Could there possibly be a downside to gambling on baseball?

Seems unlikely, and yet!

I guess the first question is whether we all believe that Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter stole $4.5 million from him.

This was not the story on Tuesday, when he sat down for a 90 minute interview. At that point, Ippei Mizuhara told ESPN that he told his good friend Shohei ha ha, whoops, wouldn’t you know it, I’ve amassed some large sports gambling debts, and a very disappointed Shohei Ohtani paid them directly for his friend, ensuring that Mizuhara would be out of debt and wouldn’t use the money to gamble even more.

Yesterday, the story became that someone had stolen the money (no one ever said Mizuhara, though it sure is hard to come up with a scenario where it was somebody else) and that was that. Theft, said Ohtani’s people. Theft, said the now-fired Mizuhara. Theft!

To that I say: Sure! Seems plausible. No more questions.

It’s important to note that right now, the story is that Mizuhara only bet on non-baseball sports and that’s not actually against baseball’s rules. What is against baseball’s rules is using a non-approved bookie, which he claims to have done. If you’re going to bet, bet on FanDuel and use code NOTSHOHEI for $200 free when you deposit $200.

But what will the story be tomorrow?

The fact that Mizuhara immediately recanted his original story and then agreed with a newer, more exculpatory one sure is a bit iffy. Because Ohtani, you see, is absolutely not allowed to just give the guy a few million dollars for his gambling debts, nor is he allowed to directly pay the bookie from his own bank account. If Mizuhara was telling the truth on Tuesday, then Ohtani would have to face consequences from the league. Fortunately, he wasn’t. Phew! Close call!

Everyone in this story — literally everyone, and also several people who are just this story-adjacent — has a vested interest in claiming that Ohtani was not personally gambling. Ohtani certainly doesn’t want anyone thinking he engages in that kind of behavior. Mizuhara’s entire professional value is in being useful to Ohtani, so he’s gonna have to keep going with that. Ohtani’s team of lawyers have circled the wagons, and Major League Baseball certainly doesn’t want their most famous player facing a gambling scandal before even playing a game in the United States for his current team.

Because this is at least in the same neighborhood as a gambling scandal. Ohtani’s money was used to pay for gambling that is against the rules. Specifically, it was used to pay Mizuhara’s credit, and since the rules very specifically prevent players or league employees from using credit to bet on sports, that’s a problem. Using credit (instead of prepaying) is bad because you can get into massive debt that way. Why, you could owe $4.5 million! What an excessive debt that would be.

This story was inevitable. It wasn’t inevitable that it would touch Shohei Ohtani — that’s just luck — but someone in the game inappropriately gambling was a given. The addictive, destructive nature of sports gambling is baked in. That’s not to say that everyone who gambles will lose control, but a small, steady percentage will, and that’s how bookies make a living.

Sports gambling has become way too mainstream, way too fast, and MLB has been a big part of that. The ads are constant, and that’s not even including the way the broadcasts cater to gamblers. They give you over/under lines, and betting odds, and tell you what percentage of people are betting what way, all in the interest of convincing you that this is how you interact with the game.

This is what you’re here for. You’re not a passive observer. You’re a smart, canny fan who can make some easy money. You can do something good for yourself, and prove to everyone how smart you are. In the 2022 playoffs, there was a FanDuel commercial that annoyed the hell out of me, and thinking about it today, it’s still annoying, and it’s still a signpost for where everyone with any money is trying to take baseball.

With gambling all around us, it’s a fait accompli that there will be people who gamble. This, eventually, will lead to those people gambling on baseball. Mizuhara said that he bet on soccer, basketball, and football, so he’s good there, but even if he’s telling the truth, the next guy to get busted might not be. There’s a modern Pete Rose story coming up, and baseball’s response will be a pathetic half-assed attempt to sweep it under the carpet, and it will probably work.

There’s a world in which betting on sports just adds some harmless fun. Sure, people might lose a few bucks here and there, but it’s not a big deal. That seems like how it should be, right? Every now and then, you make a bet that makes things more interesting, and you end up with either enough money to buy two beers or zero beers. Good times all around.

But that’s not how gambling works, and that’s not how people work. Ippei Mizuhara is just a harbinger of where we’re headed. After all, the entire sports landscape has rearranged itself to tell people how cool it is to bet on sports. We can’t be surprised that it worked.