Phil Mickelson has allegedly wagered more than $1 billion on sports activities across the last 3 many years, in keeping with famed sports gambler Billy Walters.
“Phil favored to gamble up to anyone I’ve ever met. Frankly, given Phil’s annual income and net worth at the time, I had no problems along with his betting,” Walters, 77, claimed in his upcoming memoir, Gambler: Secrets from a Life at Risk, which was excerpted by The Fire Pit Collective on Thursday, August 10. “And nonetheless don’t. He’s a big-time gambler, and big-time gamblers make large bets. It’s his cash to spend how he needs.”
Walters — who met the pro golfer, now 53, at a tournament in 2006 — claimed that Mickelson propositioned him a few playing partnership two years later. Walters used to be only on the lookout for a partner if “any person has get right of entry to to places I will be able to’t bet” or “puts the place they can bet more money than me.” Mickelson allegedly fulfilled both requirements — and the duo began a mutual gambling association that lasted for five years.
“We changed into what I believed had been buddies. If you’ve ever had a golf buddy, you already know what I’m talking about,” Walters penned. “From the beginning, our making a bet agreement — one we verbally negotiated — known as for us to separate the whole lot fifty-fifty. Phil submit half the cash; I publish the other half. That means, we shared an equal amount of chance and praise.”
Of path, no longer all bets placed win — and Walters and Mickelson were not resistant to suffering losses. The Gambler author even speculated that Mickelson has misplaced on the subject of $A hundred million. “In all, he wagered a complete of more than $1 billion all over the past three a long time,” Walters claimed in the book, noting he himself has gambled even more than that.
Walters went on to recall, Mickelson — who allegedly told Walters he had “two offshore” financial institution accounts to service the playing sums — once anxious Walters with a in particular huge bet.
“In past due September 2012, Phil known as me from Medinah Country Club simply outside Chicago, web site of the thirty ninth Ryder Cup fits between the United States and Europe. He was feeling supremely assured that the American squad led by means of Tiger Woods, Bubba Watson, and Phil himself was once about to reclaim the Cup from the Euros,” Walters alleged within the passage. “He used to be so assured that he asked me to position a $400,000 wager for him on the U.S. group to win. I may now not believe what I was hearing.”
He endured: “‘Have you misplaced your f—king thoughts?’ I informed him. ‘Don’t you remember what happened to Pete Rose?’ The former Cincinnati Reds manager was banned from baseball for making a bet on his own workforce. ‘You’re seen as a modern-day Arnold Palmer,’ I added. ‘You’d risk all that for this? I would like no part of it.’”
While Walters grew to become down Mickelson’s alleged be offering, he admitted that he has “no concept” if his former buddy positioned the bet elsewhere. (The U.S. staff ultimately misplaced the match through one level to the European athletes.)
Mickelson, who has now not addressed Walters’ memoir claims, previously landed in sizzling water for his interactions with Walters. The Securities and Exchange Commission named Mickelson in a May 2016 federal lawsuit, claiming the pro athlete made nearly $1 million after purchasing stock on an insider buying and selling tip from Walters. Mickelson’s attorney stated in a commentary at the time that his consumer made an agreement with the SEC to go back all of the sum.
“Phil has not been charged with insider trading,” the attorney instructed USA Today Sports in a remark. “Phil used to be an blameless bystander to alleged wrongdoing through others that he was once blind to. Phil is blameless of any wrongdoing.”
Walters is also set to discuss his aspect of the legal fight within the Gamblers book.
“Phil Mickelson, one of the crucial famous people on the planet and a person I once considered a pal, refused to tell a easy reality that he shared with the FBI and may have kept me out of jail,” he additional claimed in Thursday’s excerpt. “I never told him I had inside of details about shares and he knows it. All Phil had to do was publicly say it. He refused.”
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Walters concluded: “The consequence price me my freedom, tens of thousands and thousands of dollars and a heartbreak I still struggle with day-to-day. While I was in prison, my daughter committed suicide – I nonetheless believe I will have stored her if I’d been on the outside.”
Walters was released from prison in May 2020 to serve the remainder of his five-year sentence from home amid the coronavirus pandemic. Former president Donald Trump commuted Walters’ sentence in 2021 after 4 years.
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