On a holiday weekend on which most Americans seek relaxation, Matt Bowyer went on an emotional rollercoaster unlike any he experienced during his professional gambling career.
Accustomed to withstanding wild swings at the blackjack table, Bowyer opened Labor Day weekend by learning his fate inside a Southern California courtroom Friday. One of the nation’s largest bookmakers received a sentence of approximately one year in federal prison. Since then, Bowyer has endured a spectrum of emotions surrounding preparations to report to prison.
Bowyer is the bookmaker who accepted approximately $325 million in wagers from Ippei Mizuhara, the former interpreter for Shohei Ohtani who is serving his own prison sentence for embezzling from the baseball star.
Bowyer spoke to iGB on Labor Day in one of his first interviews following his sentencing. He gave the interview knowing he must report to federal prison by 10 October for pleading guilty last summer to three criminal charges, including transactional money laundering.
“It’s been absolute chaos for the last 48 hours,” Bowyer said from his villa in San Juan Capistrano. “But I also have this huge sense of relief knowing what the end is. … Listen, let’s be real. I’m human, I have a heart and I have feelings.
“I’m really trying to pull it all together for my kids and for my wife. There’s moments when I’m crumbling inside, but I’m not going to show that emotion.”
Bowyer’s commitment to his family
A father of five, Bowyer is not your typical bookmaker. In a market dominated by surfer bros and middle-aged bachelors, Bowyer has been described by friends as a consummate family man. At last week’s hearing, Bowyer’s attorney, Diane Bass, depicted him as one of the most extraordinary clients she’s ever represented.
While running a sophisticated multi-million-dollar gambling operation, Bowyer found the time to attend all of his children’s sports events, Bass stressed. Ahead of sentencing, the professional gambler spent about an hour last Thursday night consoling his tearful daughter, a memory Bowyer expects to take to his grave.
Bass petitioned the court to send him to FCI Lompoc, a Southern California facility located outside of Santa Barbara. Guest protocols at the facility limit Bowyer’s wife Nicole to only three in-person visits per month, he told iGB.
A self-professed sports junkie, Bowyer may be granted the option to buy a TV set in jail. But sports have taken a backseat for Bowyer for now. He didn’t learn of No. 1 Texas’ loss to Ohio State in college football’s biggest game on Saturday until the following day. That lack of awareness would have been unfathomable when Bowyer ran his sportsbook.
While a US probation officer recommended Bowyer receive a sentence of 36 months, the government petitioned the court for an eight-level downward departure. US District Judge John W. Holcomb sentenced him to 12 months and one day in prison.
In his sentencing decision, Holcomb weighed a bevy of mitigating factors including Bowyer’s assistance to the government, his status as a first-time offender and his outreach efforts on the perils of compulsive gambling.
“I always tell people if I didn’t have children and a wife, it would be a hundred times easier,” Bowyer told iGB.
“I’ve always been a person that tries to protect my family and bring all the discomfort to myself,” he said, adding that it “hit him hard” upon the realization that he will go to prison.
Attempts by Bowyer to ‘recalibrate’
Prior to the hearing, Bowyer released “Recalibrate”, a detailed memoir that delves into his three-decade career as a bookmaker and whale bettor. This week, “Recalibrate” occupied the top spot in Amazon’s gambling addiction and recovery section.
Among the legion of Bowyer’s friends at his sentencing was Justin Paperny, co-founder of White Collar Advice, a firm that provides services to defendants with government investigations, sentencing and life after prison.
In a post on his firm’s website, Paperny holds a copy of the book as he poses for a picture with Bowyer on a golf course. Even if Bowyer had received a lengthy sentence, he has still made significant headway in his road to recovery, Paperny said in the post.
“Matt would still walk into prison with a published book in his name,” he wrote. “He would still have a social media presence, which he built from nothing. He would still have shown his daughters and young son that when life collapsed, their father chose to build.”
Over the last few months, Bowyer has gone on a media blitz conducting interviews with ESPN, Rolling Stone and VSiN, among others. Wife Nicole has also spoken with the media, granting a lengthy interview to Mark Laita of the podcast Soft White Underbelly. Addressing a 2023 FBI raid at the Bowyer mansion, Nicole told Laita that it was oddly a “blessing”, despite the trauma of the incident.
Nicole said she had become frustrated by her husband’s gambling habits in the final months before the raid. Over a 14-month period through October 2023, Bowyer gambled at Resorts World Las Vegas at least 80 times, a period when he lost about $6.6 million at the casino.
“When he was forced to not gamble anymore, it strengthened us,” his wife said on the podcast. “I’ve never met anyone in my life who can sell ice to an Eskimo. He has that and he can turn his talents into something amazing.”
Bowyer aims to eventually become a motivational speaker for athletes who are suffering from gambling addiction.
“I have anxiety about going to prison, I have anxiety about the next year of my life,” he explained. “But at the same time, at least when I wake up, I look in the mirror and I feel really good about what I see.”
The bookie for Shohei Ohtani’s ex-interpreter is digging deep to remain mentally strong before he begins a one-year sentence next month.