Who is Mathew Bowyer, the Bookie Who Nearly Took the Vegas Strip Down with Him?

But a crossroads arrived when he found himself, at 19, facing fatherhood with his high-school sweetheart. Neither of his side hustles, nor his full-time job busing tables for a Mexican restaurant, would cut it anymore.

One of the restaurant’s regulars, a man who owned a commodities firm, took a liking to Bowyer and offered him a job. The $300,000 he earned as a broker before the age of 25 might have convinced someone else that they had found their life’s calling.

But Bowyer saw the job merely as a stepping stone to expanding his sports betting business. Indeed his wealthy new co-workers were easily converted to new clients.

Strip Tease

Bowyer’s 21st birthday trip to New York-New York Casino yielded a $28,000 blackjack win. Though he lost more than he won in subsequent visits, he saw the Strip not just as entertainment but as a recruiting ground.

VIP hosts, comped suites, and airfare gave him access to affluent gamblers. By 30, he quit brokerage work, having converted friends and colleagues into “agents” who earned commissions for bringing in bettors.

By 2018, Bowyer’s side business had grown into one of the largest illegal sports betting networks in the US, handling wagers from 700 gamblers nationwide.

A Fateful Meeting

On September 8, 2021, Bowyer — by then a remarried 46-year-old father of five — attended a high-stakes poker game in San Diego hosted by LA Angels players and staff. There, he met the man who would cause his downfall.

Ippei Mizuhara was the interpreter and close friend of Shohei Ohtani, the baseball phenom who was then in his third season with the Angels. What stood out to Bowyer about him were the calls he made between poker hands. He was obsessively placed bets on soccer games.

So Bowyer approached, pouring on the charm and offering him free credit through his website. Over the next 2½ years, Mizuhara placed at least 19,000 bets on AnyActionSports.com, totaling $325-$326 million ($142 million in wins, $183 million in losses).

New Kid on the Boulevard

In February 2022, Bowyer visited Resorts World Las Vegas for the first time. The first new resort on the Las Vegas Strip in a decade, it had opened a year before on the very site where mob associate Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal once skimmed the sportsbook profits from the Stardust.

As the new kid on the block, Resorts World lacked the contact lists of high-rollers built and maintained for decades by its corporate neighbors. So, according to a complaint that would eventually be filed by the Nevada Gaming Control Board, the property wooed bookies into its casino, where their dirty earnings were converted into clean profits via chips for table games.

Over two years, Bowyer made 80 visits, losing millions while cultivating clients.

On March 20, 2024, ESPN and the LA Times broke the news that a bank account owned by Ohtani — who had just signed the largest contract in the history of professional sports ($700 million) with the LA Dodgers — had wired millions to Bowyer.

At first, federal agencies — DHS, IRS, MLB investigators, and Nevada regulators — suspected a corruption scandal rivaling the 1919 Black Sox. But once Mizuhara’s theft was confirmed, the focus shifted to a smaller corruption scandal.

An amendment to the US Bank Secrecy Act in 1985 required Nevada casinos to vet the source of funds for any wager over $10,000, and to file suspicious activity reports for any wager over $5,000 that a casino “knows, suspects, or has reason to suspect” originated from illegal gains.

Regulators later alleged that Resorts World, Caesars and MGM knowingly allowed Bowyer to lose millions at their tables from 2017 to 2024 despite unverifiable funds. They said his presence exposed systematic negligence across the Strip, where casinos prioritized revenue over compliance.

Resorts World ultimately agreed to pay $10.5 million, MGM Resorts $8.5 million and Caesars Entertainment $7.8 million to settle the charges against them without admitting guilt.

Bowyer pleaded guilty in 2024 to illegal gambling, money laundering and filing a false tax return. He was sentenced to 12 months and one day — which he began serving on October 10, 2025 at the Federal Correctional Institution in in Lompoc, Calif. – plus $1.6 million restitution.

The case is now viewed as a turning point in Nevada gaming history — proof that corporate Las Vegas has behaved a lot more like the mobbed-up Stardust than it liked to present itself.