It’s kicking off on the field for the Japanese Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB), as four players have confessed to gambling online, which is illegal in Japan. The Saitama Seibu Lions had contacted the police themselves to launch a probe into any illegal activities its players were involved in.
Outside of lotteries, horse racing, pachinko, and pachi-slots, any other forms of gambling are strictly forbidden. It is legal for tourists to gamble in specified zones.
Along with the players, a staff member was also discovered to have been gambling. At the time of writing, there doesn’t appear to be any arrests or jobs lost, as the club has only said that they’ll pay a fine.
However, the five have been referred to prosecutors, with the four players named as Tonosaki Shuta, Tsuge Sena, Kodama Ryosuke, and Hasegawa Shinya.
Japan tussles with more than baseball gambling
Elsewhere in Japanese baseball, in February, the NPB had incidents with 14 players and staff involved with illegal gambling. The country has also had to deal with an increase in its celebrities participating in the banned activity. Six comedians and a boy band member were charged and investigated for gambling.
Even in the US baseball circuit, Japanese player Shohei Ohtani’s now ex-interpreter has been embroiled in a $17 million gambling debt fiasco. Ippei Mizuhara is now in federal prison.
Japan has been dealing with a flurry of gambling issues over the last few months. The country’s lawmakers are planning further crackdowns in the wake of the rise of the illicit activity, including making it harder to access.
It’s reported that 3.3 million people access illegal gambling websites, with claims that some citizens just aren’t aware of the implications and laws. While a new law has been passed to curb the rise of illegal gambling, Japan still faces the very real possibility that there are still methods of skirting around the new restrictions put in place.
