“There’s no way Ohtani wouldn’t notice” is the thinking of someone with no money

“Ippei-chan, you did it.”

So said Mr. Y, a senior member of a designated crime syndicate based in the Kanto region. He calls him “Ippei-chan” but has never met him. It has been reported that Mr. Mizuhara lost money on gambling and ended up with a huge debt of 680 million yen, but Mr. Y said, “It’s easy to make a figure like that. It’s not a real bet, it’s just an online number.”

“People who lose at gambling tend to gamble to make up for their losses. For example, let’s say you take 1 million yen to a casino and win 10 million yen. If you go home with the money, you’ll have made 9 million yen.

But what happens if you bet 10 million yen to try to make more money? For some reason, you feel like you’ve lost 10 million yen. Humans are strange. Even though you’ve only lost 1 million yen.”

Mr. Y explains that this is the psychology of people who become addicted to casinos.

“To win back, you have to bet more than double the amount you lost. In other words, if you lose 10 million yen, you have to win 20 million yen. That’s how Ikawa of Daio Paper got addicted to casinos and got bogged down in a quagmire.” (Mr. Y)

Yoshitaka Ikawa, former chairman of Daio Paper Corporation, was arrested in 2012 on suspicion of special breach of trust after squandering 10.6 billion yen in casinos and was sentenced to four years in prison.

Mizuhara was initially reported as telling an ESPN reporter who interviewed him, “Otani sent the money himself to pay off the gambling debts I had incurred.”

However, the next day, he reversed his statement, saying, “Otani had no knowledge whatsoever of the transfer of funds,” and that he only found out about the transfer at a meeting attended by Dodgers executives after the opening game. Otani’s lawyer issued a statement saying that he was the victim of a massive theft.

“Otani probably didn’t know at all. The idea that ‘I would have noticed if 600 million yen had disappeared from my account’ is the mindset of someone who doesn’t have money. People who have too much money don’t remember the details of what they bought when they went shopping.

The numbers are different, and a lot of money is deposited in the account every month, so you probably won’t notice. It’s like 600 yen out of 1 million yen. And it’s easy to manipulate the account.” (Mr. Y)

In this day and age, payments can be made with just one click using a smartphone or PC. If Otani was so close to him in both public and private life and was so relied on, it would not be surprising if Mizuhara somehow managed to learn of Otani’s bank account information and passwords.

“We live in a world where there are a lot of parents who don’t notice how much their kids spend on games. Somewhere, the child is watching their parent enter their ID and password. In the same way, Ippei must have done it on his own because he was short on money. I’m sure Ohtani was surprised.”

Mr. Y, who has seen many people gambling large sums at casinos, speculates that this is the case.