Book Alleges Phil Mickelson Gambled $1 Billion, Tried to Bet on Ryder Cup

Phil Mickelson bet more than $1 billion on football, basketball and baseball games over the last three decades, Las Vegas businessman and renowned gambler Billy Walters claims in his upcoming book.

An excerpt of Walters' Gambler: Secrets from a Life of Risk was released Thursday morning by Fire Pit Collective. Walters, who said he had a gambling partnership with Mickelson for five years, also alleges that Mickelson called him from Medinah Country Club during the 39th Ryder Cup in 2012 and asked him to place a $400,000 bet for him on the U.S. team, which included Mickelson, to win.

"Have you lost your...mind?" Walters claims to have responded. "Don't you remember what happened to Pete Rose? You're seen as the modern-day Arnold Palmer. You'd risk all that for this? I want no part of it."

Walters said that he doesn't know if Mickelson placed the bet elsewhere.

Newsweek reached out to Mickelson for comment.

Mickelson is competing at an LIV Golf event in New Jersey this week. Sports Illustrated (SI) reported that after Mickelson's pro-am round Thursday morning, he said: "I'm going to pass [on] talking today."

Last year, Mickelson spoke exclusively with SI about his gambling addiction, which he called "reckless and embarrassing." During that interview, Mickelson said he had been addressing his gambling for a number of years and had been through hundreds of hours of therapy.

This summer on X, formerly Twitter, the six-time major winner claimed that he hasn't gambled in years and is almost a billionaire now. Mickelson recently signed a long-term deal with LIV Golf worth about $200 million, according to multiple reports.

Walters, citing two very reliable sources, said it was nothing for Mickelson to bet $20,000 a game on long-shot, five-team NBA parlays, or wager up to $200,000 on a football, basketball or baseball game.

Here is what Walters alleges Mickelson's betting habits included from 2010-14:

• Betting $110,000 to win $100,000 a total of 1,115 times.
• Betting $220,000 to win $200,000 858 times.
• Making 3,154 bets in 2011 alone—nearly nine per day.
• Making 43 bets on June 22, 2011, on MLB games, resulting in $143,500 in losses.
• Making 7,065 wagers on football, basketball and baseball.

"The only other person I know who surpassed that kind of volume is me," Walters writes.

Walters estimated that Mickelson has suffered nearly $100 million in gambling losses over the years.

The book claims that Mickelson first met Walters at the 2006 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. In 2008, Mickelson approached Walters about forming a betting partnership, the excerpt said. Their eventual betting agreement called for them to split everything 50-50, Walters writes. The partnership gave Walters access to offshore accounts that Mickelson used to place large bets, he claims.

"In all the decades I've worked with partners and beards, Phil had accounts as large as anyone I'd seen," Walters writes. "You don't get those accounts without betting millions of dollars.

"Phil liked to gamble as much as anyone I've ever met. Frankly, given Phil's annual income and net worth at the time, I had no problems with his betting. And still don't. He's a big-time gambler, and big-time gamblers make big bets. It's his money to spend how he wants."

Mickelson and Walters ended their partnership in the spring of 2014, according to the book. At that time, federal authorities were looking into a "series of stock trades" that Mickelson and Walters made, according to ESPN. The Action Network said that Mickelson paid back nearly $1 million and did not face any further discipline. Walters was convicted on charges of conspiracy, securities fraud and wire fraud in 2017 and was sentenced to five years in federal prison. He was also fined $10 million.

Walters was eventually pardoned by then-President Donald Trump.

The Walters-Mickelson friendship had a falling out, Walters writes, when Mickelson did not testify in his favor during an insider-trading case against Walters.

"Phil Mickelson, one of the most famous people in the world and a man I once considered a friend, refused to tell a simple truth that he shared with the FBI and could have kept me out of prison," Walters writes. "I never told him I had inside information about stocks and he knows it. All Phil had to do was publicly say it. He refused."