Anyone who knows anything about Phil Mickelson knows the man especially loves to do two things: play golf and gamble.
For 30 years, the former has obviously been on display for the entire world to see, with Mickelson solidifying himself as one of the greatest to ever play the sport. Over the last decade or so, a spotlight has been shined on his betting habits, and perhaps no one knows as much about that part of his life as longtime gambler Billy Walters.
The polarizing Walters has a new book coming out that talks about his own life as a gambler. He and Mickelson struck up a partnership during the height of Mickelson’s PGA Tour career, and as such, it’s a big part of Walters’ book. Walters is in the process of trying to create hype for the new release, and it’s likely an excerpt published to GolfDigest.com on Thursday will at least drum up more interest in the book.
The Golf Digest excerpt essentially was the abridged version of Walters’ history with Mickelson in which he makes some insane allegations. Walters says his partnership with Mickelson ended in 2014, but Walters’ most eye-popping claims in the story are through what he calls “two very reliable sources.”
According to Walters’ sources, Mickelson between 2010 and 2014 made 1,115 bets of $110,000 to win $100,000 and 858 more $220,000 bets to win $200,000. The sum of those wagers, as Walters relays, totals more than $311 million.
But that’s not all: Walters pushes back on the widely reported notion that Mickelson lost $40 million gambling. Walters says it was more — a lot more. Walters says the losses are probably closer to $100 million, and “In all, he wagered a total of more than $1 billion during the past three decades.”
While a lot of those bets were on other professional sports, Walters also alleges Mickelson called him wanting to bet on the 2012 Ryder Cup, a golf event in which Mickelson played. Walters claimed Mickelson wanted to make a $400,000 bet, but he eventually talked the then-16th-ranked player in the world out of the idea.
As always with these sorts of things, you do have to consider the source. Despite a pretty successful business relationship for a few years, the Walters-Mickelson partnership blew up in the biggest way possible. Walters was convicted of insider trading in 2017, a case in which Mickelson was named a relief defendant (but wasn’t charged). According to the complaint, Walters gave Mickelson a stock tip that allowed Mickelson to profit by nearly $1 million — at a time when Mickelson owed Walters money.
Mickelson didn’t testify at the trial, however, which Walters believes could have kept him out of prison. Instead, he was convicted and served five years in prison while having to pay a $10 million fine.
“The outcome (of the case) cost me my freedom, tens of millions of dollars and a heartbreak I still struggle with daily,” Walters wrote in the Golf Digest excerpt. “While I was in prison, my daughter committed suicide — I still believe I could have saved her if I’d been on the outside.”
That’s a lot to pin on Mickelson, and it will be interesting to see how the notoriously outspoken golfer responds.
