Scott Taetsch/AP
A new excerpt from legendary sports bettor Billy Walters’ autobiography revealed the extreme gambling habits of golfer Phil Mickelson.
Walters — widely regarded as the greatest sports bettor ever — detailed his first meeting with Mickelson at a pro-am golf tournament in 2006. Two years later at another pro-am, Mickelson brought up the idea of the two of them entering a partnership. This partnership would see them split every bet fifty-fifty, meaning every win would also be split.
A few years into the partnership, Mickelson proposed something that stunned Walters.
In late September 2012, Phil called me from Medinah Country Club just outside Chicago, site of the 39th Ryder Cup matches between the United States and Europe,” Walters said in his book Gambler: Secrets from a Life at Risk. “He was feeling supremely confident that the American squad led by Tiger Woods, Bubba Watson, and Phil himself was about to reclaim the Cup from the Euros. He was so confident that he asked me to place a $400,000 wager for him on the U.S. team to win.
“I could not believe what I was hearing.”
Walters added that he immediately tried to talk some sense into Mickelson by citing other examples of athletes betting on themselves.
“‘Have you lost your fucking mind?”” Walters recalled saying to him. “‘Don’t you remember what happened to Pete Rose?’ The former Cincinnati Reds manager was banned from baseball for betting on his own team. ‘You’re seen as a modern-day Arnold Palmer.’
“‘You’d risk all that for this? I want no part of it.’”
The U.S. would go on to lose the Ryder Cup thanks to a historic comeback from the European team.
It wasn’t until their partnership ended in 2014 that Walter discovered the true extent of Mickelson’s gambling habits. Sources told him that between 2010 and 2014, he bet $110,000 to win $100,000 a total of 1,115 times. He also bet $220,000 to win $200,000, 858 times.
Those 1,973 bets totaled more than $311 million.
During that period of time, he placed 7,065 bets.
“Based on our relationship and what I’ve since learned from others, Phil’s gambling losses approached not $40 million as has been previously reported, but much closer to $100 million,” Walter said. “In all, he wagered a total of more than $1 billion during the past three decades.
“The only other person I know who surpassed that kind of volume is me.”
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