Gokudo VTuber “Jokudo Taro” explains… Surprising things yakuza used to get close to “professional baseball players”.
Nowadays, game results and highlights are only reported on the news, but in the Showa era, live broadcasts of games were shown daily on terrestrial broadcasting of professional baseball. Many people may remember that they were unable to watch their favorite programs because the games were extended due to the length of the broadcast.
Professional baseball was such a popular content. The yakuza of the time used its popularity to make money.
A virtual youtuber (VTuber) by the name of “Jail Taro,” which refers to a person who has been in prison many times, and a former yakuza himself, talks about the relationship between yakuza and professional baseball in the Showa era.
In the old days, a lot of yakuza used to be the promoters of baseball betting,” he says. Millions or tens of millions of dollars were involved in each game.
It seems like it would be easy enough to predict who would win simply by betting on the first-place team, but to make the game more complicated, they had a “handicapper,” a person familiar with professional baseball, assign a handicap to each team.
The yakuza of the time would buy handicaps from handicappers to make it difficult to decide which team to bet on, even in games where the winner was obvious, and then let the customers bet on them after reflecting the handicaps. You handicapped the weaker team by a few points. We didn’t have a notice system back then like we do now, so we would have coaches and officials hold money in their hands to know who the starters would be,” he said.
The handicappers knew everything about the players who were going to play in the games, even their women’s affairs and the way they drank at the drinking party the day before the game, and reflected this information in their handicaps.
The passing of the Violence Against Boryokudan Law (Law Concerning Prevention of Unjust Acts by Members of Organized Crime Groups) made such customs difficult, but handicappers and yakuzas chose to use clothes and cars as their means.
At the time, brands such as Armani and Versace were popular among the yakuza, and they would obtain them through parallel imports, but they had to buy them in lots, and there were large sizes left over. I had to buy them in lots, so I had a surplus of large sizes. I sold them to the players and made connections with them. I also dealt with a number of famous players and received a lot of autographed goods from them.
Because information was obtained in this way and reflected in the handicapping, it was difficult for even those who loved professional baseball to keep winning, and many customers lost their enthusiasm for professional baseball after betting money.
Many customers lost their passion for professional baseball by betting money. “Most people who gambled on baseball were people who liked professional baseball, but most of them lost. Plus, the handicap made it difficult for them to keep rooting for their favorite team, and they weren’t amused that they couldn’t root for their favorite team when they were betting on the opposite team.”
It is often said that it is better not to work at what you love, but perhaps it is also not good to bet money on what you love.
