Mathew Bowyer, the convicted bookie for baseball star Shohei Ohtani’s now-imprisoned interpreter, has been recommended to be permanently banned from Nevada casinos after regulators delivered a scathing attack against him on Wednesday.
The Gaming Control Board Wednesday recommended that the Gaming Commission add Bowyer’s name to the state’s Black Book of excluded persons at their meeting in two weeks. The imprisoned bookmaker’s actions led to multi-million-dollar fines against Resorts World Las Vegas and Caesars Entertainment.
The Board members were harsh in their assessments of Bowyer and the gaming industry before recommending the ban.
“I normally wouldn’t give much air time to this individual in this particular setting. However, I think it’s important to note that the Board is taking an action that goes to the core and heart of Nevada’s gaming regulatory mission – the protection of integrity of gaming, the confidence of the public, and the reputation of the state as the gold standard of gaming regulation,” said Board Chair Mike Dreitzer.
Board member George Assad echoed the comments of Dreitzer and called out how Bowyer “came through Nevada like a vortex.” He “thumbed his nose” at the industry by playing at Caesars and other casinos around town, knowing he was ruining people’s lives. He was tempting hosts with bribes if they referred customers to him, understanding they would be terminated if caught.
“He was responsible for so much worldwide negativity throughout the escapade he engaged in,” said Assad, who noted he requested Bowyer’s name be submitted to the Black Book, along with bookmaker Wayne Nix.
“They will never be able again to enter a Nevada casino and engage in money laundering,” Assad said. “I believe that the Nevada Gaming Control Board needed to send a message loud and clear that we will not tolerate anyone who brings as much negative publicity and worldwide reputation damage to the Nevada gaming industry as these two individuals have, particularly Mr. Bowyer.”
Assad said anyone who tries to launder money will be prosecuted criminally and civilly and be banned from entering any casino in the state.
“There is no room for this in our community and in our state,” Assad said. “The second message should be clear to all Nevada gaming licensees that we will hold them accountable for lax oversight, whether from gross negligence, institutional willful ignorance, or just plain stupidity. Some of these actions by key executives and employees in the casino industry that allowed this were really stupid. The buck must stop with the key employee who oversees the compliance departments. In addition to the multi-millions of dollars that Mr. Bowyer and Mr. Nix caused several casinos to be fined by the Nevada gaming regulators, they’ve caused several key employees to be separated from their employment from various casinos, because this Board has lost confidence in those employees who turned a blind eye to what was going on right under their noses.”
“It’s important for them to be placed in Nevada’s Black Book to send a strong message to the federal government and federal politicians that we can clean up our own dirty laundry,” said Assad, who added there is no need for a federal gaming commission. “Mr. Bowyer preyed on the addiction of Ippei Mizuhara, Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter. Mr. Mizuhara was a compulsive degenerate and highly addicted gambler with access to millions of dollars belonging to Ohtani. Mr. Bowyer acted like a heroin dealer with no moral compass, who kept on providing the heroin until the drug addict died.”
Assad ripped Bowyer for promoting his book and seeking a movie deal upon his release from prison, while Mizuhara got a four-year prison sentence. “The drug dealer gets a year and the drug user gets four,” said Assad, a former judge. Bowyer is the author of Recalibrate, detailing the Ohtani scandal.
Assad hopes casino employees and executives get the message that they’ll be held accountable, including loss of employment.
“The days of fining just the casinos are over,” Assad said. “That has not been the case in the past, but it will be the case if someone tries to disrupt and destroy the reputation of the Nevada gaming industry. The head of compliance or other VPs and top executives who oversee compliance, we will hold them personally responsible.”
Bowyer pleaded guilty in federal court in September 2024 to operating an unlawful gambling business, money laundering, and subscribing to a false tax return. He was sentenced in August to 12 months in prison and began serving it in October, with an estimated release in August followed by two years of supervision.
The southern California resident operated an illegal gambling business for at least five years until October 2023 and at times had more than 700 bettors, including Ippei Mizuhara, the Japanese interpreter for Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani.
Bowyer was a patron of Caesars from 2017 to January 2024, which stopped only after the FBI executed a search warrant on his home. In November, Caesars was fined $7.8 million by the Gaming Commission for its dealings with the bookmaker and failing to ban him from their properties after having suspicions about his activities and his source of funds. Caesars had won $2.6 million from Bowyer over seven years.
Resorts World was fined $10.5 million in March, accused of a culture that welcomed individuals, including Bowyer, with suspected ties to illegal bookmaking.
Placement in the Black Book is not a criminal penalty, a substitute for prosecution, or intended to duplicate or interfere with the work of law enforcement, Dreitzer said. Instead, it’s a regulatory determination grounded in Nevada law on whether an individual’s conduct is compatible with standards of honesty, integrity, and public confidence as licensing gaming demands, he added. “Such conduct creates risk, not only to individual licensees, but to the system as a whole.”
In December, the Gaming Commission excluded bookmaker Wayne Nix. In Nix’s case, MGM Resorts International was fined $8.5 million by the Nevada Gaming Commission for knowingly dealing with an illegal bookmaker as part of an anti-money-laundering case. The MGM Grand took $4 million in cash from Nix, while the Cosmopolitan, which it didn’t operate at the time, took more than $900,000 in wagers.
