According to Billy Walters’ book, Phil Mickelson wagered $1 billion
The partnership lasted until spring 2014, writes Walters. Based on his own experiences with Mickelson and the records of others, Walters estimates that Mickelson wagered $110,000 a total of 1,115 times to win $100,000; Wager $220,000 to win $200,000 858 times; and made 3,154 bets in 2011 — an average of nearly nine a day — including 43 bets on Major League Baseball games alone in one day, resulting in a loss of $143,500.
Walters says Mickelson called him in September 2012 as he was preparing for this year’s Ryder Cup at Medinah Country Club and asked him to place a $400,000 bet on Mickelson’s US team picking a team will defeat Europe.
“You’re viewed as a modern-day Arnold Palmer,” Walters told him. “You would risk all that for that? I don’t want anything to do with it.”
Walters said he didn’t know if Mickelson actually made the bet. The Americans lost this year’s Ryder Cup after an incredible comeback from the Europeans on Sunday.
After years of financial success as a professional gambler, Walters was sentenced to five years in prison in 2017 after a federal jury found him guilty of 10 counts of fraud and conspiracy in connection with an insider trading case involving Mickelson. Prosecutors argued that Walters made $43 million over the course of six years from more than 100 stores, based on insider tips from Tom C. Davis, the former chairman of Dean Foods Co., who cooperated with prosecutors after he pleaded guilty to perjury.
Mickelson never testified at the trial, but prosecutors said the five-time Major winner bought nearly $2 million worth of Dean Foods stock after receiving a tip from Walters. Mickelson turned that investment into a nearly $1 million profit, which he paid to Walters to pay off his gambling debts. Mickelson was never charged with a crime, but the US Securities and Exchange Commission sued him for the ill-gotten gains and he returned the money plus interest.
In the book excerpt, Walters said Mickelson “refused to tell a simple truth that he shared with the FBI that could have kept me out of jail.” I never told him I had inside information about stocks, and he knows it. All Phil had to do was say it publicly. He refused.”
Walters, who is now 77, added that his forthcoming book also describes how Mickelson “fought his way out” of another criminal case that resulted in a conviction, although the excerpt is not further explained. Walters was released from a federal detention center for domestic custody because of the coronavirus pandemic in May 2020, and President Donald Trump commuted his sentence on his last day in 2021.
“The result has cost me my freedom, tens of millions of dollars, and a heartbreak I still deal with on a daily basis. While I was in prison, my daughter committed suicide — I still think if I had been out I could have saved her,” Walters writes.
Mickelson, 53, left the PGA Tour in 2022 for LIV Golf. He was reportedly paid more than $100 million for it. He is estimated to have earned more than $1 billion in prize money, sponsorships, and performance and course design fees throughout his career.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2023/08/10/phil-mickelson-gambler-billy-walters-book/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=wp_homepage According to Billy Walters’ book, Phil Mickelson wagered $1 billion
