"I don't know any individual who's bet more money" - Billy Walters says Phil Mickelson is the biggest individual gambler he’s aware of
The names of Billy Walters and Phil Mickelson are taken together when the term 'gambling' is used. While Walters is an American business tycoon who is infamously known as the biggest sports bettor ever in the country, Mickelson, who professionally is a golfer, is also known to have earned a fortune through wagering.
In an interview with The Action Network a few days ago, Walters opened up about his relationship with the six-time major champion. When asked about allegedly claiming the golfer betting more than anyone else in America, he cleared that he was referring to him as an individual.
"No, when I was referring to Phil Mickelson. I was talking about an individual. There are other groups out there of people who bet, I would say, they probably have bet more money than Phil Mickelson has. If I'm talking about it as a group. I don't know, I don't know of anybody individual who's bet more money than Phil Mickelson."
When the interviewer asked him about seeing any other bigger gambler than the golfer, Walters replied there are probably bigger gambler groups. He added that it was Mickelson's money and was his business to take care of it:
"They probably are. Frankly, you know, as I said in the book, it's his business, that's his money, it's... if he wants to if he wants to gamble, he wants to bet on sports or whatever"
In his recent book "Gambler: Secrets from a Life at Risk", Billy Walters also claimed that Phil Mickelson almost shook the entire golfing fraternity.
Billy Walters reveals why he put Phil Mickelson in his recently released book
In his book, Walters allegedly shared that he felt his trust being broken by Mickelson because the golfer turned down to speak when he was sentenced to jail.
While speaking in the aforementioned interview, Billy Walters revealed why he added Phil Mickelson's part in the book.
He mentioned Alan Shipnuck's name, who wrote "PHIL: The Rip-Roaring", and added that the book claimed that Mickelson lost close to $40 million via betting. He felt that wasn't true and hence, he decided to add the golfer's part in his book.
"The other book I think, came out involving Alan [Shipnuck], then he came out and I think, he said he had lost 40 million dollars or something. Of course, he didn't tell the truth there, it didn't come clean and that's the reason I felt like I needed to add it to my book"
He continued that he wanted to prove his credibility because of the relationship he had with Phil Mickelson and tried to show the real facts:
"Because my relationship with him at the end of the day, you either got credibility or you don't. I put that in there to obviously display from a credibility standpoint these are, what the real facts are..."
An excerpt from Billy Walters' book went on to create ruckus after he allegedly claimed Phil Mickelson to have tried betting on the 2012 Ryder Cup. However, the 53-year-old golfer took to Twitter to clarify that he had never undermined the 'integrity of the game'.