building. The courthouse is the same building where Holcomb imposed a 57-month sentence against Mizuhara for embezzling nearly $17 million from Ohtani. As expected, Holcomb gave Bowyer a considerably lighter sentence than Mizuhara. Nearly two years after 29 FBI agents raided his villa, Bowyer has sought therapy for his gambling addiction and has served as a voice for compulsive gamblers on social media.

“I stand before you a completely changed man,” Bowyer told Holcomb.

Bowyer’s clientele of prominent bettors beyond Ohtani aide

Besides Mizuhara, Bowyer appeared to have serviced doctors, lawyers, professional athletes, a legendary baseball manager, the wife of an ex-pro sports owner and the boyfriend of a Hollywood A-list celebrity.

Some of the bettors often ran up a weekly six-figure tab, underscoring their massive appetite for betting on sports. Bowyer’s enterprise, which spanned both coasts nationwide, moved about $7 million to $9 million on a given week, according to sources.

None were as big as Mizuhara, who placed approximately 19,000 wagers with Bowyer’s operation over a period of several years. All told, Mizuhara bet about $325 million, with wagers ranging between $10 and $160,000. While Mizuhara accumulated net debts of $40.6 million, he repaid nearly 40% of his tab by embezzling millions from Ohtani.

Last August, Bowyer pleaded guilty to several charges, including transactional money laundering and running an illegal gambling operation. The operation contained a call centre and a Costa Rica-based website where Bowyer funnelled his customers offshore. At his peak, Bowyer handled illegal sports wagers from a Rolodex of 1,200 clients.

Before a scrum of print and broadcast journalists, Bowyer asserted on Friday that he does not believe Ohtani bet on baseball, which would violate MLB rules. Bowyer took it one step farther, reiterating that he is confident that Ohtani did not wager on any sports with his enterprise.

When asked if he has a message to Mizuhara, Bowyer noted that he would give him a hug as a sign of empathy. Bowyer indicated that he feels badly that Mizuhara fell into the throes of addiction.

Why was Matt Bowyer’s sentence lighter than Mizuhara?

Following Bowyer’s plea hearing last August, his attorney Diane Bass told reporters that he faced a potential sentence of 30-37 months. Had Bowyer gone to trial, the potential convictions may have landed him in jail for as many as 18 years.

Bowyer pleaded guilty to laundering millions of dollars at a Las Vegas casino, identified in court filings as “Casino A”. Based on the fact pattern of the case, the casino is widely presumed to be Resorts World Las Vegas.

At times, ill-gotten from funds from Ohtani’s account siphoned by Mizuhara were wired directly into a casino cage, according to court filings.

As the case has garnered worldwide attention, Bowyer claims he has been blacklisted by every major casino around the globe. Bowyer, according to sources, received multimillion-dollar credit lines at numerous casinos, including Hard Rock Punta Cana, which is conducting an internal investigation on its anti-money laundering (AML) protocols.

When contacted by iGB last month, Bowyer responded, “I was running a big operation, I knew the risks. I have to be a man and deal with it.”

At Friday’s hearing, Bowyer appeared contrite in a short address to Holcomb. Bowyer addressed the court for roughly five minutes, his voice mostly remaining firm as he stood before the judge.

Wide sentencing latitude in illegal gambling cases

In federal court, sentencing guidelines have varied widely for illegal bookmaking charges. Moreover, federal judges have demonstrated a history of departing considerably from the standards.

Since 2010, more than a dozen US bookmakers have been sentenced for running major offshore operations through servers located in Costa Rica. For the most part, the sentences have ranged from home confinement to several years of imprisonment.

Along with the money laundering charges, Bowyer also had unreported income of $4.03 million in tax year 2022, including $3.8 million from wire transfers into one of his bank accounts, according to the US Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California. Given the severity of the offences, a probation officer recommended a sentence of 41-51 months in federal prison. In assessing the sentence, Holcomb placed considerable weight on the tax charges.

Ahead of the hearing, however, prosecutors asked the court to impose a sentence of 15 months due in part to Bowyer’s “substantial assistance” to the government. Bowyer’s cooperation included assistance on Mizuhara and Damien Leforbes, another bookmaker in the case, prosecutors wrote.

Prosecutors also gave Bowyer credit for taking responsibility for his actions. While Holcomb handed down a sentence of 12 months and one day, he described an eight-level downward departure from federal sentencing guidelines as a “remarkable” motion from the government.

After his release from prison, Bowyer pledged to serve as a role model for responsible gambling, informing young people on the pitfalls of compulsive gambling. Bass pushed for a sentence of home confinement, followed by a period of probation.

At a press conference outside the courthouse, Bass expressed disappointment that Holcomb disagreed with her argument given the preponderance of “mitigating factors”.

Where Ohtani interpreter bookie made his big bets

During a 14-month span ending October 2023, Bowyer gambled at Resorts World Las Vegas at least 80 times, a period when he lost about $6.6 million at the casino, according to the federal complaint. Bowyer, according to prosecutors, lost at least $7.9 million in total at the property.

Scott Sibella, a former president at MGM Grand, later served in the same capacity at Resorts World. The executive avoided prison time last May when he was sentenced on federal AML charges. Sibella received one year of probation for failure to file a Suspicious Activity Report.

Resorts World Las Vegas is one of three Las Vegas casinos that have reached settlements with the Nevada Gaming Commission over the last six months.

Busy period for Nevada regulators

At a March hearing, the Nevada Gaming Commission approved a $10.5 million fine against Resorts World for a spate of AML deficiencies. The casino agreed to the second-largest fine in state history without accepting any wrongdoing.

Weeks later, the NGC finalised an $8.5 million agreement with MGM Resorts, another casino where Bowyer gambled. While most of the regulatory charges against MGM involved Wayne Nix, another illegal bookmaker, one of the 10 pertained to Bowyer. Agents for Bowyer placed sports wagers with the California operation maintained by Nix, sources told iGB.

MGM had suspicions of Bowyer’s illegal bookmaking activities as early as 2015, then banned him three years later, according to the complaint.

Kristen Williams, an assistant US attorney, told Holcomb that Bowyer created harm to the Internal Revenue Service, a societal harm and a harm to clients. In the case of Mizuhara, Bowyer increased the limits on his lines of credit on numerous occasions, providing an incentive for him to make larger wagers. He also laundered money through multiple accounts and failed to report a considerable tax payment to the government, she noted.

Williams was not available for comment after Friday’s hearing.

How Ohtani case led to watershed reform

The illegal sports betting case could be a watershed moment for reforming AML compliance across the US casino industry. Brian Krolicki, a commissioner with the Nevada Gaming Commission, described the cases as a “clarion call” to casinos on The Strip to clean up a culture of non-compliance.

The Las Vegas cases have also been watched closely by Joseph Martin, CEO at Kinectify, a risk management company that helps casinos simplify their AML compliance operations. US fines are relatively low compared to other jurisdictions, Martin told iGB this week, adding that gaming operator licences are almost never on the line.

Outside the US, in Australia and the UK, the fines are truly crippling, he notes, which is rarely the case in North America.

In some cases, licensees are suspended because the casino is assessed as “unsuitable” to operate until financial crime compliance issues are resolved, which could take years, he added. By comparison, Nevada regulators reached settlements with the casinos less than a year after Bowyer pleaded guilty.

“This level of enforcement sparks true rethinking of compliance,” Martin told iGB.

When will Matt Bowyer go to prison?

Holcomb ordered Bowyer to surrender to federal authorities by 10 October, within a period of 45 days from Friday’s sentencing. Bass made a request for her client to be incarcerated at FCI Lompoc, a Southern California facility.

Holcomb lauded Bowyer for his work in community service and the level of support he received from friends and family. The husband of Bowyer’s former wife teared up inside the courtroom when the court heard an anecdote of how Bowyer paid for a series of her IVF treatments. Bowyer’s wife, Nicole, his mother and several of his children also attended the hearing.

As part of his sentence, Bowyer is prohibited from wagering on online gaming platforms and must continue gambling addiction treatment. Asked outside of the courthouse on his plans after his release, Bowyer told reporters he wants to become a motivational speaker. The bookmaker is determined to help those who are suffering from all forms of addiction, not just gambling.

“I want to do something where everyone wins,” Bowyer said. “I’m tired of taking a side where someone will lose. I want to win and want someone on the side of the table to win.”