Phil Mickelson has wagered more than $1 billion US over the last three decades and wanted to place a $400,000 bet on the 2012 Ryder Cup while playing for Team USA, according to a much-anticipated book by renowned gambler Billy Walters.
Mickelson denied ever betting on the Ryder Cup.
“While it is well known that I always enjoy a friendly wager on the course, I would never undermine the integrity of the game,” Mickelson said in a statement Thursday.
The stunning betting estimates Walters provides — from his own detailed record and from what he describes as two reliable sources — are detailed in an excerpt of Walters’ book, “Gambler: Secrets from a Life of Risk.”
The book is scheduled to be available on Aug. 22. The Fire Pit Collective obtained the excerpt.
Walters is widely regarded as America’s most famous gambler who claims to have a winning streak of more than 30 straight years.
He said he ended his betting partnership with Mickelson in 2014. Two years later, Walters was indicted in an insider trading case that partly involved stock tips prosecutors said he illegally passed to Mickelson. Mickelson was never charged but had to repay about $1 million he made off a stock deal. Walters was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison. He claims he could have avoided prison if Mickelson had told a “simple truth.”
Walters said he never told Mickelson he had inside information on Dean Foods stock, and he believed that Mickelson could have helped him by testifying.
“All Phil had to do was publicly say it. He refused,” Walters wrote. “The outcome cost me my freedom, tens of millions of dollars and a heartbreak I still struggle with daily. While I was in prison, my daughter committed suicide — I still believe I could have saved her if I’d been on the outside.”
Over 7,000 bets placed
Walters said Mickelson told him he had two offshore accounts, and that Mickelson had limits of $400,000 on college games and $400,000 on the NFL.
He said based on his detailed record and additional records provided by sources, Mickelson’s gambling between 2010 and 2014 included:
Betting $110,000 to win $100,000 on 1,115 occasions, and betting $220,000 to win $200,000 on 858 occasions. That alone comes out to just over $311 million.
Mickelson in 2011 made 3,154 bets for the year and on one day (June 22) he placed 43 bets on Major League Baseball games that resulted in $143,500 in losses.
He placed 7,065 bets on football, basketball and baseball.
“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. In all, he wagered a total of more than $1 billion during the past three decades,” Walters wrote.
“The only other person I know who surpassed that kind of volume is me.”
In his statement, Mickelson said he has been open about his gambling addiction. In an interview with Sports Illustrated last year, Mickelson referred to it reaching a point of being “reckless and embarrassing.”
“I have previously conveyed my remorse, took responsibility, have gotten help, have been fully committed to therapy that has positively impacted me and I feel good about where I am now,” Mickelson said.
Walters said they met for the first time at the 2006 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, and formed a betting partnership two years later.
Most stunning to Walters, he writes in the excerpt, was a phone call from the Ryder Cup in 2012 at Medinah. He said Mickelson was so confident he asked Walters to bet $400,000 for him on the U.S. winning.
“I could not believe what I was hearing,” Walters wrote. “‘Have you lost your [expletive] mind?’ I told 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,’ I added. `You’d risk all that for this?’ I want no part of it.”
He said Mickelson replied, “Alright, alright.”
“I have no idea whether Phil placed the bet elsewhere. Hopefully, he came to his senses,” Walters wrote.
Walters leaves Manhattan federal court in 2017. (Richard Drew/The Associated Press)
‘Reckless and embarrassing’
Europe rallied from a 10-6 deficit on Sunday, staging the greatest comeback by a visiting team. Mickelson and Keegan Bradley won three straight matches before Mickelson urged U.S. captain Davis Love III to rest them Saturday afternoon. Mickelson lost his singles match to Justin Rose, a pivotal moment in Europe’s comeback.
Rory McIlroy, at odds with Mickelson over the divide between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, couldn’t resist a dig at Lefty over the claims in the book.
“At least he can bet on the Ryder Cup this year because he won’t be part of it,” McIlroy said Thursday in Memphis, Tennessee, at the PGA Tour’s FedEx St. Jude Championship.
The PGA Tour suspended Mickelson in early 2022 for helping Saudi-backed LIV Golf recruit PGA Tour players. He signed with LIV for a bonus reported to be upward of $150 million.
Walters was so successful with his gambling operation that bookmakers often limited the amount of his wagers. He would partner with others who had larger limits. He wrote his partnership with Mickelson was a 50-50 split.
“In all the decades I’ve worked with partners and beards, Phil had accounts as large as anyone I’d seen,” Walters wrote. “You don’t get those types of accounts without betting millions of dollars.”
EDMONTON – The Edmonton Oilers signed defenceman Travis Dermott to a professional tryout on Friday.
Dermott, a 27-year-old from Newmarket, Ont., produced two goals, five assists and 26 penalty minutes in 50 games with the Arizona Coyotes last season.
The six-foot, 202-pound blueliner has also played for the Vancouver Canucks and Toronto Maple Leafs.
Toronto drafted him in the second round, 34th overall, of the 2015 NHL draft.
Over seven NHL seasons, Dermott has 16 goals and 46 assists in 329 games while averaging 16:03 in ice time.
Before the NHL, Dermott played two seasons with Oilers captain Connor McDavid for the Ontario Hockey League’s Erie Otters. The team was coached by current Edmonton head coach Kris Knoblauch.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
NEWPORT, R.I. (AP) — Maria Sharapova, a five-time Grand Slam singles champion, led the International Tennis Hall of Fame’s fan vote her first year on the ballot — an important part to possible selection to the hall’s next class.
The organization released the voting results on Friday. American doubles team Bob and Mike Bryan finished second with Canada’s Daniel Nestor third.
The Hall of Fame said tens of thousands of fans from 120 countries cast ballots. Fan voting is one of two steps in the hall’s selection process. The second is an official group of journalists, historians, and Hall of Famers from the sport who vote on the ballot for the hall’s class of 2025.
“I am incredibly grateful to the fans all around the world who supported me during the International Tennis Hall of Fame’s fan votes,” Sharapova said in a statement. “It is a tremendous honor to be considered for the Hall of Fame, and having the fans’ support makes it all the more special.”
Sharapova became the first Russian woman to reach No. 1 in the world. She won Wimbledon in 2004, the U.S. Open in 2006 and the Australian Open in 2008. She also won the French Open twice, in 2012 and 2014.
Sharapova was also part of Russia’s championship Fed Cup team in 2008 and won a silver medal at the London Olympics in 2012.
To make the hall, candidates must receive 75% or higher on combined results of the official voting group and additional percentage from the fan vote. Sharapova will have an additional three percentage points from winning the fan vote.
The Bryans, who won 16 Grand Slam doubles titles, will have two additional percentage points and Nestor, who won eight Grand Slam doubles titles, will get one extra percentage point.
The hall’s next class will be announced late next month.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The driver charged with killing NHL hockey player Johnny Gaudreau and his brother Matthew as they bicycled on a rural road had a blood-alcohol level of .087, above the .08 legal limit in New Jersey, a prosecutor said Friday.
Gaudreau, 31, and brother Matthew, 29, were killed in Carneys Point, New Jersey, on Aug. 29, the evening before they were set to serve as groomsmen at their sister Katie’s wedding.
The driver, 43-year-old Sean M. Higgins of nearby Woodstown, New Jersey, is charged with two counts of death by auto, along with reckless driving, possession of an open container and consuming alcohol in a motor vehicle. At a virtual court hearing Friday, a judge ordered that he be held for trial after prosecutors described a history of alleged road rage and aggressive driving.
“’You were probably driving like a nut like I always tell you you do. And you don’t listen to me, instead you just yell at me,’” his wife told Higgins when he called her from jail after his arrest, according to First Assistant Prosecutor Jonathan Flynn of Salem County.
The defense described Higgins as a married father and law-abiding citizen before the crash.
“He’s an empathetic individual and he’s a loving father of two daughters,” said defense lawyer Matthew Portella. “He’s a good person and he made a horrible decision that night.”
Higgins told police he had five or six beers that day and admitted to consuming alcohol while driving, according to the criminal complaint. He also failed a field sobriety test, the complaint said. A prosecutor on Friday said he had been drinking at home after finishing a work call at about 3 p.m., and having an upsetting conversation with his mother about a family matter.
He then had a two-hour phone call with a friend while he drove around in his Jeep with an open container, Flynn said. He had been driving aggressively behind a sedan going just above the 50 mph speed limit, sometimes tailgating, the female driver told police.
When she and the vehicle ahead of her slowed down and veered left to go around the cyclists, Higgins sped up and veered right, striking the Gaudreas, the two other drivers told police.
“He indicated he didn’t even see them,” said Superior Court Judge Michael J. Silvanio, who said Higgins’ admitted “impatience” caused two deaths.
Higgins faces up to 20 years, a sentence that the judge said made him a flight risk.
Higgins has a master’s degree, works in finance for an addiction treatment company, and served in combat in Iraq, his lawyers said. However, his wife said he had been drinking regularly since working from home, Flynn said.
Johnny Gaudreau, known as “Johnny Hockey,” played 10 full seasons in the league and was set to enter his third with the Columbus Blue Jackets after signing a seven-year, $68 million deal in 2022. He played his first eight seasons with the Calgary Flames, a tenure that included becoming one of the sport’s top players and a fan favorite across North America.
Widows Meredith and Madeline Gaudreau described their husbands as attached at the hip throughout their lives. Both women are expecting, and both gave moving eulogies at the double funeral on Monday.
