The illegal bookie who made more than $16 million from Shohei Ohtani's interpreter was sentenced to 12 months and one day in prison on Friday for running the unlawful business, money laundering, and filing a false tax return.
Mathew Bowyer, 50, took more than 19,000 bets from Ippei Mizuhara, who stole nearly $17 million from Ohtani, his close friend and a Los Angeles Dodgers star, to pay off $40 million in gambling debts, from December 2021 to January 2024.
Key Takeaways
- Illegal bookie must report for sentencing by Oct. 10 and will have two years of supervised release.
- Federal judge pointed to the filing a false tax return charge as the reason Bowyer couldn’t receive home confinement.
- Ohtani's ex-interpreter is currently serving a 57-month sentence for stealing the Dodgers star’s money to pay off Bowyer.
Bowyer was sentenced by U.S. District Judge John W. Holcomb, and, according to ESPN, must report to authorities by Oct. 10 to begin prison time.
Once the sentence is served, Bowyer will be on supervised release for two years. He must attend gambling addiction counseling, and he has already paid $1.6 million in restitution.
Taxes got him
Bowyer received a lighter sentence than the 41 to 51 months first requested after federal prosecutors said he helped with other investigations. He pleaded guilty in August 2024 and was first expected to be sentenced in February, but it was pushed back.
Bowyer’s attorney requested the punishment be home confinement, but while Holcomb said there were no victims aside from the government, he said the false tax return was “significant.”
“Justice demands there be some custody time,” Holcomb said.
Bowyer reported more than $607,000 on his tax return, but admitted to unreporting that his income was over $4 million.
The business
Bowyer assisted prosecutors in the case of Mizuhara, who was sentenced to 57 months in a federal prison for bank fraud earlier this year. Bowyer also provided information on professional poker player Damien LeForbes, who has also been charged with illegal bookmaking.
Bowyer ran an illegal bookmaking business that involved more than 700 clients during a five-year period. The federal indictment says he made more than $2,000 a day and used multiple accounts in his name to receive and transfer money.
Bowyer, along with a few cohorts, laundered $24 million of his illegal bookmaking profits through Resorts World in Las Vegas. The casino was fined $10.5 million by Nevada regulators for accepting bets from a known illegal bookmaker.
