Phil Mickelson & Billy Walters being investigated by FBI....

[jjgold]

It's amazing how greedy these guys are

Micholson doesn't even have to trade stocks he so rich

Now are you hear he might be losing his endorsements

[Harry N. Lloyd]

Huge Mickelson fan and have bet on him countless times but this is horrible and major news. What was he thinking? If you are an active golf player and you are playing golf with one of the largest american sports bettors, this is crazy. Can you imagine if an active nfl, nba, mlb or hockey player were playing golf with billy walters?

Fifa is on the warpath about gambling and fixes in the sport with the largest gambling event in the world coming up this month, but what would be the punishment be if an active soccer player were buddy/buddy and playing golf with a huge gambler? walters won the pebble pro am with Fredrik Jacobson and you have to wonder about these people that run golf, what will the golf governing bodies do anything about this. Every other major sport would do something major.

If he were a collegiate athlete and he even had lunch with billy walters, much less golfed regularly with him you would in a world of pain and your school in sanctions. Rick Neuheisel, the University of Washington football coach, was fired for just participating in a small March Madness pool with neighbors!!

Why would an active and still competing golfer maintain a relationship with a known and controversial sports gambler?

Unlike football, basketball, hockey, and baseball---There's really no way to throw a golf tournament in any meaningful way which would benefit a gambler. Or am I missing something?

[gregm]

The investigation is about insider trading but may be hard to prove, insider trading is basically trading based on nonpublic information obtained from someone who breached a fiduciary or confidentiality duty by disclosing it. Its crazy that he put himself in this position but if america would just regulate gambling like australia, you could govern everything alot easier, Australia has rules addressing match fixing in everything form golf to cricket and certainly some strange stuff coming up in the world cup with alot of these smaller nations and weird results.

JJ read this article before you plan on turning pro and moving to vegas, it is Billy Walters talking about how bad sport gambling has become with the consolidation of all the sports books. I like that term he uses, "stone sucker" squeezing water out of a rock

http://www.bettingtalk.com/billy-walters-sounds-sports-betting-las-vegas-time-time-low/

"Billy Walters sounds off: Sports betting in Las Vegas is at an all-time, all-time low,” said Walters, a wealthy Las Vegas businessman considered by many to be the most successful sports bettor ever. “It’s a joke. A sad joke.”

A Kentucky native, Walters first arrived in Las Vegas in the early 1980s. He estimates there were 40 sportsbooks competing for business back then. Some books offered better odds than their competitors. Others had superior customer service, shorter lines and friendlier staffs. In short, bettors had options.

That’s changed, he said, as Vegas has consolidated.

Approximately 10 companies run all the sportsbooks in Las Vegas. Only a handful offer Internet wagering. And even fewer will take a big enough bet to make it worth Walters’ while, he says.
“Today in Las Vegas, I can bet about 20 percent of what I used to be able to bet,” Walters explained in a Wednesday phone interview. “College football totals are a good example. You can bet more money on them with one sportsbook outside of Nevada than you can at all of the sportsbooks in Nevada combined.

“Now, if you’re a hundred-dollar bettor or a nickel bettor or if you’re a stone sucker and give your money away all the time, maybe you won’t even notice the difference,” he added. “But I can tell you, if you live in Las Vegas, you’ll notice the difference. “

Walters says you can really see the lack of competition in the Vegas futures markets, like the odds to win the Super Bowl.

“To be honest with you, if you compare the futures odds at any casino in Las Vegas, they’re not close to what’s being offered in Europe or what’s being offered offshore,” Walters said. “Many times they’re 20 to 25 percent higher in the UK or offshore, but they get away with it in Las Vegas because they have a monopoly. We don’t make many futures bets here anymore.”

The lack of mobile and Internet wagering at most shops is a bigger issue, says Walters. Long lines and poor customer service, including grumpy ticket writers, add to his frustration with the entire process of placing a bet.

“If you want to bet in Las Vegas, you have to go stand in a line; you have to put up cash or have chips, and the only way you can get chips is with cash, and you have to give an ID and fill out CTRs, which most people don’t have a problem with that,” Walters said. “Or you can sit in the comfortof your home, you can bet over the telephone or over the Internet. In many cases, lay -105 instead of 11-to-10 and you can do it 24/7 in the comfort of your home. If you’re in L.A., why would you get on an airplane and come to Las Vegas to bet sports on the weekend?”

The obvious reason, as Walters concedes himself, is the guarantee of getting paid.
“Clearly, there’s a lot of guys offshore who won’t pay you. There’s that consideration,” Walters said. “You have to know who you’re dealing with. That’s something you have to factor into the equation. The majority of the major guys offshore, I don’t know of anyone they ever stiffed.”

Another positive about betting sports professionally in Las Vegas, according to Walters? The presence of Cantor Gaming, his preferred Nevada sportsbook."

[jjgold]

Walters made his money illegally
Have to check Phils trading pattern to see if it's unusual

That's how they get caught

[Darkside Magick]

One of Las Vegas' biggest sports bettors Billy Walters, who is linked to a federal investigation regarding possible insider-trading in 2011, was facing a multi-million dollar debt owed to the government over a soured golf-course deal at the time, according to court records. Walters owed as much as $15.2 million to the Federal deposit Insurance Corp. stemming from the 2006 sale of the Stallion Mountain golf club in Las Vegas, Bloomber News reported. The buyers defaulted on a bank loan personally guaranteed by Walters. Both Walters and pro-golfer Phil Mickelson are being investigated by the FBI about the purchasing of large stock options of Clorox just before billionaire investor Carl Ichan's $10.2 billion offer to buy they company.

[jjgold]

I love guys that think Walter is sharp with sports betting

He is a box of rocks

Made his money illegal bookmaking for years not BETTING