A new wrinkle has been added to the sports betting scandal that rocked Shohei Ohtani and his translator. It involves another professional “player” too. Let’s take you inside what transpired:

Poker Pro Pleads Guiltily To Helping Run Illegal Sportsbook

Damien LeForbes is a professional poker player. Now he’s facing up to 15 years in prison, up to three years on supervised release and a fine of $500,000 for his role in an illegal bookie business. We don’t care how good LeForbes poker face is, there’s no hiding the severity of this situation after he pled guilty and entered into a plea agreement.

For starters, LeForbes is not believed to be the ring leader of the operation. That is alleged to have been Matt Bowyer. However, LeForbes played a huge part in running the illegal run from 2021 to 2023. The business is said to have taken millions in illegal sports bets in California and Nevada.

LeForbes had the all-important role of recruiting players for the illegal operation. To do so, he created a network of agents. They would be tasked with finding players in return for a cut of the gambling losses from players they produced— a classic affiliate model. But LeForbes didn’t stop there. He pulled leveraged casino hosts as agents. These hosts had access to “high roller” casino players. It’s the high-coveted bettors that LeForbes cherished.

Outside of just scouting players, LeForbes kept the operation under wraps by taking payments through a web of financial channels. Checks and wire transfers were made out to a shell company called DJL — which is listed on his LinkedIn still — masking the illicit activity. Cryptocurrency was another popular tool of transferring money around. LeForbes avoided using centralized exchanges and consistently created new crypto wallets to send and receive payments.

Was Resorts World Las Vegas Involved?

This might be the craziest part of the entire story: the same casino LeForbes used to hire hosts was also used to effectively“wash” money. In court documents, this casino is not referred to by name. It’s just Casino A, but LeForbes has deep ties to Resorts World which has made people put two and two together.

Between 2021 and 2023, LeForbes wrote at least 17 personal checks at the named casino, totaling over $9.1 million. Here’s the twist though: LeForbes received payments in casino chips — thus making it much harder to track. Washing the money in simpler terms. In exchange for the friendly treatment, LeForbes bet over $148 million at the casino.

In May, when this news story was barely unfolding, it was reported that LeForbes owed $12.3 million to Resorts World over lost wagers. Worse, at one point, LeForbes was caught writing a bad check for $2.5 million to the property.

There’s another link to Resorts World too. A separate news article in August came out saying sports betting in Nevada regulators filed a disciplinary complaint against Resorts World for allegedly fostering a culture that allowed illegal bookmakers to launder millions of dollars through their casino. Again, the connection is as clear as day.

Update on Ohtani’s Translator

To reiterated, this operation includes Ohtani’s disgraced translator, the 39-year-old Ippei Mizuhara. He began betting inside the ring in late 2021 and ran up massive amounts of losses. Mizuhara made 19,000 wagers, which netted him losses of around $40 million.

With no money to pay back the debts, Mizuhara turned to fraud. This is where he stole $16 million from his famous client to pay back the debts and fuel even more wagers.

In June of this year, Mizuhara agreed to plead guilty to one count of bank fraud and one count of subscribing to a false tax return. He faces up to 30 years in federal prison under the plea deal.

Could All Of This Been Avoided With Legalized Sports Betting?

This all raises the all-too-important question: what if sports betting in California was legal? Could all of this been avoided? Well, yes and no.

Yes, California is the biggest domino left to fall in the legalized sports betting market of the United States. It has the highest population — many of which love their sports. When these same people don’t have regulated sports betting options, they turn to alternatives. This ring is one of them, but offshore sportsbooks are another option — and these are way safer.

But at the same time, let’s not be naive. Nevada was also involved in the scheme and they’ve had legal sports betting since the ‘50s. Why would a Nevada bettor opt for an illegal ring rather than their local casino?

As with most things, it comes down to money. Illegal bookmakers have tax-free betting. Win a million dollars betting  on there and no one has to pay taxes to anyone. But win a million at the Circa Sportsbook? Yeah, you’ll owe a pretty penny to the IRS for federal income taxes (Nevada has no state income tax).

All this is to say, if California ever gets on board with legal betting — a big if at this point — it won’t suddenly stop more of these stories from coming out. Not even close.

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