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Read Full BioThe Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department has referred the Titan comedians Asahi and Butter Young’s Hiroshi Sano to prosecutors for illegally gambling on online casino platforms.
Asahi, real name Asahi Saito, is a solo comedian, while Butter Young is a well-known comedy duo.
Police investigators said the two men likely used their smartphones to visit and gamble on overseas online casino sites.
Asahi and Butter Young Comedian’s Cases Sent to Prosecutors
Japan strictly forbids all forms of online gambling that originate from its territory.
The charges follow Titan’s internal investigation into the issue of online casinos among its staff and talent roster.
The probe found that four of the agency’s comedians had used online casinos. The agency followed up by contacting the Tokyo police to conduct what media outlets labelled “a voluntary investigation.”
The two men admitted to the charges during questioning sessions, police spokespeople confirmed.
Some Japanese news outlets, such as ZakZak, have suggested that police and media reports about comedians’ gambling confessions are doubly punitive.
The reason is that many Japanese comedians use stage names, rather than their names, to preserve their privacy.
But many media reports about the stars include both the celebrities’ real names and their aliases, as well as their ages.
However, a media reporter told ZakZak that police may think this could serve as a deterrent to comedians thinking about betting online. The unnamed reporter said: “To further spread the illegality of online casinos, it is more effective to report the names of famous people than to arrest non-celebrities.”
Japanese police and prosecutors embarked on a sweeping crackdown on online gambling in 2023. That crackdown has intensified this year.
Pleading Ignorance
Scores of A-list celebrities and professional sports stars have admitted to using overseas gambling websites, although some have claimed they did not know the activity was illegal.
This has coincided with renewed pressure from lawmakers to introduce harsher punishments for habitual gamblers who use online gambling platforms.
In many cases, instances of gambling have been unearthed not by police but by pro teams conducting internal audits of their staff and players.
Police, via the Foreign Ministry, have also sent requests to the governments of several nations and territories they suspect of housing platforms that cater to Japanese bettors.
However, media outlets in Japan report that gambling crackdowns have cast a “dark shadow” over domestic pro sports.
Friday Digital reported that, to date, 16 players from eight teams have admitted to using online casinos.
The same also appears to be the case with entertainment agencies, television stations, and more. These firms seem to believe that if sports stars, pop singers, and actors make public confessions about their gambling misdemeanours, prosecutors will treat them with clemency.
However, the media outlet suggested that the impact of the ongoing online casino scandal was likely to affect the forthcoming pro baseball season’s free agent market.
The outlet gave the example of the Orix Buffaloes pitcher Taisuke Yamaoka, one of the first players to approach the police with a confession about his gambling habits.
Since the scandal, Yamaoka’s return to action with the Buffaloes has been stop-start. Some claim the relationship between the pitcher and the team has broken down ahead of possible new contract talks.
