Shohei Ohtani, the golden phenom from Japan who recently signed a record-breaking contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers, is the latest professional athlete to find himself in the middle of a scandal involving sports betting.

On Wednesday, the Dodgers announced they had fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s longtime interpreter and friend, after discovering that he had incurred millions of dollars of gambling debts to a Southern California bookie. It should be noted that sports betting is still illegal in California.