Locked In with Ian Bick - I Ran a Sports Betting Empire – Now I’m Going to Federal Prison | Matt Bowyer

Episode Date: September 15, 2025

Matt Bowyer was once the kingpin of one of the largest illegal sports betting operations in the country — taking wagers from athletes, celebrities, and high-rollers across the U.S. and moving hundreds of millions of dollars through his network. His operation became so big it even led to a Major League Baseball scandal that shocked the sports world. #SportsBetting #LockedInPodcast #SportsBookie #MLBScandal #SportsGambling #TrueCrimePodcast #BookieLife #prisonstories Connect with Matt Bowyer: https://www.instagram.com/mathewbowyer5/ Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ Presented by Tyson 2.0 & Wooooo Energy: https://tyson20.com/ https://woooooenergy.com/ Use code LOCKEDIN for 20% OFF Wooooo Energy Buy Merch: http://www.ianbick.com/shop Timestamps: 00:00 Intro: The Rise & Fall of an Underground Kingpin 02:00 Meet Matt: Running America's Largest Illegal Sports Book 05:00 Life Before Crime: Childhood & Early Hustles 12:00 First Taste of Business & Success 18:00 Getting into Bookmaking: The Early Days 25:00 Scaling up: Building a Gambling Empire 32:00 High Rollers, Payments & Global Operations 39:00 Credit, Debts & Collecting Millions 47:00 Gambling Habits, Dopamine Rush & Losses 53:00 Casino High Life: Wins, Losses & The VIP Treatment 01:01:00 Business or Ponzi Scheme? The Bookie's Perspective 01:08:00 Bookie Myths, Danger & Customer Relationships 01:14:00 The Downfall: Arrest, Assets & The Otani Scandal 01:21:00 Legal Aftermath & Learning From Mistakes 01:29:00 Facing Prison: Sentence, Fear & Family Impact 01:37:00 Reflections, Character & Life After Prison Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I was moving $5 to $7 million on Mondays. The average bet is probably $10,000 a game. In 2003, I think I filed on my return. I made $14 to $15 million. What's the most amount of money someone told you? I look over my left and I had AR rifles pointed at me with about eight or nine agents. What scares you the most about going to prison? Matt Boyer ran one of the nation's largest illegal sports betting operations,

a sprawling high-profile network with over 700 clients, including high-profile athletes and the former interpreter of Shohey Otani. after mastermining a sophisticated gambling empire that moved hundreds of millions in wagers, Boyers headed to federal prison. This is a shocking rise and fall of a modern underground kingpin. Matt, welcome to Lockton. Shout out to Hubble Studios, Vincent Hubble, for letting us use this space today. Thank you for having me. Yeah, I know we've been talking about doing this for a while. Rob from Tyson team hooked us up. And I remember he texted me, he's like, bro, I got a great interview for you. And at the time, this was like before you had started really,

hitting press heavy and talking about it and everything's kind of limbo. And I had seen like an article about the case, but it didn't get as big as like it's been the last few months. And then I left for Mr. Beast. So I missed out on that first initial wave of all that. I probably would have been like one of your first interviews. Yeah, in April. But actually, I think you caught me at a better time because post-sentencing, I've really done very little of these podcasts that have been released. So plus your channel is great. So I'm really happy to be on it. Thank you. And I also, I think I have the perspective of someone that went to prison, which is, I think, is a unique perspective that makes this podcast a little bit different than most of them.

Totally agree. I actually have questions for you. Awesome. And the audience loves that. Before we dive into, I want the audience to know about your book if you want to give the elevator pitch about the book you just published. So I wrote the book. It's self-published.

I haven't even advertised it yet. It's just social media. But I really wrote it as a way to show my children. and to leave some sort of legacy of some of the poor choices I made and why I made them. And, you know, reflecting back, I wanted everyone to see that, you know, accountability is important in life and being authentic and real. And that's really what that book is. It doesn't just shed good lights of me. There's a lot of, you know, chaos and great times.

But it really shows some of the behind the scenes and depth moments where I've lost $4 million in, you know, a week. And I'm sitting in my sauna like a little girl wanting to cry, realizing what the hell did I just do to my sense? not even be able to pay people, but figuring it out, you know, which is really the message that's in my book over and over again, recalibrate. The reason I named it that is every time I met adversity, I found a way, which I'm doing now. You know, I'm about to go to prison. 29 days from today, I'll be walking into Long Park Prison and you've been there. I've never been there, right? So the hard part for me is as a father of five kids and an amazing relationship with my wife, I've never been able to, you know, look them in the eyes and say, hey, I'm letting you down.

My job is to provide and protect. And now I can't say that. You know, so it's, it's a guilt that I'll go with the rest of my life. But that book really kind of shows the trials and tribulations, good times, bad times, all the above. So I think you'll enjoy it. I obviously happy to give you the copy and anyone watching. I hope they enjoy it. Yeah, we'll have the link in the description in this episode.

I think what's going to be really interesting to see with you because I know this happened for me personally. Sure. is you have this perspective, you wrote this book before going into prison, then you're going to have that time no matter if it's two weeks or a year and a day or six months, you know, whatever it is to reflect. I know like how much reflection I just had doing the Mr. Beast video for those three months. Right. And you're going to change your outlook and you're going to probably, if I had to guess, come out with another book based on that experience and even redoing things from the first time that didn't make it in or whatnot because that reflection period is huge. And very rarely

do you get to talk to someone before, like who they are going through the experience, but before they go to prison? Right. And then what it's going to look like after, which I think will be very fascinating. And maybe you do that on your own podcast channel or whatever because there's going to be so much interest there. That's really good perception, which is a question I asked you right before we started rolling because you had an opportunity to do what I was doing, which is social media during

your trial or, you know, why you were being before you were sentenced. and everyone asked me like, you know, you even said it, why were you doing that? I mean, obviously it puts you at risk in front of the judge and the prosecution. I really wanted to show the world and my kids, again, like, you have a voice and you have an opportunity to at least cash your own narrative. You know what it's like when the press is making you look really bad. I mean, all the sensationalized media is never going to be, you know, Matt Boyer or Ian Bick is a great guy going to save kids out of a burning church, right? They're going to shed light of things that, you know, get eyes on that, which is negative things for the, you know, for the most

part. So I wanted to show that I'm more than what they, you know, viewers see, that I'm just this predatory bookmaker who was making millions of dollars and praying on people. It's definitely not what I was doing. Every one of my customers came to me. They wanted an account. I didn't go pursue them. I'm not defending my actions. You know, what I did was illegal. I'm paying, you know, doing the time for my crime. But I just wanted to show the light that I'm not this evil man that, you know, I was displayed as just in the few, you know, times I've seen and talked to you, I see what kind of person you are, you know, someone who views you as a felon or someone who's been in prison, their first assumption is, you know, you're a bad person and you know that.

But casting your own narrative and showing who you truly are is important. So my social media, which I started exactly a year ago, has grown because people have been, you know, backing me and been inspired by the fact that I'm authentic, I'm honest. and really just trying to show people that, you know, we all have a story. Just because mine's public and on TV, yeah, that's fine. And maybe they can learn from that because there are so many people that don't get to be on TV or, you know, have their own story or whether it's a alcohol problem or a drug abuse or being abused by their parents or whatever has happened in their life. Everyone has some sort of trial and tribulation. And if you can learn to have the mindset to deal with that adversity as you have, just being on Mr. Beast.

and, you know, being through prison. I mean, these are all things that most people have never had to deal with. I want people to learn and be inspired by that and learn, you know, how to get the mindset to overcome that. I think what's really interesting with your case is that the world is definitely changing when it comes to rules with press and court and criminal cases. Right. Because I know my defense attorney, very first thing after the bail hearing, aside from what

restrictions I had relating to social media was don't go and talk about your case. Right. But it just seems, it always seems so unfair because the government is sending a out six different press releases before the hand cusser even put on me, there was articles written about me and all the local media that's getting tipped off. Sure. And the courts have always sided like with the prosecution to, you know, they could put out articles but the defendants can't. And I think it was really interesting and cool to see you take that your own narrative and kind of counter all of that. And we'll get to it later in your story about how they brought that up at

sentencing. Yeah. But that's definitely a big shift in it too. It was. So you're like paving the way for more criminal defendants to come. Maybe, and maybe they'll learn from it. I will tell you, though, the messaging has to be proper, right? Obviously, you know, not all of my messaging was perfect. My attorney was not happy at all with any of my social media. And we battled about it. She would call me up and even say, hey, you're really stupid for doing this.

I mean, that specific word. And I appreciated the blunt honesty from her because I'm a very honest, straightforward guy. But I defended myself. I said, Diane, I have five kids. and I have to build a brand and sell my book and sell my story and get it out there. Because originally when I wrote the book, there was many reasons for it, but it wasn't really to monetize it. But now I have an opportunity to monetize it.

So why wouldn't I? That being said, she didn't understand the message and she was just trying to protect me. And I get that and keep me out of prison. But I wanted her to understand that I have a long-term goal here, which is to come out, do something legal, and do something that I can make money at, public speaking, inspiring others, giving back, where I can, you know, win and make money and not, you know, just start over when I walk out of prison. So it's already being built. I think most people in this position, you've been there, don't have that opportunity.

They just sit quiet. They get hammered by the press. They, you know, mitigate as best they can. And then they get sentenced. And then now it's time to build. And you still got to wait until you go to prison and then come out. It's like such a really it's hard enough to go to prison and rebuild. You can't get a license and almost anything.

You know, any state license, you're a felon now. And in some cases, you owe tons of money in restitution or most. And so you have to overcome so many things already. Why not give the person an opportunity to start building right away? And I really wanted to show the world that. And I think I've done a good job of actually showing people you can as long as your messaging is correct, right? Because I was remorseful for what I did. I was remorseful for the fact that there was.

you know, gambling addiction, you know, some people who were betting with me dealt with that. And then also the Shohayotani scandal that occurred. I have a guy in prison, Ipe Mazzhar, for 57 months. You know, I, he's a grown man. He made a poor decision, but I played a part in that. And I have to own that. So I tried to show that because everyone in these shoes tends to deflect, right? And I think you can deflect things that you aren't guilty of, but you should at least look in the mirror and own that first. And I think I did a good job of showing that during this whole process. Did you grow up in California? Yeah, in Cyprus, North Orange County. I grew up middle class family, you know, truly had probably a perfect childhood for the first

like 12 years of my life. So a lot of people that go to prison usually have a darker past or kind of a rough childhood. I have no excuse for that. My childhood was great. But at 12 years old, there was a big shift in my life where my dad was a Vietnam War bet. He was an entrepreneur. He was running a bail bonds company, ironically, bailing people out of jail. And he was drinking heavily, 40 beers a day, three packs of cigarettes. And that was kind of the peak. So as his alcohol abuse, you know, got bigger and bigger, my mom finally after like three or four rehabs just said enough's enough and they got divorced. And when that divorce occurred, everything changed in my life. I went from a kid that was like, you know, had the opportunity to get anything they wanted

within reason. We had the riverhouse, the boats, the jet skis, vacations, I had three brothers. So we did everything. And then now we struggled to do anything. I mean, not eat, but we struggled, you know, compared to what we were used to be living. So it was like the blanket just got pulled. And that was a really good awakening for me to real life and starting to hustle. And that's when I became a paper boy, delivering the papers and, you know, selling baseball cards and any form of hustling, led to sports gambling, poker ring. 16 years old, I was running a local poker ring in my house because my mom was gone. She was working three jobs trying to keep us in the home. My dad was pretty much non-existent at this point, drinking a ton and chasing girls and, you know, having his own life.

And so my two older brothers were kind of, one was graduate in high school, the other one was in high school. They were doing their own thing and, you know, truly weren't really around much either. So it was me and my little brother, and he was eight years old. So I just started figuring it out. I didn't want to ask my mom for money. So I started working at the racetrack. I started selling weed out of a gas station. I mean, any hustle you can think of, I was doing it.

And I became an entrepreneur like 14, 15 years old. Who introduced you to poker? Because I didn't even learn how to play poker or I still don't really know how until prison, but I was never, my friends didn't play poker as a kid growing up. Sure. So where did you get that insight into it? My family was raised, well, I was raised in a somewhat of a gambling atmosphere. So we would play yachtsy for money with my grandparents.

My grandparents would take me the racetrack. So I already knew how to bet horses at 12, 13. And then my brothers, we all kind of gambled. We had bet on, I don't know if you remember, Nintendo and Sega Genesis, all those, we would bet on that, Atari even. I mean, it didn't matter what, whatever we could gamble on. We were gambling on. So learning poker, I developed at like 12, 13 years old.

And then later, about 16, I kind of mastered. it. And then we were playing all card games. And then I learned to hustle, you know, really the art of hustling is about, you know, betting something that you have an edge on. That's really the bottom line of hustling when it comes to gambling. And I was able to out hustle my neighborhood kids and almost everything, you know, when it come to gambling because they didn't have the same things to overcome adversity, I would say. And so I depended on making money, really. And that's, they were given money from their parents and had a normal good life. And, you know, they didn't have that drive I had where I had to win. I had to make money. Do you think in a way gambling is introduced

to every kid in a young age? I mean, I remember the day is like even more playing dradle at during Hanukkah, because half my family's Jewish, you're trading gold coins to win, essentially, any type of thing, like you're betting maybe not doing chores or you're getting dessert after dinner. That concept of gambling's there, like trading something for winning. I believe. gambling, if the word gamble is so the variance of the word is really, I mean, I'm actually glad you said this because people who don't gamble do gamble. You gamble in life, right? Maybe your gamble is, you know, what career you choose. I mean, you gamble on, you know, getting in a car every day and driving to work. I mean, there's some form of gambling. But as far as financial gambling, I think we're

all introduced to it somehow, some way. You're absolutely correct. And of course, when it comes to, you know, gambling on sports or casinos, it's a little different level. And some people just don't have the stomach for it or don't get, you know, don't enjoy it. But I do believe everyone's gambling. It's just usually the best entrepreneurs are people that are most successful. They're gambling on a company or a stock and it's more educated, of course. And I think the guys at my level are gambling on, you know, flip of a coin or a card or a football player catching a pass. I mean, that's definitely not as educated. I mean, we may think. that we are by handicapping the game, but the reality is we just are chasing a dopamine rush,

which is no different than drugs or alcohol or, you know, even chasing girls, right? Sometimes it's just the rush. It's not even about the gamble per se. It's just the dopamine rush to get there. What were you hustling for? What was your goal? Did you want to go to college? Did you have a certain career in mind? At that age, I didn't care. I just wanted to make money. I didn't really know my future. You know, college was never really a thing for me other than the experience I wanted. But I was never like a scholar. And to be honest, I used the girls in my high school to help me, you know, study and cheat and do this and do my homework. My girlfriend at 15 who became my wife, she would do most of my homework.

I was more of a, I sadly, I think it developed in that hustle, a skill to where I would try to find the easy way out of everything. And that's the one thing I did learn that was negative that I carried on to this day, which led me to be sitting here in front of you, 29 days away from reporting to prison. Because the easy dollar and the easy buck, I got a high out of that of, you know, cutting a class and still getting a B or having someone else do my homework, doing the actual hard work I didn't have a problem with. But I actually had more enjoyment of cutting that out and making, you know, finding a way around it, which really is a talent in itself. But it's lazy. It's not putting in the grind. I mean, I put it in the grind now. But there's ways to, you know, you monetize that and use that skill, skill set, especially in different ways.

And I chose sports gambling and a business that was clearly a shortcut. And I made a ton of money doing it. But I always knew in the back of my mind that I had to look over my shoulder and this day could come. And, you know, actually I knew. It's baseball, but so much more. Go bananas for banana ball with ESPN on Disney Plus. The greatest show in sports. Are you kidding me?

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Get started at redfin.com. Own the dream. It would come, to be honest. How would you describe your character at the time as that 16, 17-year-old kid? I would describe my character as a hustler, but I was raised properly. I definitely had manners, respect. My dad was a Vietnam vet. So, like, you know, if we got out of line, we got our ass whooped.

And there was no question that we had to respect people, especially elders. And so being raised properly and then watching my dad leave and then not having that, you know, I'm going to say strong mentality of someone who's overriding everything you're doing, kind of made me start lapsing and making more, you know, poor choices and judgment to where, you know, I was the hustling mentality became more of, I'm going to say like I fell for that because it was the quick buck, the easy dollar, but also it was allowing me to have my own freedom and security, whereas I was scared losing this lifestyle that we had and all the things that were comfortable to a young kid where you're raised and you have this love in the house.

And so when they got divorced, I went straight to lay work. You know, I didn't really know what I was doing, but I just figured it out. And in that work process was just straight hustling. I mean, any format, whether it's baseball cards, I would drive around the neighborhood. I had tons of baseball cards. And if I saw you, Ian, you know, outside playing, hey, Ian, you got cards. And you say, yeah. And I said, well, let's do some trading.

And I would bring a box of dog shit cards. And I would trade you for 12 amazing cards that you don't even understand the value. Ken Griffey Jr. and Mark McGuire rookies. And you're getting this box of all these players that are commons. And you thought you got a great deal. And I walked out with, you know, maybe $180 with the cards back then. And so that, you know, instilled that hustle in me of how do I, you know, find edges, which, yeah, I'm taking advantage of people.

But to me, you know, at that point in life, I just had to look out for myself. And, you know, so it was instilling kind of a bad aura. But that hustle mentality carried on to where I am today, to be honest. Do you think if your parents never got divorced, you never would have chose the path that you ended up going down? Yeah, I don't want to blame. I hate to be a victim because I'm not. So I want to say that first and foremost, but I do believe that my path would have been better because your upbringing is everything, how your parents raise you, and what your surroundings are and what you witness as a young kid really is who you become. They always say you end up like your parents and we all try to

act like we don't, but a lot of the things we do are based on our parents, parents, you know, peers. So, and that's why it's so important kids who they hang out with is everything. That being said, again, I'm not a victim, but I do believe that my path would have been a little bit different, no question, as far as the hustle mentality, the grind, the drive. I maybe would have been an accountant or, you know, some sort of a regular job, so to speak, you know, because I had that opportunity later anyway, so I have, again, no excuse. But I always chose the short path, that easy way out. And I think being in that environment of like grinding to the point where you don't want to lose everything, because we end up losing our house.

And my mom moved into a mobile home park. And, you know, I had to move out on my own at 18. I got caught selling weed. My mom kicked me out. All of those things were because I was hustling and I was just trying to have my own way and my own life. Did you end up graduating in high school? I did. I graduated high school.

I went on my, my mom kicked me out about six months before graduation. And by then I had my own truck. I was probably making 30 grand a year, which is a lot. This is, you know, 1993. I wasn't even born yet. Yeah, a long time ago. I'm 50 now. So, yeah, I was 32 years ago.

And 30 grand a year, 32 years ago is worth probably 200,000 now. I mean, I'm exaggerating, but quite a bit. And I was making a lot of money on the poker. I was making a lot of money selling weed. I was making money on baseball cards. So I bought my own car. I mean, I really didn't have struggle for money at that age. And at 18, when I got kicked out of my house, I was still in high school.

So I moved into my buddy's house with his mom. And we went on a senior trip. I came home and I found right when we walked in, there was a scale and two pounds of weed. So I got kicked out of her house now. So I decided to shut that down, which, by the way, I've never even done drugs in my whole life. I was just selling, you know, a little bit of weed. It was more of a business to me. I was more excited about the entrepreneur side.

To this day, I still never have done any drugs. Never even tried cocaine. But point is, that hustle and that drive pulled me into doing things that I wasn't even into, you know. But I just wanted to be a business guy because my brother sold some weed and I thought it was cool. But at 18, when I came back for my senior trip, I had to really grow up. So that's when I finally had my first taste of, like, reality. When I say reality as an adult. Now I had to go get an apartment.

I moved into a dumpy apartment in Huntington Beach, California. And I got a job at the John Wayne Airport, stacking books and magazines, kind of the clerk there. And then I would work there six to two. And then from 2.30 to 10, I worked at Mossimo Clothing Company, you know, a warehouse job. So both these jobs are minimum wage and working, you know, literally 80 hours a week. And on the weekends, I would bet sports and go to the track and blow all the excess money because I was a degenerate gambler and I wasn't good at it.

And so I would owe bookmakers money. I started developing all these bad habits and problems and, you know, barely paying my bills, borrowing money to, you know, just pay these basic essential bills. And it was the life was headed down the wrong path. Clearly didn't go to college. I couldn't afford it and didn't want to anyway. So fast forward about, I think we had a one-year lease or a six-month lease. And as the lease is ending, I knew my path was bad.

So my mom gave me an opportunity to move back to the mobile home park that she now moved into, which was really pride-swallowing because we had this, you know, life of a big home in Cyprus and a very good life. So now my mom lives in a mobile home park. And it's a double-wide, two-bedroom mobile home park. My mom was in one room. My brother was in the other. And after six months of living in an apartment by myself, going nowhere, my ex-wife gets pregnant.

So here I am 18 years old. have no path, no future really, and now I'm going to bring a baby in the world, and I can't even take care of myself. So it was like this reflection of like, I need to really get my shit in order here. I'm about to bring a baby in the world. So we decided to move in with my mom and we didn't have a bedroom. So we're on the couch of a mobile home park. Very pride swallowing. When I envision a mobile home park, I think white trash, I think M&M, I think, you know, which is fine. I mean, but it's still pride swelling, right? So I go on this mobile home park and I'm working these jobs that are endless or have no future. And I said, you know what? I need to make at least real money now that I have

a baby coming. So the only job I really thought of was being a waiter because waiters make good money for an 18 to 35 year old range. I mean, you can make money even as a 45 year or 50 year old. But to bring a baby in the world and make really decent money at that point, I was like, I'll be a waiter. So there was this local area in Dana Point, California, where we lived that was establishing a new restaurant. It's called Chevy's Mexican food chain. So I went in the restaurant, this guy, GM sits me down, interviews me. I use my charisma and I said, I'd like to be a waiter. And he says, well, we can hire you as a busboy.

You have no waiting experience. And I said, okay, how long will it take me to move up? And he's like, depending on your abilities, not too long. I said, all right, then I'll take it. So I'm serving chips and salsa and replenishing water. But I started making more than the waiters were because I realized I had an opportunity where there's a very affluent area. Wealthy people with nice watches coming in and you just felt the vibe of money. And it was a really a nice exclusive area.

So I started pitching myself for possible opportunities without overpitching it, you know, telling these people that I have aspirations and et cetera. So this particular couple kept coming in, and they asked to sit in my section. I didn't have a section. I was a bus boy. So the waiters were getting upset that I was overpowering them by making more money, but they just didn't do their job. I made up for whatever their lack of service was.

And this couple comes in and they say, hey, listen, the wife actually says, we would be interested in having you come down and do an interview. And I said, I'm in, let's go. So I get in my hoopty car, and I drive down to, I go to Marshall. and get a cheap tie. And I go down in this interview. And this couple was really nice when they came in the restaurant.

So his name was Mickey. And a very successful guy. He's 28 years old, driving a Ferrari. He's got a $6 million home, whatever it was. And I walk into this building. It was like Wolf of Wall Street.

I walk in this building and you see all these young guys. And mind you, when I first pull up, I'm in this $400 beater. There's Ferraris, Mercedes. I mean,

all the cars of 18-year-old kid dream. of and I walk in there and the environment was just chaos. Exactly what you see on Wolf of Wall Street. Guys yelling are on the phones, headsets, just this vibe that was so exciting, right? I had no idea what it was. Zero. I sit down for this interview and he grills me for an hour and a half. And when I see grills me, he's literally belittling me. Why didn't you go to college? How did you knock up your girlfriend? What is your future? Why would I hire you? I mean, it just grinds me, right? So I walk out of this interview. I'm like, there's no way I got this job. And he calls me back and about a week later for interview number two. So I'm, oh, okay. So I go down there and it's another

hour of just belittling. So after about 40 minutes or so, I just said, you know what? His name is Mickey. I said, Mickey, I'm sorry, but I think you're misinterpreting who I am. I'm a guy who's going to work harder than anyone you have in this company. I'll prove it. You've seen me at the restaurant. There's a reason you had me here. Let's be real. I didn't go to college. I'm not going to make excuses for some of the poor choices I've made to this point. But if you want a kid who's going to come in here and work harder than anyone and sponge everything that you guys are doing here, I don't even know what it is, don't care. I just see that there's opportunity and money. I'm motivated by money. Give me an opportunity. If you want to continue to tell me what I haven't done in my

life, we can sit here as long as you want. And because I kind of fought back a little bit, I think that's why he gave me the job. So I was so excited. He gives me a job. I don't even know what the job is. don't even know where it is in the company, don't care. It's $1,200 a month, working 60 hours a week as the mailroom boy. Okay, so, but I'm happy. That's actually decent money for me at that time. And it's in Irvine, California. So I get the job. I start working with him. But what I didn't realize, Ian, is that I'm working for him as he's my mentor. I'm as personal assistant while I'm doing the mail job. So reporting him, taking his calls, like just handling all his personal stuff. And so I got the sponge, the smartest guy I've ever met in my life.

I'm like, this is the greatest job in the world. And so we developed this great, really, friendship, even though I'm just working for them. But what happens was back then there was no internet. So all the phone calls that come in, I'm on the phone and I'm transferring the calls to the broker of the day. And when I transfer the phone call, I hit mute on the headset. Instead of hanging up like I'm supposed to, I would just sponge and learn everything, all the sales are doing. and it was a commodity brokerage firm. So now I'm realizing what commodities are, soybeans, crude oil, gold, silver, no idea, right?

So I'm like, wow, this is exciting shit, man. I can't believe what I'm listening to. So as I heard all these different variables of like sales guys, I think I'm pretty good at selling. I've already proven that with the Orange County Register. And when I was 14, I won the record in Orange County for sales, won my mom a trip to Waikiki. and when I was competing against 18-year-old kids. And if I knocked on the door and you answered, you were buying the Orange County Register,

whether you wanted it or not. There's no way you're getting me out of there, unless you slammed it my face. But the point is I learned that grit, hard work determination, and that grind. So now I'm seeing that, wow, I can make real money. These guys are driving cars. I mean, they're making big money.

And they all liked me because I was really good at my job, sending out their starter kits right away, you know, handling the customers when they first contact was me, and I would set it up the best I could. And it was a simple job, but I really mastered it. And so now I realize there's a Series 3 license is what I need to get to be a broker. So I started studying it all my downtime, weekends. I've never studied anything like this from my life that hard. So as you know, I didn't really study in school.

So I'm like, okay, I make these flashcards. about six months go by, I go to Mickey and I say, Mickey, I want to take the Series 3 exam. He's like, what are you talking about? You're in the mail room. You got to wait until you, you know, you get promoted to an assistant broker. We don't sponsor, it costs money. You know, we can't waste the time and the money for, you know, just to put some kid in front of the test. I said, I hand him the stack of cards, and I said, well, just ask me any question. Let's see if I know what I'm talking about. So he grabs them and he asks me like three or four questions, and, of course, I answer him. He's like, okay, you seem like,

actually, you've really been studying. I said, more than you know. I said, he goes, well, let's wait until we promote you and then we'll give you the opportunity right away. And I said, no. I said, I'll make you a deal. If I don't pass the exam, you can fire me. I'll quit. I'm that confident. He's like, you want to risk your job. I said, I'll risk everything. He's like, all right, you got it. So I go in, I take the series three exam, pass it. Seventy-eight-three. You have to get 70 on both parts, barely pass the rules and regulations. And one of the best days of my life, first taste of real success. So I have this exam from the government that shows that I took this state exam. I now am licensed series three broker at 18 years old.

Well, I have a license to be a broker. So I go back to the company and he hires me as an assistant broker now promotes me. And I'm now working for the top broker. So I have the sponging of now working for the best broker there. And so I got the best sales training. One year goes by, we break every record in the company. We're number one competing against all these, there's probably 90 brokers. And he makes a lot of money. He's bonusing me. I'm making really good money for a 19 year old kid. And fast forward, about maybe a year goes by of me working for this guy. And he says, Mickey pulls me in and says, I have an opportunity for you. You've proven yourself. I'm opening a brand new discount brokerage firm. It's called New Hall Discount. I want you to open it and run it. You've

shown me your loyalty. I said, I mean, another taste of great success, right? So here I am turning 20. I go open this brokerage firm because what was happening then is we were charging $95 for a trade. Now it's like a dollar or two, you know, today. People were leaving and going to firms for lower rates because we were charging a lot. So he opened this firm to kind of handle that. Anyone leaving, I would save the deal, get them to come with us, and we'd charge 55 bucks. So in doing so, I now am promoted to working for myself. I'm a broker. So I build this portfolio.

I basically became the number one retail broker in the world for 11 years straight. And in that process, at 21 years old, the home that my parents lost came up for sale. So I bought it. I moved back into my home in Cyprus, California. a two-year-old daughter sleeping in the room I grew up in. I'm sleeping in my parents' bedroom. A little eerie, but really cool. And I had a Mercedes. I come in the neighborhood, all these guys who I work with are just baffled by my success. And I'd say about 40 of them I hired to work for us. And they all end up making a shit ton of money. And that's when it all started. That's

where my bookie business started developing. Because now I make real good money. I still love sports and gambling more than anything. That was my advice. And I'm developing a situation where I have all these guys making a shit ton of money. And they're spending it on hookers, cocaine, and gambling. Because most of them aren't family guys or if they are, they're still fucking around. And my vice was gambling. I wasn't in drugs or hookers.

So let's just make this the best of the both world. So I was still betting with bookies and screwing around on my own and still a degenerate. But I was like, you know what, if I keep losing the bookies, which I did the rest of my life, I can get it fed from this business. So I started developing, you know, a bookmaking business, taking sports bets. And that started superseding the money I was making as a commodity broker. And so at 21, 22, I started making $3,000 to $700,000 a year as a broker. But then I was making more than that as a bookmaker.

So now I started developing going to Las Vegas and bring in a, you know, $300,400,000 and eventually got up to where I was bringing later in life two, three million. How did you know how to set up the bookie business? Were you just watching the bookies you were betting with? Or was it like YouTube? Was YouTube around at that point? Yeah. YouTube wasn't even around. So how would you get the knowledge? Yeah. So because I've been gambling since I was like 12 and I've bet with many bookmakers at this point, I saw how they ran their operation and I knew I could do it better. I mean, basically anyone watching this video My advice to them is always sponge what you want to do from somebody who's successful and then make it your own.

And you can always do it better based on what you learn, right? That has really been my biggest form of success because I didn't even know how to do social media until a year ago. I started my social media account, right? I'm still learning. I'm still sponging from people and trying to be better at it, right? But the point is you have to master it by learning from people that are better at it than you and then make it your own. To answer your question, I developed basically taking action from the players that I had relationships with. And then what happened was the internet came along.

And I saw a vision of scalability. And so I was one of the forefront guys to go over to Costa Rica and not open a shop, but hire a shop. It's called a per head shop. What that means is they have a facilitation in Costa Rica that they handle call centers, internet, for online wagering. And I couldn't scale my business because I was answering the phone myself with like 30 to 50 guys, not even that big. But now I said to myself, if I can have these guys do all the hard work, which is really taking the bets, and it's all on a service on a computer, the numbers are set for me. I can probably make this thing tenfold what it is. And that's exactly

what I did. And so by the internet and by the scalability of the business, I took it from a local operation in Orange County and made it global. Yeah, so when people think Booky, they think you're going to the bar and handing in some money and they're writing it down in a journal. Correct. This was way bigger than that. That's how it started. And yes, that's how I envisioned it.

But when the internet came around, I saw it as an absolute business. And then no, that whole model was long gone. My operation became, I was moving $5 to $7 million on Mondays throughout the country, Australia, Hong Kong, you know, even mostly United States, but even those other countries. And getting the money from A to B was probably the biggest challenge. But growing the business was me scaling the operation by training agents to, so to understand an agent. An agent is a person that works under my operation.

And what they do is they develop customer base underneath them. And I'm the house of all the action. So let's say you have 10 guys that want to gamble. you would set them up on my website. You would handle those 10 players paying them and collecting with my money. And then you would take a percentage, anywhere from 10 to 50% of all the proceeds, but you have no risk. And all you have to do is manage them, make sure they pay, make sure they're solid people. They're not just some guy you met at a bar. It's like a true friend of yours and maybe his uncle or whatever. And you would manage that. That's how I scale it even more,

because I can only talk to so many people. But if I have a network of people that I could be the house and I have the money to back it, they can just kind of go out there and get business. So car dealerships were great. I had a lot of guys who were car sales guys or GMs at car dealerships. All those guys gamble. So they get 30 guys at a car dealership. You know, and they show up at work and they bring their money every Monday or Tuesday or get paid.

Golf courses, prime spot. I mean, every golf, almost every golfer gambles, whether it's on golf, or sports or something. Were you taking credit card payments too? I didn't really do credit cards. It was hard because I didn't have the, you know, the ability to run a stripe or whatnot. But I would use, if I had to, I could use a credit card to like pay something. But I would take almost any form of payment.

Venmo, cash app, Apple Pay, crypto, wires, checks, cash, watches, cars. I've received an Audi, A4s. I've received all kinds of stuff. But when you first started that didn't exist. No, no, they didn't have Venmo or cash up. So how would you do online payments at the time? When it first came online, I didn't receive any online payments. There's checks and cash.

But as Venmo and cash up and all that, that made my job even easier to move the money around the country. And some of the issues were like, to give you an example, let's say I have a guy in Pennsylvania and he wins eight grand. So now I have to figure out how does he want to be paid? you know does he want Venmo cash app or cash and if it's cash I have to FedEx 8,000 to them or get a driver or somebody to fly to him but for eight grand I wouldn't do that so you FedEx them or UPS on the money so there's a lot of ways around it but that's the logistics part that was so

complicated especially when you're dealing at my peak was about 1200 customers when I was rated by the feds I had about 750 but I had more that owed me money they weren't actually gambling so at 750 is big but it's still small compared to most of these sites and you got rated in fairly recent time. So was it more of an exclusive type community that you're dealing with? Yeah, I was more of the high-end Molly's game for poker for me would be more my description as a sports book. So there's a lot of bookmakers that had 2,000 clients, but they have guys betting $500 a game. My 800, let's call it, the average bet is probably $10,000 a game. You know, I have guys that are tycoons, entrepreneurs, athletes,

celebrities that were betting through my site, which I don't disclose in the book because I still have that respect for them and didn't want to out them just because I got in trouble. But they were, you know, very wealthy individuals that they know they could trust that they were going to get paid for 500,000 or $500,000 or $1 million in a week when they, you know, would win or lose. I mean, the figures were very, very big. Now, say you'd taken $5 million in one week, say a week during NFL season and basketball season, how much is that would you end up winning?

Like is your share after all of a sudden done? It varies because the reason I say I can't answer that question is because I could have took in $5 million in volume, which is small, by the way. I would say more like, to be honest, I would say more like 50 million in volume. But then in that particular week, I might lose a million. I might actually have to pay out a million dollars or I could have netted $3 million my way. after agents and paying the website and, you know, it's just runners and all the logistics. But on average, in 2003, I think I filed on my return. I made, I don't know, 14 to 15 million.

Net. Yeah. Now, were you claiming all this money? I know you said you filed. Yeah, so everything was legitimate. I did in 2023. I actually overfiled that meaning, well, I filed the correct return, but I had to pay taxes on money I didn't even receive from people I got stiffed on. but my 2022 return that I'm charged for, I tried to defend this with the IRS, but they didn't accept it, which was I sent 600 and I think it was 680 or 640. I don't remember 600.

They even said in the courtroom, my attorney said in the plea to the government, I sent 600 and whatever it was, $1,000 to the federal government for the IRS. But they had me making $4.8 million, I think it was. And what our argument was and what wasn't acceptable was that I of the 4.8 million, I lost $4 million in casinos that year. Offsetting action, betting sports against my business, hedging stuff. They wouldn't accept that because I was running an illegal business. They wouldn't allow me to offset my gambling against it. That's why I received a charge for 2022 for falsified tax return.

So my charge, you know, it looks again, sensationalized media says, tax fraud or, you know, you know this, you've seen it. But it doesn't explain the real truth behind it. I was living, I'm a father of five. I have a, I live in a five million dollar home. I mean, you don't buy a home without having tax returns and paying taxes. So, you know, and I bought multiple properties. I've been doing it in my whole life. So I filed as a professional gambler. And I sent a lot of, I sent millions of dollars to the IRS. So it wasn't like I was completely not paying the right amount. I wasn't paying the right amount. But I, I wasn't paying the right amount. Don't get me wrong. I'm not deflecting. I definitely committed a crime by not paying the

proper amount. But I thought by filing as a professional gambler, I could offset my gambling. But their perception is you made money illegally, you pay the taxes, and what you do with it from there is on you, even though I was offsetting a lot of it through the casinos or other bookmakers. But that was, you know, when you're doing something illegal, you don't really have much of an argument. Now, you're watching people lose money through you. That's how you make money. Why would you still go out and gamble yourself? That's a great question. Everyone's been telling me that for 30 years because I love it. And it's an addiction. And the dopamine rush is unlike anything you've ever witnessed. You know, I've never done heroin, right? But when you talk to a person who's done heroin,

they describe the highest being the highest high and they always chase that first high, right? I imagine the dopamine rush of betting $4.6 million in a football game, which is what I did in 2003. So when you have a $9 million bet on a game in three hours, I can't tell you the amount of dopamine rush is going through your body. And that's a feeling that you always chase as a gambler. Some people are smart about their gambling. They don't gamble for dopamine rush. They gamble for, it's very, very small, minus less than 1%. to make money. Most people gamble for the entertainment and the rush of the gambling. I took it to a different level. That's me. That's why I've never done cocaine. I would do a line of cocaine and I would

do a pound of it because that's my personality. There's no governor in me. It's go, go, go. And it's a good thing if you harness it correctly. But I didn't harness it correctly when it came to A, picking an illegal business or B, my personal gambling. And I knew I would lose because it's a track record of losses over years. I mean, tons of millions of dollars, but I still wanted to beat something that was unbeatable. And people who gamble, especially through bookmakers or on sports, will understand what I'm saying. But people who don't will be like, you're an idiot. And I get that because I look at a person who has a drug addiction. And to me, I'm like, well, you're an idiot. Why don't you just quit? Well, it's easier, sad than done, because I'm not the one who's had that high. So I don't,

I've learned a lot about judging people over the last two years, especially, because I think we're all guilty of that. And especially if you've never walked on their shoes. But now that I've walked in some different shoes that I'm used to walking in, I really don't. I shouldn't say I don't. I try not to judge people at all, whatever their vices or problem. Because now that I've felt that heat, which you have as well, and now that I'm walking into prison, who am I to judge somebody and say that I'm better than them? or I couldn't do that.

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you can go see the game live. Don't just dream about the trip. Book it with Priceline. Download the Priceline app or visitpriceline.com. Actual prices may vary, limited time offer. I should never have done that. When I've done some things, I should not. Now, because you're dealing with, I guess, people that are wealthier and a specific group of individuals and you're more selective.

Right. What about when it comes to them paying when they lose? I'm sure you're extending credit and whatnot. How would that look? It looked a lot more aggressive when I was younger. You just had Owen Hanson here, a great friend of mine, the California kid. There's his California ice protein right there, which I'm proud of him. He's overcoming adversity. But our relationship started with me betting with him. I don't know if you know this story. I'll give it to you because it's really good. I went to Vegas. Well, let me back pedal. I met Owen. Started betting with him. First week I won, I think it was like $110,000 on them.

No, I'm sorry, that's not true. I won like $80-something from him. And he came and paid me. He's very honorable. The second week, I lost 100-something thousand to him. But I went to Vegas that weekend and blew a bunch of money, like two million. I came home. My operation got beat up too. So I owed like a million. So all of my excess cash was toasted. And I had to pay Vegas and I had to pay my operation. That's first and foremost. And so Owen, I put on the back burner on that list. And we've never met. We only met the first week. He actually wired the money. The second week was when I, had to make that phone call and say, oh, and I'm sorry, but you're going to get paid, but I'm going to need a few weeks. And, you know, you don't know this business, but in the

bookmaking world, when you take someone's money and then you don't pay them the very next week, their money back at least, that is like a cardinal saying. You might as well try to sleep with her wife. I mean, it's really the worst thing you could do. And so I said, I addressed that immediately because that's how I work. And I said, look, I'm a degenerate. I just blew a bunch of money. I got to pay my customers. He's like, I'm not, I don't, I don't give a flying shit. What you got to say? You're going to pay me.

And I respected that. And I said, listen, I just told you you'll get paid. It's going to be a few weeks. He's like, that's unacceptable. So then I have a really, I'm a very kind guy, but I have a little bit of a temper when I'm disrespected. And even though I deserved it, I didn't want to hear it because I was in really good shape and thought I was a tough motherfucker, which was really funny because I'm, I'm,

After training Jiu-Jitsu, I realized I'm not. And so I said, if that's a problem for you, then we can handle it however you like. And Owen said, well, that is a problem. I said, well, how about I just fucking text you my address, motherfucker, and we'll find out what kind of problem it is. He says, no problem. Give it to me right now. Gave him my address. He jumped in his fucking car and his rangerover and drove right to my house.

So I laced up my shoes, and I told my ex at the time, I said, I'm going to have a little altercation here in about 40. five minutes because he was coming from Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach. And I said, okay, so I sat on the porch, never met him. Owen pulls up in a white range rover, and I'm in a Lisa Vio, California. He comes to a gated community, and he kind of pulls up fast, gets out of the car, and you saw him, he's a big guy. And back then, by the way, he was tatted up from neck down. He had them all removed. So his entire body was tatted, and he was pretty jacked. And in my mind, I said, fuck, this. And he's, you know, He's seven years younger than me. And I said, fuck.

But I was in really good shape then, much better than I am now. And I also thought I was invincible, you know. So I stood up and I said, I guess we're going to dance, huh? And he came around the car and he started smiling. And then I knew I could see the look in his eye. Like, you know, you could tell when you're about to getting in a squabble. And I could tell that he didn't want to fight. And he came over.

He says, man, I got to meet this guy that's got more ball. than I do. And I said, then I kind of, you know, took a deep breath because I was like, fuck. First of all, I don't want to brawl at my house. I have kids. Number two, I was in the wrong. And number three, this guy had a lot of nerve to come down, you know, call me out. So anyway, I ended up giving him like, I had like 10 grand. I had more money, but I had to keep it for my business. I gave him like 10 grand just to show them good faith. We hit it off. We've been friends ever since. And that was literally 15 years ago. How much, on the topic of cash, how much would you say on average were you keeping in cash on you?

I had 12 million at my peak in cash. That was the most I've ever had in my life. I'll never forget it because I couldn't believe it. I counted it like 10 times. That was the peak of my cash. But, you know, sometimes 2 million, sometimes zero, sometimes five. It really depended on my gambling, my personal gambling, my business, just all, I mean, I had so many things going on because the way I gambled was so high myself. it actually superseded my business at times. Because when you're taking, you know, $2 million to a casino, literally every two weeks, you could win $5 million or you could blow $5 million. And that changes your net worth drastically because I'm not Jeff Bezos. I don't have that kind of money. So, you know, I was literally gambling my entire net worth sometimes or even more than I had because I knew I always had the business to back it up.

And I knew I always would make money and always repay any problems I created. but that's the dopamine rush and the gambling talking. You know, the smart man would be, you know, risk 10% of your bankroll or, okay, I've lost three trips in a row,

shut it down. The gambling addict is going to be like, I just lost three trips. I'm not going to lose four. Let's go get it back. Let's go. And you get on a private jet. And the other problem is if people don't realize

is when you gamble at that level, the white glove service that I was receiving is unlike anything unmatched in the world. I mean, I would be sitting with you today talking about gambling and kind of excites me, right? And I would just text my wife right now and say, hey, you know, babe, let's go to Vegas. I'm ready. And pack up our stuff.

She'd pack up from my boy, my little boy, and the nanny, we'd jump on a plane. Within two hours, Resorts world would have a literally G550 sitting on John Wayne Airport at the ACI jet private. You know, we would be there in two hours. Within three hours, I'd be in Vegas, in my room with $2 million, ready to do. gamble. And the room we were in, it was 8,000 square feet with a pool, three butlers, movie theater room in it, caviar, lobster, Screaming Eagle, Louis, whatever we wanted. If we wanted peanut butter cookies with M&Ms on it, that's what you're getting. If my son wanted a particular set of diapers in a crib, that was delivered.

The service is unlike anything in the world. And then we go to dinner, and the dinner might cost 14. In fact, I put a picture on my website of one of our dinners because some of the things I say sound so chaotic that I think people don't believe me, right? Because it's, it's crazy. So I just put pictures of proof on my website, Matthew boyer.com. I have a picture of a dinner was $14,500 at Gisovar. There was four of us. I see a lot of these types of receipts, like on social media and stuff. I'm like, how does someone spend that much on a dinner? I know a lot of it's alcohol related like the bottles. In my case, most of it was wine, of course. but the dinner itself was probably three grand still so much i mean my most expensive dinner for two

people i think it was like 500 bucks uh well or 50 i can tell you that i've had a dinner with a mutual friend of ours uh mr hot rod i call him at nobu at caesar's palace he came and so he's seen a lot of this firsthand and our dinner was 8500 i remember because i was like nobu's very expensive yeah we were ordering actually liquor too but nobu can get ugly quick uh if you order you know the high-end tunas and whatnot with we had a a big group, like 10 of us. But anyway, that dinner in particular was 8,500. But these experiences, I mean, I've been at nightclubs with Calvin Harris,

$50,000 for our table. I mean, that's ridiculous, right? I would never pay $50,000 on my pocket, but I was getting it comp. So, you know, I've been at private concerts with Pitbull, meet and greets with Andre A bechelli. My wife and I have been every casino in the country, Monte Carlo, Bahamas, Dominican Republic, Panama. I closed down a casino in Panama called the Ocean Sun.

I won four million there. I never lost. They're out of business now. Well, they're actually open. They've slot machines only. So I've experienced the highest highs and the lowest lows. I mean, when I was in Monte Carlo, I was with these Russian oligards that had a $400 million yacht parked out front. I mean, literally, I mean, I have pictures of the yacht.

It looked like a spaceship. How much would these casinos extend you in credit? And I bring it up because I was just reading an article in Connecticut. We have Boxwoods and I'm a vegan. And there's a movie exec. I think Warner Brothers or something. Right. All these articles are coming out.

He's being sued for owing $25 million. Sure. And you look at it like, how did you even get to the point of being extended $25 million in credit? So they'll extend you credit based on how much equity you have in your, not your home, but in your bank account. And how often you come, how much you gamble, how, you know, how many times you've paid. Mine was $2 million. And they wouldn't go higher than $2 million because I was a bookmaker and they knew it, even though they act like they didn't.

And I never really carried a large bank balance. My bank balances were at my peak, $3, $4 million, because I was dealing in cash. So I might have seriously $300,000 in my bank account sometimes, but I'd go to a casino with a $2 million credit line because they knew that, you know, I would pay it in cash or I would pay it. So it's really interesting because the casinos are, by the way,

that's part of what my, this is why I got into this case. It's all based on the casinos. they're currently having an issue with the federal government right now because they allowed KYC know your customer rule to be looked aside so to speak, especially in my case. And because of that, they're supposed to follow those guidelines, right? If a bookmaker is coming in and he has an income for owning, let's say, a subway for 60 grand a year, how is he betting $300,000 on a hand of Baccarat? Because that's what I was betting, $300,000 at my peak. per hand every 30 seconds. So you can't explain that. I don't own a subway, but I own a jujitsu studio. But I filed as a professional gambler. And I made big money on my return, but not

where I could afford to bring, I lost $13 million of resorts world in a year and a half. What would happen if you didn't pay their credit? When does it start to get to, like, I guess, vicious in a way? I'm sure they're not sending people to your house. No, they did in the old days, though, I mean, 20, 30 years ago when the mob was there, yeah, it was a different story. But now it's so corporate and now they fall. They actually have the best collection agency in the world. It's called jail. So in Clark County, Nevada, if you write a check for over $250 or more and it bounces and you don't make it right,

they will take you the district attorney's office. You'll pay a 10% penalty. They'll give you a six-month window to make payments and pay it off. And if you don't, they'll arrest you and put you in jail. So now, say you use your whole $2 million credit line at the case. right how long do you have to pay that back 30 days 30 days from you can get an extension though like you know they'll work with you within reason but the marker is basically set for 30 days and what happens if you don't pay it on day 31 you better be calling them because what they're going to do is drop the marker

through your bank account as a check because a marker is basically a check you're writing to the casino for that allotted amount oh so it's like an a Cache type transfer that you're it's like an e that's correct oh so if it bounces that's how they that's a leverage that's how you that's how That's the crime. Have you ever had that happening? Oh, many times. Absolutely. I'm a degenerate. But would you always pay it? I ended up paying it. But I've even been taken to the Clark County District Attorney. The win did that to me. I lost $3 million in a weekend and came home. My business got beat up. Same situation. And I couldn't, I had to pay my customers. And I couldn't pay the win on time. And they weren't willing to really work out a payment structure that I could handle. So they took me

the DA's office. No, in your situation, though, you probably had good cash flow because you're a bookie too. Isn't it, in essence, kind of like a big Ponzi scheme? Like, there's still an actual investment being made because you have the business, but you're just using, you're floating one person's bet to pay off your other bet because you keep losing. Yeah, I mean, Ponzi scheme would be definitely the wrong analogy. And I say that because, I mean, the bookmaker's job is really to take the action from all players and just pay the winners with the loser. money and then whatever's left over is for him to keep or pay all the winners use the losers to pay and then of course if you lose more still because sometimes they win more than you lose you got to

pay out of pocket so in a sense you could rob from peter to pay paul but you have to cover all the winning bets or you're going to go out of business because you know if you were a customer in mine and i don't pay you and let's say some of these other people are friends of yours you're just going to tell him he doesn't pay they're not going to stop betting i'm going to lose my business you can't As a bookmaker, you have to pay your customers. So even if you were losing big and owed other bookies, you wouldn't use the money that people were given you until those bets were settled? I would pay my customers first and foremost.

Okay. So you always waited for the bets to settle for the week, and then you would take whatever money was left to cover your loss. Absolutely. And my customers got paid before, literally before I put a diaper in my son. And I'm saying that sarcastically, but the truth be told, that was the bread and butter. I knew that. and you have to pay your customers and paying other problems that I created, whether it was the

win or Las Vegas casinos or bookmakers, I would pay that, but I would pay that as my last resort. And, you know, that's not the right attitude. You know, if you create a debt, you should just pay it. But when you're a guy who's gambling, you know, extensively over your bankroll, which I was, you create problems. And I'm guilty of that. So I think the reason I was such a good bookmaker, is because I was also a player.

I was a gambler. So every feeling that that person on the other side of the phone with me had, I've had times 10. And I would resonate with that and tell them. I'd say, look, whatever you're feeling right now, pretend it's you, Ian, I'd say, Ian, you owe me 25,000, whatever the number is, doesn't matter. It's all relative to the person and the bankroll in their life.

I'd say, I understand the feeling. I said, we can work this out. you don't need to go and crack your 401k. You don't need to tell your wife, but you have to be reasonable and make payments. You know, how about a thousand a week? Can we start with that? No, I can't do that. Okay, what can you do? And that's where you negotiate and have a good relationship. Because ultimately, as a bookmaker, you don't want them to go broke. You don't want them to lose more than they can handle. You actually, this is where I think bookmakers are, if done properly, are better than draft Kings and Bandw because they actually have a report and relationship. I had many clients for 20, 30 years that they wanted to write letters to the judge and they lost

millions of dollars to me to say that I was, integrity was there, honest, a great person, you know, handled things professionally, never put pressure on them, work with them. Of course, that letter wouldn't do me well in court. And I was grateful that they offered that. But, you know, they really appreciated the service and the relationship that I built. And we had over a 20-year period. And I looked at it as an annuity. You know, if a guy wants to pay me 500 bucks a week for the rest of his life,

and I can allow him to actually feed his gambling addiction, you know, because I had the same thing. I know what I just wanted action as well. That's all they really want for the most part is just to have action on games and excitement. Because when you gamble on a game for whatever. the amount is that makes you feel that, whether it's $500 or $50,000, all you're looking to do is enhance the experience of a three-hour game. I mean, that's what you are gambling for. I mean, think about why people gamble. It's to enhance the experience to make it feel a little bit more,

you know, like there's something to gain, right? And of course, they want to win. I mean, everybody wants to win. You don't go to a casino or you bet with a bookie to lose. But over time, everybody knows you're probably going to lose. I mean, the casinos aren't getting built on losers, right? Or winners. I think that's evident here. And even with my own life, I mean, your question earlier is so valid. Why would you gamble when you know you're going to lose? And my answer is because I loved it. And I still thought I could win. Not over time, but in those moments, it's like, because you have scores. You know, you'll go win. I won $3.2 million at a dice table. And I'm not joking, 48 minutes. And you always chase. You always chase.

those things because you know it's plausible. But over time, you're not going to win. So do you think when you look up, when you look at all of your wins and losses, do you come out positive? No, no, definitely. I've lost millions on millions. No chance. And less than 1% do win. Overall, by the time they quit. 100%. And the only people that are winning are AI nerds with robots and algorithms that don't even watch the games, don't even know much about sports. And they're literally running, you know, a serious algorithm. It's breaking the game down 100,000 different ways. And they're not using any emotion on their gambling.

It's a business. And they have hard times getting accounts because they're so good at betting sports that they get cut off everywhere. So that's the challenge of being a bookmaker today, is you have a lot of that going on with ChatGPT and people becoming so smart and intelligent. Well, they're intelligent to use what the sources that we all have now, which is computers and robots, right?

So that wasn't really evident 10, 15 years ago. Now, going back to the Owen situation, how common is it for bookies to actually pull through on their threats? Like, you hear these stories of people threatening, they're going to hurt you. And these situations, are they actually hurting someone? Or it's just not worth it? And they're writing it off as a loss,

or you can't really get blood from a stone? I mean, every bookmaker is different, and I can't speak for all of them. but I could say in general, anyone who has a brain is running a real operation is not going to put their hands on anyone. You're exposing yourself to federal agents, to losing your business, to ruining your everything you have. I learned as I got older. I said, you know what? If I gave a customer credit and he screwed me, then it's my job.

It's my fault. I did not vet the customer properly. The referral source wasn't good. I didn't do my homework. I didn't make, you know, maybe get his driver's license and get his home address and just. make him feel a little bit more inept to pain me. I would say nowadays it's much less than ever because there's a camera on every corner as well. We all know that people just pick up the phone and call the feds and you're out of business. So even the guys who used to be, I think, a little

bit more violent, let's call it. I'm not saying hurting people, but maybe going over to the house and grabbing them by the shirt and making them pressured, I think is gone, truly. Don't get me wrong. There's still a sick world. I mean, look what happened with Charlie Kirk yesterday. And the world has some serious sickos in the world and people that are violent for no reason, let alone a reason that you give them a reason. So there are bookmakers that are going to do things that they shouldn't and be violent or put pressure on people in the wrong manner. But it's far and few between, especially the real guys are running a business properly. Now, when you think about the concept of credit, in your eyes, say you give someone $25,000 in credit who hasn't won money from you or you guys are even like he's won and then

lost and whatnot how do you look at that money if he loses and doesn't pay you a write-off like because you're not technically out anything you didn't physically give him the money correct and that's that's the point of the business where again it's just got to look in the mirror anyone who's a bookmaker needs to say to themselves i made a poor choice and judgment of giving too much credit to the wrong person and you know it's better that happens you know then as a smaller amount as opposed to for 200,000. I try to really, especially now after what I've been through and you've been through this, like when you go to prison or you've been through a federal case, you try to find all the shining lights and positivity. And when it comes to giving credit, you really have to make your, as a bookmaker,

you have to make a decision based on, again, the referral is key. What does he do for living? What does he asking you for as the dollar amounts get bigger you got to do even more of that betting you know because you're exposed because if he wins 50,000 you got to pay him so I think the bookmaker's main objective first is like how aggressive does this guy betting and what is he looking to do how much can he hurt you and then if it's not a lot giving an account to a guy for a two thousand dollar credit line if he stiffs you it's too grand you'll never talk to him again you know it sucks but whatever if it's too $200,000 or 20, and he could beat you up for that kind of money, different situation. What's the most amount of money someone's owed you?

Right now, $24 million. Currently? From Ipe Mizahara, who's currently in federal prison. And that relates to the scandal. Correct. Yeah. Another gentleman stiff me for $12 million. I walked away from $44 million that's currently owed to me throughout the country that I can't

receive. Because of the case. Yeah. And if I do receive any of that money, continue to commit a crime. Now before that, what was the most someone owed to you? Well, 12 million was the biggest before he pay. And they paid that? No, no, 12 million is the most I ever got stiffed. Getting paid, I mean, I got, that gentleman paid me almost two million before he finally did stiff me. So I've had some big payouts from people over time, but being stiffed for 12 and 24,

those are big numbers. I mean, $36 million right there and just two guys. When someone racks up a large debt, do you feel bad for them? Like, say they're a family man. Of course. I'm human. I got a heart. I'm a family guy. I mean, I'm greedy. I clearly set them up an account because I wanted to earn money off of them. So I don't, I'm not an angel. But my conversations really with people were trying to control that from happening. Not to make myself look good because I was running a legal business. But like, if I'm setting up an account, I would rather control you to where you can enjoy and have a good experience and gamble and have fun with it and keep it manageable for you. Because the main objective for a bookmaker in truth, this is like if I were teaching a class,

is how do you keep the customer to where he always puts you as number one? Because a gambler will pay his bookie first and then his bills until he can't pay his bookie. And then you go from number one on his list to dead last. and when you're on dead last, you're in a bad position. So if you can keep it manageable for that particular player, where he can pay all his bills and not affect his life and his wife and kids and his job and et cetera,

which every bookie would do that, the problem is they're not going to tell you the truth. You don't know how much money they have in the bank or how much they own credit cards or if their wife knows about it. These aren't questions you're going to pepper somebody with right away. I mean, that's just personal information that they don't want to tell you. And even if they did, they're going to lie to you anyway. So you have to feel that out as you build a relationship.

You know, like obviously the first sign of struggle of not being able to pay in full right away, you know, you start to question, okay, hey, you owe 1,800. Why can you only send 9? You know, like, it's okay. Just tell me what's going on. Oh, I'm waiting for my check to come in. Okay, well, now you know they're already gambling over their head, right? So you're not going to extend that guy a crazy amount of credit.

because even though, yeah, he might pay you over time and he's honest, you're just bearing that customer. You know, it's better to keep him manageable and let him have fun and still gamble. But they will lie to you, of course. I mean, every gambler does to get that next fix, right? Would you avoid taking bets from friends? No, I didn't. I didn't like it. But my theory was, if you're going to gamble with another bookmaker, why not give your money to me? And I'll give you. you a better deal. I'll give you a bigger discount. So it's less awkward as opposed to a transactional. And it's really a true statement. Like if you're going to lose 10 grand in a week to John Smith and he

gives you nothing and I'll give you 30% back and now you're paying me seven, even though it's a awkward transaction between us because we're friends, but it's business. You know, you're going to gamble anyway. So just gamble with me. Give your friend 7K, you know, instead of 10 to John Smith, who you don't like. And if you beat me up for 30 grand and you feel bad about it, don't. Because guess what? I have 1,200 other guys gambling with me. And that money's coming probably from someone else anyway. And guess what? You're going to lose in the long run. And this is the exact conversation I'd have with them and just say, it's business. It's okay. You're not going to hurt me by winning. But doesn't someone, doesn't the relationship, the friendship end if they owe money? Like that becomes a

soft spot. If they stiff me. Yeah, if they are not honorable and completely just tell me to go fuck myself, then yeah, because that's different. But, you know, most of my friends who were gambling with me wouldn't do that. They would say, hey, Matt, I got over my head. Can we work out a deal? You know, and I would control them because I know them. I know their personal finance. I'm not going to give them some crazy amount of credit. If the guy's, you know, runs a mailbox, et cetera, or a postal annex, I know he doesn't make enough to, afford 20 grand in a week, you know, so I'm going to keep us credit line at 3,000 or something. And if you ask for that, I'm going to say, Ian, that's, you can't afford this, man.

I'm your friend. Like, let's just keep it reasonable. Let's just have a good time and keep it to where you can afford it. And if you get on a heater and you want to bet more because you're up, different conversation. But I'm not looking to hurt your lifestyle or affect your family. What do you think is a big misconception about Buckees? Easy answer. We take people in the back of the alley with a baseball.

bat and threaten them and shake them down like Shug Knight hangs a guy over a balcony to pay. That's not even, it's a business. I was a CEO of a multi-million dollar business that was global and it was just illegal. I mean, it's no different than CEO of Verizon. I mean, I wasn't as big as Verizon, obviously, I wish, but I was running a very big business and the logistics behind the business were, I mean, fascinating, actually. I mean, I look back and I'm like, I'm like, I can't believe what I was really moving five to seven million dollars every Monday throughout the country and making sure that seven, eight hundred people are paid or paying and the movement of the money

throughout these different forms of payment is a lot of work. Like truly. And then you're also facilitating errors and a guy put it a bet wrong or, you know, there's so many like nuances. The agent has his own problem. Maybe he gambled on, you know,

set up an account for someone else that's really him. I mean, there's so many little things that go on. And you've got to pay the runner. You got to pay the website. You got to make sure all the games that you got to watch the games and make sure that you're not heavy on one side. You got to look for professionals coming through my website. Billy Walters, a famous guy, I'm sure you heard his name, probably the best sports

gambler in the history. He operates by getting beards to come bet through bookmakers and a beard for someone who doesn't know is basically someone acting as somebody else, right? using that name because it's not famous and not going to be picked off. And so he would go out and get in all these sharp professionals still do this. They go out to people and say, go get accounts and we'll give you a free 10, 20 percent of all the profits. And they walk up to bookmakers and say,

hey, my name's Ian. I want to bet sports. I'll take an account. And you don't even bet sports. You know nothing about it. But you get the account, you give it to them and they bet professionally and they win and you get 10, 20 percent until the bookmaker figures it out and cuts them off.

Like that's another problem that people don't realize being a bookmaker entails. You know, there's so many like little things, just like any business, right? So I was running a very big business and I mastered it. I'm not perfect, but I think I did a really good job of growing it to us. Crack a Cayman Jack Margarita and taste your escape. It's America's number one for a reason. Kamen Jack is a premium malt beverage with flavors. Please drink responsibly.

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Serious operation, which, of course, led me to a very bad situation. What was the most gambled on sport? Football for sure. Not even close. What do you think was the game that you thought I was going to, go one way, like a specific game and you got absolutely wiped on? There's probably 5,000 of those. I couldn't even give you one because it happens every weekend.

I'll give you an example. Last week, the Buffalo Bills played the Baltimore Ravens. Yeah. Did you see that game? I saw that, yeah. Obviously, I don't take bets anymore. I don't gamble. I watched it and, you know, the whole world was, you know, thinking Baltimore won, right?

And then all of a sudden everything went wrong for Baltimore and Buffalo pulled it out in the last second. That's what gambling is all about, though. You know, you actually feel like you're part of the team. Like if you're on Buffalo, you feel like you just threw the pass, especially when you gamble on it. I mean, it's extensively higher. And if you're on Baltimore, that depletion and how you feel and how you feel like

they call it a bad beat, you know, actually, sadly, it will drive you to want to bet more because you just got screwed per se, right? But that example is perfect because it happens every week all the time. and basketball, baseball, you name it, you know. You got a guy hits a grand slam with two strikes and bases loaded, two outs on the ninth. And, I mean, I've seen it all. I've seen everything you can imagine. You know, every bad beat in the world.

I mean, Scott Van Pelt has a show on ESPN Sports Center about, they call it bad beats. And all he plays is how, with the spread, how people lose a game in the last second of something that's so drastically almost impossible. You know, a guy like tipping a ball four times and falling into some guy in the green. rounds and I mean that's the stuff that people gamble for though because that can happen right it's anything can happen and you can get lucky and turn a small amount of money into a large amount and that's what entices people now being a high limit roller at these casinos what do you think is one thing that the casinos don't want people to know about well they don't want you to take

advantage of the the comp system to the degree that I was definitely because I milked squeeze the cow on that better than anyone um they also you know don't want you to know know about some of the other perks of like the discounts and promo chips and all still still part of a comp system. But those are all things that they don't want to offer if they don't have to. And I think high rollers learn that more than anything because they're gambling such a high level. And clearly they want people to think high rollers win. You know, over time, they lose just as much or more than regular players. But they always show you the glamorous lifestyle that were provided as a high roller, which is amazing. And they do that for a reason, right? I mean,

you know, you're on a private jet. You're getting all these things that people dream of, but at what cost, you know? What do you think are guys like Mickey? What is his name, Mickey Mays or whatever? What do you think of him? I don't know him. And again, I want to go back to the judging people without knowing or walking in their shoes. I've seen Mickey at Palazzo, actually. he was gambling very high. So some of what he says is true. Keyword some. So I can tell you that the reason I know that some of it is not true,

and he may say the same about me, which is fine. That's why I try to prove the things I do. My federal indictment says that I took $326 million in wagers from one customer. So my website shows factual data. He says things that are impossible that he was doing at a casino. know. And what I say impossible, they won't allow it. So if I went out here in this particular setting with you and said, oh, I bet $1 million on a hand of blackjack, everyone in the country would know that is complete bullshit because you cannot bet $1 million at a hand of blackjack.

I don't care who you are, how much money you bring, they won't allow it. They won't take it. You can bring $20 million. They won't do it. The amount you bet on a hand is based on how much money you bring as a bankroll. So I don't know Mickey and I'm not calling him a liar. I'm just saying that some of it seems a little bit exaggerated. Will they ban someone for winning too much? Oh, definitely. Yeah. I've been banned. I'm barred at every casino, but not for winning. And what do you get like a letter? Oh yeah. Yeah, you got a nice, or you got a nice, or you got a tap on the shoulder. I've gotten that too for counting cards in blackjack. Then I've been told that you can play carnival games, they call it, which is a nice way of saying

only the games that we can beat you at, but you can no longer play blackjack. What do you think is the best game to play at the casino? If you can count cards, it's blackjack, but you'll get picked off fast. Other than that, it's probably Baccarat, secondly, because the odds are a little bit better in your favor. But over time, if you play dice perfectly, it's probably right there with it. But the reality is you can't win over time. Baccarat is what I played.

So I was going to Empire City Casino in New York, where it's all electronic tables, because I wasn't old enough to go to Mocha. Higin Sun. Okay. That's why I got my bond revoke because I was going across state lines playing there. But I would turn like 500 bucks into like 20 grand, 30 grand. But it was all luck because it's a digital machine. Uh-huh.

I would just ride the streak. Yeah, that's what I play. Player, Player and back are at you just boom, boom, boom, and you hit it because everyone's betting against the streak. Of course they are. And then I would just, I would win. But when I add up all my losses, it like every time I went there in desperate times, like I needed to pay an artist.

I needed to pay an expense. And I'd go there with like two grand. And like, this is my last two grand. And maybe I'd get to 10 grand, but it's like you're so much in so much debt. How do you walk away at 10 when you're doing well? Yeah. So I would always lose it. If I added up in those like last year of really playing with money, how many times I lost

like that two grand or grand or three grand, I would have been better off not going. And I would have had the money I needed to cover the problem. Exactly. Well, what you just said is the exact epitome of why gambling pulls everyone in them. because you were going there for the wrong reason, knowing that you needed a large amount of money, and you know that that's the only opportunity that you saw at that moment to make that quick, easy dollar, 2000 into 30. But you also said exactly what happens over time.

You end up losing more than you, even when you win. And you do remember those scores you had, I call it a score, the score that you had where you turn two into, whatever, 10 or 12. And that's what sucks you back in because, you know, it's possible. I went to Foxwoods many times. I had a $2 million credit line there, and they flew me in a helicopter, a Sikorsky to the Red Sox game, or David Ortiz retired.

They, even though it was an old casino, it's the largest in the world, actually, they gave me a great deal because they're in the middle of nowhere, as you know, and because they're competing against Vegas, Atlantic City,

now these new casinos in the East Coast, they offer a lot better, deals for high rollers. So I would go there for that reason. So now you build up the successful business. It's running for many years, obviously. How does it come crashing down? October 5th, I was walking out with my son, putting him in my wife's car, and I heard FBI freeze. I looked over my left and I had AR rifles pointed at me with about eight or nine agents. And then once they secured the premise and secured the house with the dog and the 29 agents and brought my wife out handcuffed crying and that whole scenario, that's the moment that everything crashed. How did we get there?

Clearly, someone tipped him off, but again, back to what I said earlier, it's really related to the casinos. That's where the investigation started. There was a bookmaker in 2020 that got busted, and he had a relationship with the CEO of Resorts World. And then so it all, as you know, you've been through this, they go through your electronic devices and they just follow the, follow the money, follow the conversations, follow everything. And it leads to more investigations, which led eventually to me three years later. Why do people relate the Otani scandal to your downfall? Because I've seen some things related to that.

That's completely false. I understand why, because he's the biggest baseball player to ever walk on the, well, biggest athlete to ever walk on the planet, in my opinion. And it came out because of my case. Obviously, once again, raiding me and having me in this federal indictment is going to bring out everything that's in your phones, et cetera. And so the minute that that happened, which I got raided in October, the story broke in March. But it wasn't because of that. They didn't even know.

The federal agents had no idea that Ipe Mizahara, Shohayatani's interpreter, was gambling with me. And stealing money from Otani. And I didn't even know until March. So if you never got busted, do you think he would ever realize he was getting money stolen from? I don't. Truly. Well, let me take that back. I think he probably eventually would have realized, but I don't think it would have been what happened.

I think that my honest opinion is they would have resolved it between the two of them. I don't think he would be in prison. And I think they maybe would end their friendship or maybe work it out. I don't know, Shohayatani seems to be one of the nicest people just based on what I've seen on TV. And I've been around him and never spoke to him. He's such a kind individual from what I see. He might have just chalked up as a loss and said, I'm firing as an interpreter or maybe worked it out with him because maybe he understands gambling addiction and why he took the money. Because I don't believe the money was taken as a, you know, I mean, malice.

I mean, truly, I believe that he was feeding this addiction. I know at first hand, I was talking to him for almost two years, and he never showed any signs of distray. It was more like, in fact, he jokes about it. If you look at the text messaging that the feds put out, oh, my God, I'm so bad at this. Hey, give me another 500,000. Oh, God, I can never win. Give me another 500,000. And as a gambler, I've said it many times.

I suck at this, but let me bet again, right? It wasn't like, oh, my God, I want to kill myself. Oh, my God. I've ruined my life. None of that was ever said, because then I would have handled it. differently. Did I ever ask, you know, who was behind it? No, because animity is something I provide. And then also, when someone's sending you $500,000 every two weeks, you don't really ask too many questions. You just say, thanks. Did you know it was his interpreter at the time when you were taking

the bets? Oh, for sure. I mean, that's, I met the interpreter. That's how the relationship started. I had no idea with Shoahatani, the money until the third wire transfer. Didn't even notice. Because it came directly from its account? All of them did. Now, how much money did he actually lose? Because you said he still owes you mine to this day. So that's some of the, like, the imaginary credit that was given to him. Correct. Or given that you gave to him.

Right. So how much actually was stolen from Ohani's account? The rumor is, well, not rumor. The facts are he took $17 million. I received $16.2. I don't know. The other money, I think he bought some, you know, memorabilia and maybe did some dental work and stuff like that.

So, you know, he used some of it for other stuff. But 16.2 is what I received. and then he lost 40.2 total, so 24 million, which is, of course, never going to be paid or seen. What did you end up getting charged with after they raided you? I got charged with 10 years for money laundering, five years for falsified tax return, and three years for illegal bookmaking. And this is in what year? You said October, but October 23? 23, so almost two years ago.

Yep. Was your plan to plead guilty right away? What did that look like? No question. I told my attorney, right when she came over, I said, there's zero fight here. I mean, I got no case. There's zero chance of me winning this, nor do I even want to try. You know, and you know this.

I mean, that helps you, right? You saved them money from going after you. You plead guilty right away. You are definitely lowering your charges. And I was doing anything I could to minimize the government, spending money to go after somebody that they were going to find guilty anyway. So I told her, I said, I'll plead guilty, but I don't, I'm not talking. talking to them. And, you know, at this point, I said I would definitely help them in regards

to anything with the casino because they, they allowed the laundering. And that's why they were there, which helped me, you know, receive a lighter sentence, which a year in prison, you know, in a federal prison camp is not something I'm excited about. Let's be real. But I was looking at three to four years. So I'm very happy with the outcome. What did your wife think when you got arrested? She, you know, I've been with her 10 years. and she's never been through this before. I was raided in 2014 right before I met her. And so I always explained her what could occur,

but it doesn't matter. I mean, you know this. You could tell somebody, but unless you're going through it, you can't really tell somebody. You can't describe it. Because I think I read a story about yours, you're upstairs in your underwear

and your mom's house or something, right? Like, until you have seen federal agents with weapons and scouring your house and it feels it just feels like a hundred times bigger than it really is and i i described it to her but going through it is just 10 times different than and worse than it really is what was it like getting all that press uh on you when that happened that made it harder uh because for three months i had japanese reporters i had regular reporters i had guys flying from japan they were showing up in my jiu-jitsu studio they even showed up at my uh professor who's my partner in my studio.

He's the blackout that trains everyone. They showed up at his house in San Clement, California. I mean, that's a violation of rights, but they didn't care. I would walk my dog. Me and my wife would go for a walk, and we'd have cameras just in our face, and you can't, you know, as much as you want to just push them out, you've got to be very careful of that. Now you have lawsuits.

And I couldn't talk then. I chose not to, which we spoke about earlier, right? And that was frustrating for me because I, I was seeing all the media reports and making me look so bad, and I wanted to at least defend myself to a degree. I've always defended myself my whole life. And I felt like the attack was just, didn't give me an opportunity to at least speak my mind or explain myself, really.

And my explanation isn't like, hey, I'm not guilty. It was, hey, I'm guilty. I made some poor choices, but there's a little bit more behind the scenes than, oh, this guy, you know, didn't pay his taxes, you know, or this guy was laundering millions of dollars. preying on people for gambling. From the outside perspective, that's what they showed. Did they seize anything from you when you got arrested?

Yeah, they seized 270,000 in cash, a lot of casino chips with pretty good value. They took about $300,000 with handbags. My wife had, I bought her a lot of nice handbags, all of our jewelry, not all, but most of our jewelry, whatever we were wearing, they didn't take, of course, some really nice watches and stuff like that. And then they took a gold bar. I had a couple gold bars. And then that was really it.

Of course, all the electronic devices, a bunch of computers and hard drives, that kind of stuff. What about assets like your house? Because weren't those all things built from the business over the years? You know, I've had a lot of legal business in my life. So I was a commodity trader for 11 years. I made a lot of money, millions of dollars, paid a lot of taxes. I own a jih Tudis studio. I work for a car dealerships.

I do marketing for them. I have for eight years. So I've, I've had a lot of legitimate income. And even my properties, I've sold and made money doing that as well. So no, the answer, and plus I paid my restitution. I paid everything. So there's nothing for them to really come after. I mean, less than 1% of people that go to court in a federal case pay the restitution before they even see the judge. How much was your restitution? And what was that from? 1.6 in change, a little over 1.6 million. It was a, tax penalty charges and I believe interest as well for whatever the so it was like 1.6 and change but I think the charge I'm still got charged at 1.2 million dollar fine that that I still owe to

this day that's separate from that and then of course I'm paying tons of penalties and interest on I had to file a 2020 through 2023 proper return and that return as I told you earlier I had to file on money I never received because I didn't want to commit another crime. So I had to hire all these different CPA firms that were audited in four different ways. My tax attorneys done a great job. Jonathan Almitrano, like going through and making sure that we filed a perfect return because I didn't even know what I made. I mean, I didn't keep a ledger. So we were asking the IRS, like, can you tell us what you want him to file? How much money did he make in 23? and they wouldn't give us that answer.

So we had to like dig and archive everything and it was a lot of work. But the point is on that money, I owe I think it's total between state and federal and the penalties and the $1.2 million fine. It's like 10 million. And they're charging me roughly, well it was a little under $60,000 a month in interest right now,

which is accumulating every month and more. So as you can imagine, when I come out of prison, I'm going to have a large thing to overcome. And you know this because you're finally almost through years, Right. So I paid restitution, but now I got to go to make, in my mind, I got to make 20 million to make 10 just to cover that. And then I still got to take care of five kids. I still got to try to keep my house. I still can't get a state license. There's a lot of things I'm overcoming, which is why I wrote my book Recalibrate, because I'm documenting all of it. Like everything I'm going through and all the adversities that I'm overcoming is all mindset. People think I'm crazy when I say I'm going to make more money in the next 10 years that I made in the first 50. in my life. And I have no doubt about it. What happened to the business? Did when you got rated? Did people get paid? Did they get all settled out? Everyone got paid. And then it just closed down you. Well, it's, they scattered like fleas to, I say fleas. I want to owe me money.

Of course, didn't call me to pay me. But they all just went to other bookmakers. There's still, I would say 99% of them were gambling with another bookie as we speak. So the people that owed didn't pay and the people that were owed got paid? Of course. And then you just, everything just got shut down. What about employees? Did you have any on the pay? I had a runner, you know, and he's obviously Ubering now, you know, just trying to make ends meet. And then all the agents I had that were not really, I guess they're technically and call them employees,

but I believe that some of them shut it down and just got out of the business, got scared. Some of them were probably went to other bookmakers. And, you know, I don't really know because I avoid those conversations because my phone's monitored and I don't want somebody else to get in trouble. And it's really none of my business. And I just focused on me. I didn't want anyone in my business to get in trouble. And nobody has.

Not one agent, not one person, not one runner got in trouble or has had problems because of me. Tell us about sentencing day, which just happened a couple weeks ago. That was a, you've been through this, man. That was, I've never been that nervous. I really am pretty calm as a cucumber under pressure. I've never been that nervous in my life. It was probably 40 camera crews there. Every ESPN, NBC, CNN, ABC, KTLA, you name it.

They were all there and more Japanese reporters. I was on Japanese TV three days ago. They sent me the footage, which is really funny. Couldn't understand what they were saying, but my pictures were all over it. My book was even on it. Anyway, just getting out of, I rented a van, like a big sprinter van because I brought my entire family. and I wanted the world and the media to see,

and the judge really in the prosecution to see that we're a team and I'm a good person. And even though I've made some really bad choices, I have a community of people behind me. And there was literally over 200 people there on my behalf. We had to open multiple courtrooms. They had to watch it on the TV. My attorney did a great job of standing up

and having everyone raised their hand that's not media. There was so much media there. So the judge could see how many people all my children were there, my ex-wife, her husband was crying in the courtroom. I mean, the support I had was truly amazing. But the nervousness and the tension I had of going to sentencing with my fate on the line of how long I'll be in federal prison was nerve-wracking. Not so much because I'm scared to go to prison. I'm a grown man. I can handle myself. I don't want to, I'm very fortunate. I'm going to a federal camp. It's not like I'm going to some

maximum state prison where I would be I would be literally shitting my pants. I'm not going to lie because, you know, I'll be honest. I don't think I'd ever come out because I'm a person that is going to defend myself and definitely have, I have to really check my ego, especially even going to a camp, which is a conversation we should probably have, but because you've been there. But I will always command respect, truly. And you go to prison, it's all about respect. And a state prison I mean, you've got to pick a race and there's a lot more chaos, right? A lot more going on in politics. Whereas a federal camp, and again, I'm speaking as if I've been there,

but I've asked a lot of questions and you've been there so you can answer some of these. But knowing that I'm facing three to four years and I might be, the hardest part for me was how do I be a father and provide and protect for my family? And how do I put my wife and my mom, who's 75 years old through this, right? Because they're the ones who suffer more than I do, you know? So that part was really hard. It's still the hardest part out of all of this by far. My wife was crying in my arms last night for like 30 minutes.

And it's because she's realizing I'm 29 days away from leaving her. And she's going to have to run a household with a little guy and a 14-year-old and two dogs and, you know, bills and problems. And I'm not there. And I've always been that source of strength, you know. But in that van ride to the sentencing, my entire family's in the van and my attorney. And by the way, it's all being filmed because I'm shooting a documentary. But I don't care. I just put the truth out.

Want the world to see it. I just told them all. I said, listen, I made a mistake. We're here because of my poor choices. I apologize that I'm putting you guys through this. But I can't thank you enough for having my back and coming into court and showing the support. And I want the media to see that we are a strong bond and frankly respect that. You know, because you can put your head down or you could be a man.

and hold your head high. And I wanted my children to see really my message in that book is adversity either knocks you on your ass and you get up or you get down and you resort to alcohol, drugs, or excuses. And I'm never going to be that guy. I don't care if I'm 20 years in prison. It's not going to change my mindset. What scares you the most about going to prison? Just not being home and being protecting my kids and my wife, like truly, like in putting them through that. but if I had to like separate that, just the uncomfortableness of the unknown of what I'm walking into. I'm not a big fan of sleeping with dudes and bunks and being, you know, listen, I've been spoon fed the last, I'm just being real. The last 20 years of my life,

I've had white glove service. You know, I've really been babied. And I've earned that legally and illegally, but I've earned that. And now that's being straightforward. trip from me and I deserve that. That's fine. But not, you know, going back to kind of no white glove service is going to be, you know, that sounds ridiculous, but I'm being honest, it's going to be hard, you know. I'm used to air conditioning, getting up and going, get whatever I want. You know, I don't want to be told, you know, stand up for count or you can't walk the track or, you know, there's a fight and now everyone's, you know, all your visitors got to go home. Like, just the lack of control because I'm a control person. I've always had my own control is going to be difficult. And then also

the disrespect of, you know, somebody disrespecting me and biting my tongue and not slapping them right across the fucking face is going to be hard, you know, because I'm not going to add time because of some idiot running his mouth or whatever the case is because you know this better than me, but I've been told that camps are pretty low key and some of the guys are cool and you end up building some good relationships. I look forward to that. But there's also some, you know, child molesters and people that I have zero respect for that I would love to just grab them around the neck and choke the fuck out of them, just being honest, because I have children. And I think that's disgusting. But I'll have to bite my tongue and stay away from that, you know. What are you doing to prepare for

a prison? Are you, like, watching TV shows, movies, documentaries, podcasts, talking to people hiring like a prison consultant? I mean, I did hire Justin Piperney from White Color Advice, and you've had him on your show. Great guy. Good friend of mine. Michael Santos I worked for his nonprofit, prison professors.org. He did a 26-year sentence.

Do you know who that is? Yeah, I've heard of him, yeah. He's amazing. So 45 years in prison, sent in, he did 26 at every capacity, max, low, medium, camp, you name it. So I've gotten a lot of great advice, even, you know, you'll tell me your experience.

But I believe every experience is different regardless because you're at a different prison, different setting, different people, different guards, different time. I think I'm pretty fortunate the time I'm going to prison. It's not 85% max, you know, mandatory fed anymore. It's not, you know, from my understanding, the Lompoc prison is a pretty low-key camp.

There's not too much drama in politics. You know, of course, there's still some rules, right? You know, sitting with blacks or Mexicans and whites, you know, maybe for eating lunch or whatever dinner. I know the food sucks. I know that. I'm another thing I'll be a baby about but you know I'll suck it up and handle it but those are the fears that I have of which are simple fears I just don't want to get more time you know I have to really

check my ego like if there's a situation that arises and I'm also a loyal guy like if if something happens and shit pops off or whatever you know I'll if this is my bunky let's call it or my friend that I've met there and he has a problem I mean I'll I'll be the guy that wants to back them, but I can't. You know, I got to stay away from those situations, you know? So, you know, a lot of people just say go in there and keep your head down and stay to yourself and just walk the track, write, read books, but I'm a personal guy, you know, so I can't help but make the best of situations and get to know people. And, you know, and I've been told that you'll be somewhat of a celebrity in there because of my case being so high

profile and they, you know this. I guess they like gambling quite a bit in there. Sports betting's huge. Yeah, so. Do you still? gamble? No, I can't. If I gamble, I'll add my charges. I miss it, though, and I'm honest about it. I go to Gamblers Anonymous. I do mental health therapy that's required by the court, and I'm honest with my therapist. I'm like, yeah, freaking games on tonight. I want to watch. I want to bet on it, you know? But that's something I'll fight the rest of my life. Do you think that you'll try to get into sports gambling in prison? I know you're not allowed to, but do you think once you're in that environment, Like to me, it's like when you see that prison cell phone, guys are going to have cell phones in there.

You're short time. You want to stay far away from one of those prison cell phones. On a year and a day, you'll probably do what, six, seven months with the halfway house. Right. One of those cell phones can get rid of that entirely. Right. But once you're in there, in the belly of the beast like that, it's very addicting, especially when you go from a high rolling lifestyle to that. Right. The cell phone, I've been fair warned many, many times.

and I've heard that there's so many of them, right? And they have lookouts and, you know, I've heard that you would know this, that they have guys that will set you up and give you a phone and say they're looking out for you and put money in the commissary and this and that, but they'll snitch on you anyway. So I've had some good advice because that's good to know because, you know, the moment of temptation I'm wanting to call my wife or my kid or one of my daughters is going to be tough.

Or even working on your brand because that's a focus now, I know. That too. If I could do it all over, going to stay off the cell phones. Well, thank you for saying that. It's just not worth it. I'm definitely going to. I mean, you had a longer sentence than me. So I think if I had a three-year sentence, it would be more of a struggle, knowing that I'm

going to be there for three full years, which might be what, a year and a half or whatever. But the fact that I'm looking at maybe six months, I mean, you could stomach anything for six months. I mean, I'm not in a, like you said, a max or a state prison. I mean, you know, you just got to tough it out. I committed a crime. I lived a life of luxury. And when I was on a private jet, you know, enjoying the caviar and lobster, I mean,

you got to take the go with the bad. Yeah, I think you just focus on yourself, you know, work out, find something you're maybe get a new hobby or read or work on that, you know, another book. Yeah. You just find something you kind of put your all into. Sure. I think staying away from social media, especially when it's there and accessible is definitely hard.

But, you know, visiting your family and I, I, having visits with your family and phone calls and using like the computer and tablets that they have available is definitely the way to go when you're on time like this and you'll meet people that you could bond with and who you could trust yeah i i i look forward to there's one part of prison i look forward to is is the the the lack of chaos uh of what i'm you know how busy like you're on your phone a lot too i see i'm i'm always on my phone i always have been for the last 30 years and i'm always go go go i'm being a dad i'm being a husband i'm I'm running businesses.

I'm trying everything. So the fact that I kind of get to shut it all down and just focus on myself and, you know, reflecting is going to be kind of good, that part. Yeah, that was the best part about the Mr. Beast thing that I had no phone for three months. Yeah. And then when I got out, I was like, boom, I catch it up with everything. But it was, it was refreshing to have. I'm sure.

How do you feel about being apart from your wife? Do you think she'll be able to go the distance? I know now you guys are planning on it. But when, you know, when you have that separation, things change. I've seen guys that they break up after two weeks or guys that the wife's day is for six or seven years. Sure. How do you feel about that? I have no doubt.

My wife is so loyal. Her father did time when she was young, I think five and a half years. So she's been through this. Of course, she was a baby. So she hasn't been through this technically. And that's, I'm not saying that's helpful. But she just has the stomach of a chance. champion and the loyalty of true, like, of any woman. She's a unicorn. She's not, I mean,

she's so, she's such a aesthetically beautiful woman, but I'm not joking. The inside of this woman is unmatched. So, I mean, I have zero doubt that we'll get through it. Do I worry about some of the, like, the obvious things? I mean, six months when you haven't seen somebody, when you see somebody every single day all day long, it's going to be a little different. I'm, I'm going to be different. Like, I bet you when you came out of prison, you were a little bit different. Like in some way, anyone who goes to a prison, I don't care if it's a camp or a state or whatever it is.

I just believe you have to be different coming out. It could be better. I'm not saying you're better worse off, but, and I'll make sure I'm better. You know, I'll be a better version of myself. I'll be a stronger, minded individual even more. That's my goal. And I'm going to prove that to her. But it's hard.

Yeah, for sure. Are your kids old enough to understand what's going on? Yeah, I have a 30-year-old daughter, 26, 22, 14, and a 4-year-old son. So all my girls understand it. Of course, my 4-year-old son has no clue. We're going to play it like I'm on vacation or work and see how that goes. Once my wife comes to see me, we'll kind of feel that out if it's even worth bringing him to visit. Because he's smart enough at this age where he will understand that I'm definitely not on vacation or at work if he comes to see me.

That's as we'll play that as we go. My 14-year-old daughter is the one that's really having the hardest time with it. She's hormonal. She's in high school. And, you know, I'm close with her. My adult kids, they, it's hard on them, but they understand it. And they've known. Everyone's known what I've done the entire time.

It's not like I've hit it. Do you look at the criminal justice system differently after going through it yourself? Yeah, big time. I think it's sadly mismanaged drastically. I'm not saying that we shouldn't have some of the system in place that we have. It just needs to be changed drastically. I mean, there's a, I don't know you very well, but I just don't think that you being in federal prison or me being a federal prison really benefits society or you and your lifestyle or your family. Should we be punished for crimes?

Of course. Absolutely. But I believe if I was never put in prison and I was actually punished even more financially, to pay back the government and work harder to do that, I think that would be a much better punishment. And I would choose that, of course, because it's not helping a four-year-old boy being raised without his father,

a 14-year-old girl, my wife, I mean, put me to work. You know, I'll pay you back faster. Yeah, I think house arrest is a bigger, on the ankle monitor is a bigger punishment and being forced to go to work than sitting at a camp. Me too. Camps are the biggest ways. They actually closed the one I was at,

but they're just such a, a waste of money of resources of time because it just so lacks there, you know. And everyone knows their cell phones and stuff at camp. So you're going to be sitting at home watching Netflix anyways. You might as well be working. Sure. Doing that, I know, like, it takes away from, like, having those intimate relationships with your spouse and whatnot.

But people find a way to do that anyways in there. So it really is pointless. I joke around it with my dad all the time now. I think if the government could go back at time and give me house arrest, Instead of me going to prison, they probably would have taken that knowing the outcome of how I use my prison sentence to build everything I have now. Which is a, you know, you should be proud of yourself to come out and do the right thing and do something legal and, you know, used your story and your opportunity to educate people to see what really goes on on all aspects. I know you've had law enforcement, FBI agents, DEA, deep dark criminals, all kinds of things. But I think it's great.

I mean, you are giving the viewers an opportunity to see all different platforms and sides of the story. And these stories need to be told because people can learn from them. And I hope that whoever watches this will be inspired by me in a positive light. I've made some poor choices again by, you know, doing something illegal. And, you know, I had an addiction as well. And hopefully they'll learn to overcome that, you know, get help for any addictions that they have. And maybe... My grandmother slept in a futon, her whole lot.

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technology. Discover more at AirWeave.com. You know, instead of if maybe they're still doing something illegal, maybe they'll stop doing it. And, you know, I had that opportunity. I chose not to because I wanted the quick buck in the easy lifestyle. But in hindsight, I wish I would have, why not be a CEO of a major corporation that's legal? I could have made more money. I wouldn't have been looking at them on my shoulder. Yeah, I would have paid a lot more in taxes, but who cares?

You just make more. You know, I've always been able to make more. So I really have no excuse for what I did. That being said, I'm going to use the same thing. platform you did and maybe in a different manner, but I plan on doing tons of public speaking, motivating people. I've ran sales forces. I've done all kinds of things in my life, which are all in the book. And the book is just a one little tiny step of many steps I'm going to take. And I believe, you know, the Wolf of Wall Street movie is exactly what's going to happen

in my life. I'm going to, my goal is to have a movie similar to that. You know, you take Wolf of Wall Street, casino, and pursuit of happiness, and you combine them all into one, I believe that'll be a very telling story of kind of my life. That'll be an exciting movie. I think it'll be really good. I mean, the documentary that we're working on now is very exciting. I'm, you know, that's great, but my goal is to get to a movie and show people, you know, the ups and downs, the wild rides, the good, bad, ugly.

And I really do want to inspire people and make them change and for the better. How would you describe your character now? Now, I mean, listen, I was always in the world of for me to win, I call it win or make money, I needed somebody on the other side to lose. You know, I needed to lose the bets. Or if I was a commodity trade, I needed to make more commissions and convince them to do more trades at which I knew end result was probably a loss. Now it's win-win.

And that's powerful. When you believe in everything you do and you know you're building a better character amongst yourself, there's nothing more powerful than that. I mean, the one thing I tell people is probably the most important question you could ask yourself is, how do you define success in your life? And for me, I'm finally defining it by, even though I don't make any money and what I'm doing here today, I know success is coming financially, but I'm defining it every day. I'm becoming a better human, a better father, a better person, a better husband, a better, you know, social, and, you know, even just helping people, like truly giving back, it's been inspiring.

And I know that I will get paid a lot of money for that down the road. And so if you're going to pay me to do something I love and everybody wins, life is great. Matt, I appreciate you coming on the show today, man. Of course, man. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I'm glad we can make this happen. I appreciate it. You know, thanks again to Hubble Studios and Rod for connecting us. Absolutely. Thank you very time, man.

Yeah, awesome. Appreciate it.