Nearly six years after winning a BCS national championship with USC, Owen Hanson accepted a massive parlay from a prominent member of a Mexican cartel that led him down a road to perdition.
The unidentified associate hit a five-leg football parlay for $220,000, according to Hanson, delivering the former tight end one of the sharpest defeats in his young bookmaking career. The loss planted the seeds for Hanson’s association with the cartel, triggering a downward spiral that nearly cost him his life.
Soon thereafter, Hanson began moving vast quantities of cocaine to Australia, engaging in a pattern of high-risk activity that placed him under the radar of international authorities.
Hanson hit rock bottom in 2017 when a judge sentenced him to 255 months in federal prison for running an international drug trafficking, sports betting and money laundering operation. But ever the entrepreneur, the USC business major conceived an ice protein popsicle company from behind bars. Hanson also had his sentence commuted in 2024 in exchange for cooperation with Australian authorities.
Months after his release from a Los Angeles halfway house, Hanson’s story is being chronicled by Amazon Prime in “Cocaine Quarterback”, a three-part docuseries that debuts on Thursday. Directed by Jody McVeigh-Schultz, the series is produced by Mark Wahlberg’s Unrealistic Ideas.
“I shouldn’t be here today. I should probably be dead but someone is looking after me from upstairs,” Hanson told an audience in person at Sunday’s premiere viewing. “But I am blessed for everyone who has participated in this journey.”
Hanson’s transition from walk-on to kingpin
A former Trojans volleyball player, Hanson won a national championship with USC in 2005 after joining the football team as a walk-on. Moments after USC’s 55-19 thrashing of Oklahoma, Hanson stood directly behind coach Pete Carroll on the championship podium. As Carroll thrust a crystal football trophy into the air, Hanson celebrated with his friends on the star-studded team.
While Hanson rarely made it onto the field, he received team MVP for his contributions off the gridiron. Reputed to be the social king of the team, Hanson supplied teammates with steroids and recreational drugs, according to federal prosecutors.
A scene in the opening episode depicts Hanson acting as a mule as he snuck hundreds of dollars in drugs past a border agent by concealing them in his pants.
At USC, Hanson befriended the team’s top stars, including Heisman Trophy winners Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush and running back LenDale White. White made an appearance in the three-part series, while Leinart attended Sunday’s premiere in Santa Monica. Although Leinart declined to comment, his appearance exemplifies the team’s loyalty toward Hanson. Brandon Hancock, a fullback on the national title team, visited Hanson several times in prison.
“I would have him in my foxhole any day,” Hancock told iGB.
After Hanson’s football career ended, he worked briefly as a real estate developer, a job that dried up during the era’s financial crisis. Soon after, he connected with Macho Sports, an illegal sportsbook that became the target of an FBI investigation. Around that time, Hanson met Matt Bowyer, another California bookie.
Hanson’s relationship with Bowyer
Hanson worked initially as a sportsbook agent with Macho Sports, a multi-national gambling operation, before branching out on his own. The FBI arrested 14 individuals connected with the ring in 2013, while foreign counterparts arrested co-founder Erik Portocarrero in Norway. By then, Hanson ran his own book, BetODog.com.
Based on a recommendation from a bookie, Bowyer placed a $75,000 bet with BetODog, a bet he won. But days later, Bowyer endured a disastrous week dropping $100,000 on BetODog, while losing heavily to customers on his own website. When Hanson demanded immediate payment, Bowyer gave him his home address. Impressed by Bowyer’s chutzpah, Hanson not only paused the debt, he made Bowyer an offer to join his gambling enterprise.
“I’ve never met anyone who had the balls to talk to me like that, giving me their home address. I came here so we could meet face to face,” said Hanson, according to “Recalibrate”, Bowyer’s 2025 memoir. “We’ll work it out. I think we can do some business together.”
The two bookies’ mutual respect led to a longstanding friendship that continues today, Bowyer wrote. While Hanson was a neophyte in the booking industry at the time, Bowyer had several years of experience under his belt. Bowyer, who attended Sunday’s premiere, indicated that he provided Hanson tutelage to help him learn the ropes of running his own book.
Bowyer, who accepted $325 million in bets from baseball star Shohei Ohtani’s ex-interpreter, pleaded guilty last year to three federal charges, including transactional money laundering.
Bowyer had visited Hanson in prison, bringing him a care package and some cash for the canteen. Now, the roles are reversed as Bowyer is set to report to prison next month to serve a sentence of approximately one year.
Wild bets
Bowyer and Hanson often engaged in high-stakes wagering on the golf course, at times betting upwards of $10,000 a hole.
In one notable incident, Bowyer got up-and-down from a bunker on the par-3, 17th at Pebble Beach, winning $85,000 from Hanson. The two also competed in a 40-yard dash at Shadow Creek in North Las Vegas, another bet won by Bowyer.
“If we went 20 metres farther, he would have won,” Bowyer told iGB.
The bet paled in comparison to the six-figure win recorded by the cartel figure on the aforementioned parlay. The cartel associate closed out the bet with a win on the Raiders, Hanson said in an interview with iGB.
Hanson’s business acumen apparently impressed that associate enough to recruit him to his criminal business. Hanson began by moving money throughout California for the cartel before he assisted with operations in Australia, where he sold cocaine at a threefold premium to the rate in the US. At one point, Hanson believed he would be killed by the cartel after a botched transfer from the Star Casino in Sydney resulted in the loss of $2.5 million.
Hanson’s risky operations came to a head on 9 September 2015 when the FBI arrested him on a golf course in Carlsbad, California. One member of Hanson’s crew, the late Charlie D’Agostino, committed suicide when faced with potential time in jail. As a close friend dating back to high school, Hanson said he still carries immense guilt from D’Agostino’s death.
Resonating with the public
Others in Hanson’s betting enterprise, including Bowyer, were unaware of his drug business, but there were months of uncertainty whether they would be implicated in the probe.
Ultimately, the government found that Hanson’s downfall brought down others. Their association with Hanson “turned gamblers into bookies, drug addicts into dealers, and friends into felons”, the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California wrote in 2017.
While Hanson notes in the Amazon series that approximately 20 NFL players wagered on his site, he did not mention any by name. Ahead of the premiere, Hanson sat down with iGB for a 90-minute one-on-one interview. Asked what main takeaway viewers should glean from the series, Hanson responded that it will show the public that the events actually did occur.
“It would discredit Unrealistic Ideas if they didn’t tell the truth – everything has to be spot on,” Hanson said.
Hanson is in the middle of a major rehabilitation project. Chiselled with the frame of a bodybuilder, Hanson has teamed with several Miami-based investors to launch California Ice Protein, a frozen popsicle company. While incarcerated, Hanson learned how to mix the concoctions using a janitorial mop bucket.
Hancock, the former fullback from USC, believes that Hanson is making positive steps on the road to recovery.
“It doesn’t stop here, I can’t wait for the next chapter for him,” Hancock told iGB. “The fact is he circumvented all of these things and he’s still here to breathe. I know in his heart he’s a good man – he’s reformed and atoned.”
Owen Hanson’s journey from USC football to illegal bookmaking to international drug crimes will be documented this week in a three-part series on Amazon Prime.