Speaker 1that's it right down the middle i'm on a gorgeous golf course
Speaker 2in dana point california we can see the pacific ocean on the horizon and it's a perfect 75 degree day
Speaker 1that's actually not bad though you hit it far that was way better than i anticipated
Speaker 2i'm here with matt boyer the bookie at the center of the shohei and ipe gambling scandal
Speaker 1that would hit like a seven iron and just get it in the fairway you actually have a good lie up there oh that's a good shot yeah buddy look at that
Speaker 2matt's brought along his friend owen hansen yeah in the hole baby owen is a former usc football player and was a prolific bookie himself before he spent nine years in prison matt and owen tell me that they're going to be in the fairway and they're going to be in the fairway and me golf courses like this are where they would target potential clients so i asked them to pretend i'm someone they want to recruit all right so tisha we're pretending
Speaker 1okay owen and i are going to bet this hole if you want to join in on the action
Speaker 3well how much would it cost me
Speaker 1well we're going to bet ten thousand
Speaker 3closest to the pin so i say oh ten thousand okay well if that's people bulk attend of
Speaker 1course almost everybody they usually go let's do five or i don't bet that kind of money okay well what do you bet i'll bet 300 bucks okay well let's bet 300 we want any
Speaker 2action we can take what if they say a beer
Speaker 4it's not worth our time yeah
Speaker 2so i say five thousand what are you saying internally if i agree to i mean we got them pretty much
Speaker 1no even if we lose to you in golf you're gonna start betting sports we got it right where we want them you know and really it's about the relationship the golfing is we're not great
Speaker 2golfers matt has done a lot of work building relationships here it seems like he knows pretty much everything about golf and pretty much everyone working at this course tisha
Speaker 1wants to know did you ever play on my website
Speaker 2yeah
Speaker 3did you really yeah employees
Speaker 2here didn't just bet with matt sportsbook he says some of them worked for him as agents who recruited clients for his website i
Speaker 1had an agent that worked here who was club cleaner they're personable they know the people coming in they're excited from golf and he would just set them up on my website i would take the bets and give him a cut this
Speaker 2is an expensive golf course the greens fees here are not cheap but matt says they let him play for free i can't
Speaker 1wait to see this shot
Speaker 2if we had actually been betting on this hole i'd be in trouble that was nice and
Speaker 4high you're not on the green though matt's up next oh that's on
Speaker 2you're on yeah he's on i'm a money player he comes within inches of hitting a hole in one so you now have just won 40 000 off of owen correct i don't even know how much i owe you
Speaker 310 okay so i owe you 10 how do you now roll that into the sales pitch for your website for me i
Speaker 1would just say tisha it was great playing with you obviously i played well i got the best of you today um if you want an opportunity to try to win some of your money back i own a sports betting
Speaker 5operation happy to give you an account love to do business with you
Speaker 2matt says this pitch worked in a lot of settings a bar a party or a poker game like the one where he met ipe mizahara when did this poker game take place
Speaker 6i believe it was 21 late in 21 so much of the
Speaker 2story has focused on shohei and ipe's relationship what their dynamic was and what really happened between them but matt boyer is central to this story too because he didn't just take the bets he carefully monitored ipe's account and tracked the betting all while pocketing millions of dollars of shohei otani's money for
Speaker 1people that can't see that that's perfect
Speaker 2i'm espn investigative reporter tisha thompson and this is the betrayal of shohei otani here's the pitch to otani
Speaker 7federal investigation questions about wire transfers four and a half million dollars to a southern california bookmaker and he has no
Speaker 2idea episode four the bookie this episode is presented by gusto when you
Speaker 8run a small business you don't just do the job you're also the hiring manager the payroll department and the benefits team usually all before lunch gusto is online payroll and benefits software built for small businesses it's all in one remote friendly and incredibly easy to use so you can pay hire onboard and support your team from anywhere try gusto today at gusto.com slash 30 for 30 and get three months free when you run your first payroll that's three months of free payroll at gusto.com slash 30 for 30 one more time gusto.com slash 30 for 30 strong
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Speaker 2you ever laid down whatever they would
Speaker 7take
Speaker 6three hundred thousand a hand i was betting in buckrat every 30 seconds crap civil i won three hundred thousand a hand i was betting in buckrat every 30 seconds three point two million and and thirty eight minutes um that's the biggest rush i've ever had probably ever matt
Speaker 2is 51 years old we meet at his spanish style house in a gated community in san juan capistrano california when i first arrive i spot a number of luxury vehicles in his driveway including a high-end range rover which easily costs more than a hundred thousand dollars he has tribal tattoos on both arms perfect teeth and wears tight fitting high-end clothes matt says gambling is in his blood
Speaker 6my family they were all gamblers and my grandparents took me to racetrack i was a two-year-old we would play yahtzee for money in their backyard i mean dollar two dollars whatever
Speaker 2both of his parents were bail bondsmen and the seeds of his illegal betting operation go back to high school when he started taking action as he calls it small bets from other students people in
Speaker 6high school started knowing that i love to gamble because i was very uh obvious that i gamble almost anything people would come to me i want to bet in the lions this weekend do you want to bet 20 bucks sure
Speaker 2after graduating he worked as a commodities trader but soon realized being a full-time bookie would make him a whole lot more money
Speaker 6i provided a service that was very functional for people and i enjoyed it more i'm proud of the fact that i was able to run a big
Speaker 2operation matt says much of his success came from using his connections to get into exclusive rooms like the poker game where he met epay in 2021 we went to the game
Speaker 6that night played the padres we had really good seats and of course i bet on the game we sat with a couple other guys that i knew that were friends of a baseball player and they invited us to go to you know private poker game that baseball
Speaker 2player was david fletcher the angels infielder who was known to be an avid poker player and buddy of a baseball player he was known to be an avid poker player and buddy of a baseball player and i went to the poker game and he invited me to go to the poker game and he invited me to go to the poker game and he invited me to go to the poker game and he invited me to go to the poker game with shohei fletcher told me he invited one of matt's friends to the poker game and matt tagged along the poker game was at a hotel where the angels were staying in san diego just a few miles from the stadium and fletcher knew matt he said he had played golf with him at a charity event once and had heard he was a bookie these
Speaker 6guys had a private room and they were already dicking around playing poker when
Speaker 2i got there how many
Speaker 6people probably 13 people in the room you know some were just hanging out having pizza and just having a beer or whatever i think i actually paid for the pizzas to be honest with
Speaker 2you will you tell us the names of the baseball players that were in that poker room when you entered it no how many players
Speaker 6i can tell you that there was i believe three actual players how many coaches i think two
Speaker 2matt says they played texas hold'em and the state leagues were in his words low i think i
Speaker 6had like maybe two or three thousand dollars in my pocket buy-in wise how quickly
Speaker 2did you spot epay uh i'll be
Speaker 6honest i didn't really even pay attention to it i'm sitting here a friend of mine was right next to me and then he ended up coming over by us and my friend is the one who recognized that he was looking at a betting website and approached him to get him to come over to my website my friend was doing what he knows what to do which is to recruit business and uh so i was just letting him do what he does i was playing poker and just
Speaker 2having fun matt says his agent left the game with at least one new client that night epay mizahara the agent would be the one handling epay's bets and money and would get a cut in return
Speaker 6my operation had like 40 to 50 plus agents and those agents job is to facilitate their clients underneath that umbrella and for them to be able
Speaker 2for that reason the agent set epay up with an account on matt's website matt's sportsbook was based entirely online on a site hosted in Costa Rica. There's a whole cottage industry there of companies that will set up websites and calculate odds for American bookies. Ipe told me he did not realize Matt's sports book was illegal, and the fact that they gave him a line of credit with no money down didn't raise any red flags. When did your ears perk up that this might be something that could become lucrative for you?
Speaker 6I didn't even care. It was a no offense, but he's not a baseball player, So I didn't know until later what I was really dealing with.
Speaker 2At first, everything was pretty ordinary. But less than a month later, Ipe wanted more. And he was producing so much action, Matt did something unusual. He started managing the account himself. So how quickly did you take over Ipe's account?
Speaker 6I think it was like within 30 days. Because once the numbers started getting higher and there was a request for higher figures, that's when I got involved. He bumped his account, bumped it again, I bumped it all the way to 40, and then he lost. And then I required payment.
Speaker 2When Ipe's debts grew to $40,000, Matt told him it was time to pay. And the money arrived without too much trouble.
Speaker 6So now I have history. Now I have a proof of funds.
Speaker 2But Matt was noticing that Ipe's betting habits were some of the strangest he'd ever seen.
Speaker 6I mean, he was absolutely bananas. The amount of bets. He was making, right? Listen, I gamble bigger than most, right? And I sleep. You know, I have a life, too. He definitely was betting all night long, all the time. I've never seen anything like it. I've seen some wild stuff, but never like this.
Speaker 2So walk me through
Speaker 6what the bets were on. What he was betting was, to me, is the hardest thing to win at. Soccer. Mostly soccer. $100,000 draw. Ukraine. Versus Turkey. $100,000 on Saudi Arabia. And I'm using bigger countries. Imagine, I don't even, I can't even, Kazakhstan. You know, like that. $100,000 on that. Or $40,000 on a draw on this game.
Speaker 2So when you're starting to see this betting behavior, how often are you monitoring his account?
Speaker 6Every day. All day.
Speaker 2Matt says being a good bookie is about managing relationships and understanding his clients. He says he saw through Ipe almost right away. Was Ipe in your mind exhibiting gambling addiction behavior? Absolutely. When did that become apparent to you?
Speaker 6Very fast. Within 30 days, for sure.
Speaker 2What are your feelings about profiting off of someone's obvious addiction? It sucks. Matt would know. He himself admits to being a compulsive gambler, and he identified that same behavior in Ipe.
Speaker 6He was trying to dig out a hole, and that hole made him even more poor of a gambler because he's betting big payout stuff, right? Knowing that he's probably going to lose, and that just digs a deeper hole.
Speaker 2As a bookie, when you realize someone has a gambling addiction, what do you do?
Speaker 6You try to control it so that you can make money off that person. But control it so they don't ruin themselves.
Speaker 2Really? Really. If I sound unconvinced, that's because Matt is in the business of making as much money as possible. But bookies can't make money if their clients don't have money. So Matt says it's all about finding the sweet spot.
Speaker 6This is something every bookmaker that has a really good business will tell you. There's a very fine line, and I think I did it better than anyone, truly.
Speaker 2And if a client did try to disappear or stop paying, Matt says he knew how to pressure them. He and Owen told me about it when we went golfing.
Speaker 6There's so many ways that you can go about making somebody feel uncomfortable.
Speaker 2I had quite a number of people very concerned about me approaching you, that your reputations precede you.
Speaker 6Well, we were known as very dangerous individuals, to be honest.
Speaker 4People called us modern-day gangsters. That's true. Do you walk around with a gun in your pocket? No, definitely not. It's just our persona.
Speaker 6It's aura, persona. I'll speak about when we're younger.
Speaker 5Yeah, before. We would go to your house and knock on your door at 11 at night and say, where's the money? That's aggressive. Whether you're coming there in a violent manner or not, they don't know that. And when you have a guy standing
Speaker 6behind you that's 6'5 with tattoos across his face and teardrops, who doesn't say a word,
Speaker 5it makes you kind of a little concerned at 11 at night when the wife is answering the door because her husband has a gambling debt and isn't responding to phone calls. It's a tactic that can be very effective.
Speaker 3How much of it is intimidation versus actually falling through on the threat?
Speaker 6I would speak for both of us. 90%
Speaker 4of it's intimidation. You don't want to result in violence ever. You want to just get them so scared, whether it's sending flowers to the wife or, you know, anything to make them.
Speaker 1Or pictures of them taking the trash out, their wife taking the trash out on a Sunday morning.
Speaker 2But Ipe was a good customer. Matt wasn't sure where the money was coming from, and he had no idea how much an MLB interpreter made. But that wasn't his problem. He says he didn't care because Ipe was paying up. But once Ipe's debts got into the millions, Matt needed Ipe to step up and make bigger payments. Ipe told Matt his Bank of America account would only allow him to send $500,000 at a time, and that was only if they used the money. And that posed a problem.
Speaker 6Bank of America no longer accepts my business.
Speaker 2So Matt asked one of his best friends with a Bank of America account to accept the money.
Speaker 6I had to use Ryan to help me with that.
Speaker 2Ryan Boyajian. Ryan is the fiancé of Real Housewives of Orange County's Jennifer Pedrante, and he sometimes appears on the show himself. Matt says Ryan agreed to help him by accepting payment for Ipe's gambling, debts into his Bank of America account. And it was Ryan who first noticed that there was something unexpected about Ipe's wire transfers. And he called Matt.
Speaker 6I was actually sitting in my office and I got a phone call and he said, are you sitting down? And I said, yeah. He said, well, I just received $500,000 wire. I said, OK, yes, thank you. That's great. And he said, it's Shohei Ohtani is the name on the account. And I just went, what the fuck? That was the holy shit moment.
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Speaker 6I believe 50% of athletes bet on sports. I mean, that's truly my opinion.
Speaker 2When Matt Boyer's operation received that wire transfer from Shohei Otani's bank account, he assumed Shohei was involved in the betting, which he found surprising, but not out of the ordinary. Shohei was a megastar, but it wasn't the first time a famous name had appeared. In Matt's book, he says he had many professional athletes on his roster of clients. I know you're not going to give me the names of any athletes. Did you have professional athletes who played for the NBA? Yeah. Did you have professional athletes who were your client who played for the NFL?
Speaker 6Yes. NHL? Yes. NCAA? I'm sure.
Speaker 2MLB? Yes. All those leagues we just named, were they active when they were betting with you?
Speaker 6Both. But I would say betting on your own sport is going to be a problem, and that's definitely not going to happen, right? Something like that.
Speaker 2You would explicitly say, do not bet on your own sport.
Speaker 6I would, because, I mean, to be honest with you, it was almost obvious they weren't going to, but I just made it very clear.
Speaker 2Did you have clients that worked in sports? Did you have clients that worked in sports broadcasting or were sports writers?
Speaker 6Yes. And I'll answer the question yes with you not allowing to ask any more questions in that area.
Speaker 2Did you have clients that worked for ESPN?
Speaker 6I don't want to answer that question. They're all human beings. They're all guys having fun, and they all love sports, and they're all just doing what guys do, which is bet on sports.
Speaker 2Matt says the $500,000 wire transfers made him suspect Ipe might not be the one betting after all. He thought maybe Ipe was acting as a beard for Shohei. In betting lingo, a beard is someone who places bets on behalf of someone else.
Speaker 6I thought Ipe was putting in bets either with or for Shohei Itani.
Speaker 2Matt says he had plenty of athletes who used beards.
Speaker 6They just don't want to deal with an illegal bookmaker and have something. Possibly come down the pike on their end, you know, if I got in trouble.
Speaker 2When you saw Shohei Itani's name, what do you think is going on?
Speaker 6I think he's betting.
Speaker 2Absolutely. But Matt noticed something strange. Something that added real doubt about whether Shohei was involved. He says he noticed bets rolling in while Shohei was playing baseball.
Speaker 6I've been at Angel Games when he was on the mound. They were throwing pitches and bets were being placed. So how could that happen?
Speaker 9It's still amazing what he does on the mound. And he got 'em.
Speaker 6I mean, he is the most talented baseball player I've ever seen. But if he could get on a website on the mound and throw a ball 100 miles an hour, then he is Godzilla for sure.
Speaker 4Oh, he got him. How about it? And another strikeout for Showtime.
Speaker 6That doesn't mean that he wasn't partners on the account. Doesn't mean that he wasn't aware. I mean, everyone knows they were like best, best friends. I mean, best friends. They were together more than a husband and wife ever are. I mean, that's a fact. And I was close with a lot of Angels players that would verify that these guys were inseparable. I mean, literally. So in my mind, that's something best buddies would do. You gamble together, you hang out together.
Speaker 2Matt says at this point, he's guessing Shohei has to at least be aware of Ipe's betting, if not outright involved with it.
Speaker 6I'm giving this guy so much credit. I'm watching the balance just decline. But I don't know if it's Shohei Otani. I don't know if it's Ipe.
Speaker 2In my interview with Ipe, he told me he sent Matt's operation a total of $4.5 million. But Matt says that wasn't true. It was actually a lot more money. He says his operation received $16 million from Shohei's bank account.
Speaker 6I mean, let's be honest. $16 million to Shohei Otani is not a lot of money. It's a lot of money to any human being, right? But to him, of all people in the world, it's a lot of money, but it's not, right?
Speaker 2Matt assumed he'd hooked the biggest player in baseball. How many people do you think you told Shohei Otani was your client?
Speaker 6Probably 30 to 40 people.
Speaker 2For Matt, it was a form of advertising, telling people you're Shohei Otani. Well, you're Shohei Otani's bookie. But having an athlete that famous connected in any way to his book was also risky.
Speaker 6Holy shit. You know, this is good and bad, right? I mean, my first instinct is, "Great, I just got paid." My next instinct is, "This could be a problem for me." Why? Well, as a professional athlete, the biggest, in my opinion, the best baseball player to ever set foot on the planet. And, yeah, on the great side of me, it's like, "This is great. This guy could lose $50 million and afford it."
Speaker 2But Matt didn't actually know who his client was. And he didn't care. His goal as the bookie was to make as much money as possible. And if he could claim he had hooked a wealthy, well-known athlete, that's great for business. And his ego. So, sure, he told people that Shohei was his client.
Speaker 6But then the other side of it is, "Okay, now I'm gonna have eyes on me." More eyes than they already have.
Speaker 2It's a high-risk business. And Matt told me he always knew he would get caught one day. Were you the biggest bookmaker in the United States in September 2023?
Speaker 6Volume-wise, I have to be.
Speaker 2What is your mindset at the end of September?
Speaker 6Well, I was getting wire transfers that were drastically high. My business was the biggest it's ever been. I was flying on private jet, having caviar and being treated like you're Paris Hilton. Matt was gambling
Speaker 2with so much money at the casinos that they would also comp him gifts, like $40,000 Breitling watches and luxury purses for his wife.
Speaker 6In the best suites, in the best table at a nightclub, or at the nicest restaurants, $8,000 dinners. I had a $14,000 dinner at Guy Sauvage at Caesar's Palace for four people. The nicest wines you could ever imagine. I'm not even really a wine drinker. I mean, who spends $14,000 on a dinner?
Speaker 2And you were doing this at one point with Shohei Ohtani's money. Absolutely. When does it get tense?
Speaker 6Well, once I'm rated is when it got tense. Because the minute I walk out my driveway and there's 29 agents and eight AR rifles in my chest, I realize that I now just lost my business.
Speaker 2The Internal Revenue Service in the Department of Defense said, "The Internal Revenue Service in the Department of Homeland Security rated Matt's house on October 5th, 2023."
Speaker 6I opened the door of a G-Wagon and I was literally putting my son in his car seat. I think I strapped the second buckle when I heard freeze. I thought it was a joke. I thought it was like fucking friends of mine fucking with me. It allowed me to grab my son. And then they asked me who's in the house. And I said, "Fuck," in my mind, because now I'm thinking of my poor wife. And then I watched her come out handcuffed crying, which I'll never forget. At this stage, Tisha, I know the party's over.
Speaker 2Matt says they handcuffed him and began to seize anything they thought could be connected to his business. Could you see what they were taking?
Speaker 6Oh, yeah, yeah. That table in there was a pile of cash, gold, bars, casino chips, purses, jewelry, watches. Of course, they were rifling through my office, grabbing all files of, like, paperwork of casino receipts, all my sports bet tickets. Anything that's a tax-related thing, anything that they could find that is going to be evidence.
Speaker 2All of the things that wound up on the search warrant inventory that I first learned about when I got the tip. But Matt wasn't being raided just because he had an illegal sportsbook. He was being raided because of what he had done with the money it made. He needed to wash that money, to launder it, to make it look like he came by it honestly. And to do it, he went to Vegas. Everyone there pretty
Speaker 6much knew I was a legal bookmaker.
Speaker 2Matt would go to a casino with money he'd made from his business and exchange it for chips. Then he'd gamble with it. Sometimes he'd win, sometimes he'd lose. And when he cashed out, the money would look like gambling winnings.
Speaker 6Sometimes I would gamble solely to turn a cashier's check into cash so that I could wash money. Let's say I lost 70 grand. If I brought 500,000, I got 430 coming to me, right? They can't give me back a check for 500,000, not the one I brought. But they can give me 430,000 in cash.
Speaker 2And that's clean money?
Speaker 6Well, it's all an illegal system. You've just proven that you brought 500,000 and you returned with 430,000 in cash. Now, is it clean? I mean, obviously, if you're investigated by the FBI and they see that it's ill-gotten gains, it's not clean. But bank-wise, you now have a check from a casino. It's as good as a cashier's check.
Speaker 2Which casinos did you use to launder money? Any and all.
Speaker 6Every one. What put Matt
Speaker 2in the Fed's crosshairs was his activity at one particular casino, Resorts World Las Vegas. And that's where his friend Ryan Boyajian comes back into the picture. Ryan would take the money he received from Shohei's account and forward it to his account at Resorts World. He would then withdraw some of that money in chips and give them to Matt. Then they'd gamble. And if they had anything left when they were done, they would cash out and leave with clean money. I want to make sure I'm totally clear. The money that you are accused of laundering in Resorts World, was that only Shohei Ohtani's money or was that other client's money plus Shohei's money?
Speaker 6Mostly Shohei, truthfully.
Speaker 2Matt was so open about what he did that he even joked about it on an episode of The Real Housewives of Florida. The Real Housewives of Orange County with Ryan. After we broke the story, our reporting on Ryan and Matt's operation, including screenshots of our story from ESPN.com, became a plotline in the show. A reality star on Real Housewives was trying to parse what I'd been investigating for months. And a story from the sports world was becoming a pop culture phenomenon. For the first time, people who didn't care about baseball were asking me about baseball. They were asking me about Shohei. Ryan has declined all of my requests for an interview. And his criminal defense attorney was very clear. Ryan is not a bookmaker. Ryan cooperated with the feds and was given immunity for his testimony. And a few weeks after the raid, Matt also decided to cooperate with the feds. with the feds, with the hope he would get a reduced sentence in return. But they seized his assets, and he says he was broke. Matt still owed people money, and some of his clients still owed him money. So Matt got in touch with one particular client who owed him millions.
Speaker 6Reached out to Ipe to meet with him because we had a large balance. And I knew that, in truth, that I'm going to owe a shit ton of money.
Speaker 2Ipe was deeply in debt with Matt's sportsbook. Matt says on top of the $16 million Ipe had already sent, his account still owed $24 million more. 16 plus 24 equals $40 million. Ipe racked up more than $40 million in debt betting with Matt. Court records would later confirm this. It's an unbelievable number. How on earth would anyone allow someone to owe them $40 million? But the money had been flowing. Ipe kept paying. Until he didn't. Ipe stopped paying just when Matt needed the money more than ever.
Speaker 6That's a moment where I kind of knew things were out of control because he wasn't responding.
Speaker 2In an effort to get Ipe's attention, Matt texted him saying he could see Shohei walking his dog. And if Ipe didn't call him back, Matt would go up to Shohei and ask him how he could get in touch with Ipe. Where were you when you made that text?
Speaker 6Here at the house.
Speaker 2Had you ever seen Shohei Ohtani?
Speaker 6I was not the person that saw, but I have a friend of mine that was 10 feet away from him. So the threat was real? Oh, well, not a threat. The conversation of potentially talking to Shohei was real. I took advantage of that. Moment to just get him to respond, which he responded and called me. That's all I wanted. We met at a Starbucks and I just wanted to see what he was doing because I didn't want him to send a wire transfer for obvious reasons because now everything's out in the open and I didn't want anyone else to get in more trouble. So I just wanted to sit down with him without telling him what was going on. Because if I'm telling him what's going on without the government's permission, then that's a problem.
Speaker 2Had you met with him in person since the poker game?
Speaker 6Yeah, like passing. Like, for example, I'll go to the Angels games and, you know, we'd have dugout seats and, you know, he'd be there, say hi, but never like, we didn't have a relationship where we go for a walk and talk or he was very little words.
Speaker 2So you're seeing him for the first time
Speaker 6one-on-one? Yeah. I just remember he was clearly a $24 million to me in his mind and he was, like, still beside himself a little bit. Like, that was when I started to know there was a problem because he was just, oh, God, Matt, I'm just so bad at this. I can't pick a winner. Like, it was more like blasé. Like, you know, he was whining a little bit, but it was like whining just like I would if I lost a bet. You know, it wasn't like, oh, I owe you $24 million and my life's over. It was like, oh, I just can't win. You know, sorry, I can't get you some money right now. That kind of thing.
Speaker 2Matt says Ipe ended up sending him $1.25 million. Is part of your agreement with the federal government, were you allowed to continue to collect bets?
Speaker 6Oh, hell no. Yeah. We even asked them directly if we could receive some of the outstanding balance and forward it to them to go against my restitution or taxes or anything. And they said absolutely not.
Speaker 2So in meeting with him and talking about how much money he owed you, were you in violation of that agreement? I imagine. During our day on the golf course, Matt told me he regrets that last meeting with Ipe.
Speaker 1To be honest with you, I probably would get house arrest if I didn't do that,
Speaker 6which, of course, is for
Speaker 1$1.25 million, which I
Speaker 6had, to give all to the government anyway. It really makes no sense now. I would have wished I could do it all over again.
Speaker 2I've played golf all of my life, but I will never look at a course the same way again after spending the day with Matt Boyer. It starts off so innocently, a beautiful course, maybe a few beers, and then, hey, you want to make a bet on this hole. But as I look around at the people working and playing around me, I wonder how many of them are in trouble. And it can happen anywhere. On a golf course, it can happen anywhere. It can happen anywhere. On a golf course, at a bar, or at a poker game, you are a potential mark, a target. This is a multi-million dollar operation looking for any opportunity to hook you. Are you wearing the Breitling watch?
Speaker 6This is the one I got from Resorts World for my birthday.
Speaker 2Is that the one the feds took?
Speaker 1Yeah. I got it back.
Speaker 2I've never met anyone who knew that they were going to get in trouble to the degree that you've gotten in trouble. And embraced it.
Speaker 5I have no choice this year. Because I know I'm going to come out of this thing bigger and better.
Speaker 2Matt seems to view this as just another chance to reinvent himself. Are you truly done gambling?
Speaker 5No. I'll probably gamble the rest of my life. I mean, no question.
Speaker 2So Gambler's Anonymous.
Speaker 5I go to Gambler's Anonymous.
Speaker 2Going to therapy. I go to therapy. Going to prison. This is a tough moment.
Speaker 5For me, the moment is going to be really tough when I have to walk into prison, leaving my boy, leaving my kids. That's the hard part.
Speaker 2But the reality of prison time doesn't seem to hurt his game. You dropped that right into the hole.
Speaker 1That's for birdie, by the way. How far away was that? It's like 14, 15 feet.
Speaker 2He's on a hot streak.
Speaker 5He's never played like this, for the record. You bring out the best in me, Tisha. You did put me in prison, though. I didn't put you in prison. I'm just teasing you. You put yourself in prison. I'm teasing you.
Speaker 2We begin with breaking news here at 11. The Orange County bookie connected to an illegal gambling operation linked to Dodger star Shohei Ohtani is heading to prison. Matt was sentenced to 12 months and one day. That extra day made him eligible for early release. One reason he received a lighter sentence was because of the information he gave the government about this case. Matt had a unique vantage point. He was at the center of this scandal. He communicated with Ipe about the bets, and he tracked them as they came in. When he thinks back on it, it's the volume that he can't shake.
Speaker 5Let's be real. $17 million over a two-year period, 19,000 wagers in less than two years. Do you know how much time-consuming that is? I gambled every day of my life. I bet probably more bets than Ipe did, to be honest. But I was watching the games, watching my phone. It's a lot of work. So how does a person not even notice that?
Speaker 2But remember, Matt says he never met Shohei. His interactions were only with Ipe. And he paints a picture of Ipe as an unsophisticated gambler who was in over his head. Someone needed to talk to Shohei.
Speaker 10So we needed to investigate, A, was Mr. Ohtani involved in this illegal conduct? And B, if he wasn't, how did this happen and who was responsible?
Speaker 2Feds would use the information Matt gave them to tell a very different story about who Ipe is. Not hapless and unlucky, but calculated. Someone who wanted payback.
Speaker 10Mitsuhara was given this golden opportunity. He basically got the keys to the castle, but it wasn't enough.
Speaker 2That's next on The Betrayal of Shohei Ohtani.
Speaker 4Ah, get up. I think this is short. The story of my life. Hey, now we all want the water today.
Speaker 2Okay. The Betrayal of Shohei Ohtani is based on reporting by me, Tisha Thompson, with support from Tim Kuhn and the ESPN Investigative Unit. Our producer is Carrie Ann Thomas. Our senior producer is Max Green. Our senior editorial producer is Preeti Varathan. Our associate producer is Gus Navarro. Our senior editorial producer is Gus Navarro. Story editing by Audrey Quinn, Alain Tang, Eric Neal, and Mike Drago. Additional editing by Rebecca Hudson. Our archival producer is Jennifer Wheelock. Our line producer is Catherine Sankey. Production managers are Jason Schwartz and Sheena Williams. Fact-checking by John Mastroberodino with David Sabino. Additional production support by Scott Harviss. Additional editorial review from Masa Niwa. Original music by Allison Leighton-Brown and John DeLore. Sound design by John DeLore. Chris Buckle is vice president of ESPN Investigative Enterprise and Digital Journalism. Marsha Cook, Brian Lockhart, Heather Anderson, and Burke Magnus are executive producers for 30 for 30. David Roberts, Mike Foss, and Roxanna Scott are executive producers for ESPN.
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