Las Vegas legend Billy Walters defends integrity of sports betting
By DAVID PAYNE PURDUM
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The fix was in very rarely during professional sports bettor Billy Walters’ 30-year rise to the top of the industry.
Beginning at age 10, Walters has bet on everything from golf to pool to poker and more. In the early years, he saw plenty of shady things.
But for the past two decades, Walters is adamant that handicapping sports is the “squarest gamble that there is” and recalls only a few times when he questioned the integrity of the game.
“If you go back 25 or 30 years ago, yeah, there were some things that were questionable,” Walters told Covers.com in an exclusive phone interview. “But I can tell you in the last 20 years of sports, there were only a couple occasions where things weren’t what they were supposed to be.”
The 1993-94 college basketball season was one of those rare occasions.
In late January 1994, Walters learned a group of gamblers who began showing up in Las Vegas and were betting against Arizona State with enough money to make the pointspread do funny things.
“The first time these guys came into town the line moved like eight points, so I bet on the other side of it, because it created what I thought was a lot of value,” Walters remembered. “I lost the bet by like 15 points. The second time, the same guys came back in town and did the same thing. Well, this time, I’ve seen this rodeo before, so I didn’t bet this time. And they won that bet by 10 or 12 points.”
By the fourth time the group showed up in town, Walters had watched tape of the previous Arizona State games and knew what was going on. The line on the Sun Devils’ game against a bad Washington team in March moved nine points in the Huskies’ favor. Sportsbooks generally move a line one point for every maximum bet, which can range from five to six figures or more depending on the client.
At halftime of a tight game, Walters caught wind that a Pac-10 official had gone into the Sun Devils’ locker room to inform them of point-shaving allegations.
“Of course, Arizona State went out and won the game by 20-some points,” Walters said. “Eventually, the authorities got involved and those guys fled town. They rolled over on each other and the whole thing was exposed.”
Sports Illustrated detailed the same point-shaving scandal in an article written by one of the players on the take, Stevin (Hedake) Smith.
Walters also witnessed the betting scandal involving referee Tim Donaghy and believes Donaghy got off easy with a 15-month jail sentence.
“I think the NBA just wanted to sweep that under the table and move on quickly,” Walters said.
But those are rare exceptions, says Walters.
“I got to tell you, the NFL, NBA, college basketball and college football are about as square as it gets,” he added
By DAVID PAYNE PURDUM
ArticleComments
The fix was in very rarely during professional sports bettor Billy Walters’ 30-year rise to the top of the industry.
Beginning at age 10, Walters has bet on everything from golf to pool to poker and more. In the early years, he saw plenty of shady things.
But for the past two decades, Walters is adamant that handicapping sports is the “squarest gamble that there is” and recalls only a few times when he questioned the integrity of the game.
“If you go back 25 or 30 years ago, yeah, there were some things that were questionable,” Walters told Covers.com in an exclusive phone interview. “But I can tell you in the last 20 years of sports, there were only a couple occasions where things weren’t what they were supposed to be.”
The 1993-94 college basketball season was one of those rare occasions.
In late January 1994, Walters learned a group of gamblers who began showing up in Las Vegas and were betting against Arizona State with enough money to make the pointspread do funny things.
“The first time these guys came into town the line moved like eight points, so I bet on the other side of it, because it created what I thought was a lot of value,” Walters remembered. “I lost the bet by like 15 points. The second time, the same guys came back in town and did the same thing. Well, this time, I’ve seen this rodeo before, so I didn’t bet this time. And they won that bet by 10 or 12 points.”
By the fourth time the group showed up in town, Walters had watched tape of the previous Arizona State games and knew what was going on. The line on the Sun Devils’ game against a bad Washington team in March moved nine points in the Huskies’ favor. Sportsbooks generally move a line one point for every maximum bet, which can range from five to six figures or more depending on the client.
At halftime of a tight game, Walters caught wind that a Pac-10 official had gone into the Sun Devils’ locker room to inform them of point-shaving allegations.
“Of course, Arizona State went out and won the game by 20-some points,” Walters said. “Eventually, the authorities got involved and those guys fled town. They rolled over on each other and the whole thing was exposed.”
Sports Illustrated detailed the same point-shaving scandal in an article written by one of the players on the take, Stevin (Hedake) Smith.
Walters also witnessed the betting scandal involving referee Tim Donaghy and believes Donaghy got off easy with a 15-month jail sentence.
“I think the NBA just wanted to sweep that under the table and move on quickly,” Walters said.
But those are rare exceptions, says Walters.
“I got to tell you, the NFL, NBA, college basketball and college football are about as square as it gets,” he added
