Billy Walters Discusses Book Allegations Against Phil Mickelson: ‘I Was Just Fooled’

In an exclusive interview with Sports Illustrated, Walters elaborated on gambling with Mickelson and described a friendship gone bad.

Billy Walters has had a full life, with ups and downs you’d expect from a professional gambler. But he has perhaps never been in a brighter spotlight than now, as he’s been doing rounds with media to talk about his life and new book Gambler – Secrets from a Life at Risk.

Today Walters is 77, but despite living in Las Vegas for most of his life, plus 31 months in the federal clink not long ago in Pensacola, Fla., Walters looks surprisingly good on a recent Zoom call with Sports Illustrated to discuss his debut book.

If you’d like to better understand the world of gambling, or have your bubble burst about professional golfer Phil Mickelson, it’s an insightful read.

Only two of the 28 chapters are about Mickelson, but they are explosive. Walters considered Mickelson to be a friend, until he learned the harsh reality that he wasn’t.

Walters writes that he and Mickelson became golf buddies and entered into a five-year professional gambling partnership, which ended in the spring of 2014.

Walters writes that he documented Mickelson’s betting habits along the way, and he make some eye-popping claims, including that Mickelson:

• Bet $110,000 to win $100,000 a total of 1,115 times
• On 858 occasions bet $220,000 to win $200,000
• In 2011 alone, made 3,154 bets, an average of nearly nine per day
• Made 7,065 wagers on football, basketball, and baseball

Mickelson has admitted to a previous gambling problem that he addressed with therapy. Last week, in response to an excerpt, Mickelson denied that he bet on the 2012 Ryder Cup.

When Walters was asked by SI if Walters was the one in the partnership making the decisions on the bets, he laughed and said, “One hundred percent!”

When asked about Mickelson’s prowess for picking games, Walters said again with a chuckle, “Let’s put it this way, I wouldn’t want to follow him.”

Walters writes that he believed himself to be a good judge of character, but in the case of Mickelson, Walters’ instincts betrayed him.

“I was just fooled. I thought Phil was somebody that was a stand-up guy,” Walters said. “I just misjudged him. I looked at Phil as a friend, and he's somebody that I respected. And unfortunately, when it was time to come forward and be a stand-up guy, he disappointed me.”

Walters alleges that Mickelson declined to testify that Walters did not give him insider information on two stocks, one being Dean Foods, and Mickelson was unwilling to make a public statement to the same effect, even after agreeing to do so.

In the end, Walters blames himself for not testifying, which ultimately cost him millions of dollars and more than three years of his life between the trial and prison time.

“The biggest disappointment to me in the book, and the only reason Phil is in the book, is because I thought he and I were friends,” Walters says. “I've always prided myself on being a good judge of character. And I was hurt. I mean, I'll be honest with you, and frankly, when it was time for him to just be a stand-up guy and come forward and tell the truth, he wouldn't do it. And so that's the reason he's in the book. Nothing more, nothing less.”

In previously published excerpts of the book, Walters alleges that Mickelson was involved in a potential money laundering case that went away after Mickelson cooperated with federal prosecutors. Mickelson could not be reached by SI for comment on this latest excerpt.

Walters says that Mickelson also tried to pay off a gambling debt to Walters via transfers that Walters feared could be a form of money laundering, and he did not participate. It begged the question: does Mickelson know what money laundering is?

“I don't know whether he does, or he doesn't, but by that time, I would have hoped that he did,” Walters says. “And that's the reason I told him at the time I wouldn't do that and to wire me the money that way he always wired the money because everything he and I was doing was legal and I know it was legal.”

Walters is a larger-than-life character, one who many would enjoy sitting down with for a beer. His book is perhaps the next best thing.