The Man Who Changed Sports Betting Forever
In sports betting circles, the name “Billy Walters” is spoken with respect and a little envy. Many experts consider Walters to be the best sports bettor ever. His net worth has been estimated at over $200 million.
Walters came from an impoverished background and made his fortune primarily through his skills as a professional gambler, though he has also been successful in business. Read on to learn more about his incredible story.
Early Life
Billy Walters was born poor in the small town of Munfordville, Kentucky. He struggled through a difficult childhood — beginning when his father died when he was just 18 months old. To make things worse, his mother was an alcoholic who would soon abandon her children.
Walters Moves in with His Grandmother
Walters’ mother left young Billy and his two sisters behind shortly after Walters’ father died. Because of this, his grandmother raised him. His grandmother’s home lacked indoor plumbing and running water. Despite these continued hardships, this period of his early life would prove crucial to his later success.
He gives credit to his grandmother for instilling the value of hard work into him. She exemplified this work ethic, working two jobs washing dishes and cleaning houses. She did all this while also raising a total of seven children.
When Walters was seven years old, he was able to get a $40 bank loan thanks to his grandmother so that he could afford to buy a power lawnmower. This enabled him to launch his first business venture — a neighborhood lawn mowing business.
The Hardships Continue
Walters’ grandmother passed away when he was only 13 years old. This adversity meant that he had to move to be with his mother, who now lived in Louisville, Kentucky. During his time in Louisville, he demonstrated the work ethic that his grandmother had instilled in him. He worked at a bakery in the morning and worked his second job in the evening at a gas station.
He lived in a room in his mother’s basement at that time, paying her $10 a week in rent. While he was earning money, his personal life also changed for a time. Before he had even graduated high school, Walters got married and had a child. However, as one might expect considering his age at the time, the marriage ended before too long.
Success in Business
Walters’ interest in business continued into his adulthood and he eventually became a used car salesman. He sold used cars at a Louisville used car lot called McMackin Auto Sales. He clearly had a knack for sales, given that he was immediately quite successful as a used car salesman.
He went above and beyond to sell cars, mailing a self-promotion letter to 10 of each customers’ neighbors. This compounded his success at the used car lot. However, his knack for sales led him to do even more than that.
He found car advertisements by reading the local newspaper and traded cars with the sellers of the car advertisements. Additionally, back in this time, the phone book was a useful tool for any aspiring salesman like Walters. He took full advantage of it and made cold calls in order to further boost McMackin Auto Sales’ business.
Because of his sales strategy and natural business acumen, Walters was able to sell 32 cars per month on average. He set many sales records at his dealership, demonstrating his work ethic by working 80 hours a week. Eventually, he started his own used car wholesaling business in 1972.
His car wholesaling business was known as Taylor Boulevard Auto Sales. It provided car wholesaling to auto dealers across the southeastern area of the United States. However, his passion for sports betting, which had started when he was only a kid, had never wavered.
Starting His Gambling Career
Nine years after starting his used car wholesaling business, Walters decided to devote his life to gambling, mostly in the forms of bookmaking and sports betting. His betting career really started then, in 1981.
At around this time, Billy began working as an illegal bookie. Eventually, he was caught and convicted of a misdemeanor in the early 80s. At this time, he decided to move to Las Vegas, where sports betting is legal. His wife, Susan, accompanied him on his move to Vegas.
Starting a Professional Sports Betting Career
When Walters moved to Vegas early 80s, he did not initially focus on sports betting. In fact, he first had success in both roulette and poker. His greatest early success in roulette came in 1986, when he and an anonymous gambling partner won $3.8 million at the Golden Nugget. They’d identified that a certain model of roulette wheel had a manufacturing error that caused certain numbers to come up more frequently than they should. This sort of “advantage play” can be very lucrative, but casinos quickly catch on and ban known advantage players.
Walters moved on to poker, finding success in 1986, as well. He won the that year’s Super Bowl of Poker, earning him $175,000.
He then formed a group of advantage players, known as the ‘Syndicate’, to try and stay one step ahead of the casinos. The group was incredibly successful, winning over $1 million in total at casinos in Atlantic City and Las Vegas in 1989 alone.
The Computer Group
Sometime in the 1980s, Walters joined the legendary Computer Group of sports bettors. This was a major turning point in his betting career. He’d left other forms of professional gambling behind to concentrate on conquering the sports betting world.
The Computer Group was one of the the first organized sports betting operations (“syndicates”) that used computer programs to process data and suggest picks. The group was very successful, as was Walters himself. He had a 30-year winning streak in addition to a 39-year period that only included a single losing year.
One example of this is Walters winning $3.5 million betting on Super Bowl XLIV. He bet on the New Orleans Saints to win that Super Bowl, which they did by defeating the Indianapolis Colts 31-17. The Colts were five-point betting favorites in that Super Bowl, but Walters bet on the underdog and won big as the Saints won their first Super Bowl.
Despite continued success with The Computer Group, he eventually got tired of sharing profits and decided to strike out on his own.
Striking Out on His Own
When Walters set up his own operation, he used the computer analysis methods he had learned from his time in the Computer Group. These methods helped him achieve an incredible 57% winning percentage with his sports bets. In dollars, this translated to $50 – $60 million per year. In 2014, Billy his net worth was estimated at $100 million.
This net worth includes seven homes in addition to a private jet worth $20 million. Not bad for a kid from small-town Kentucky who grew up without running water.
Phil Mickelson and Insider Trading
Billy Walters’ life is not from free from controversy. He was found guilty of being involved in insider trading after he used private information provided to him by a Dean Foods board member named Thomas C. Davis. Walters had to pay a $10 million fine was also sentenced to five years in federal prison.
Thomas C. Davis had aided Walters in both making profits and avoid losses when it came to Dean Foods stock. The two communicated through prepaid cell phones, using code phrases like ‘Dallas Cowboys’. Walters benefited significantly from his insider trading, earning $32 million in profits in addition to avoiding losses of $11 million.
Phil Mickelson is another familiar name that faced a related civil case. Mickelson earned about $1 million by trading shares of Dean Foods, allegedly with the benefit of insider information. However, the famous golfer agreed to forfeit those profits in order to avoid further consequences.
Walters maintains that he wouldn’t have been convicted in the insider trading case if Mickelson had testified during the trial. Legal experts can speculate on this. It is difficult to say, given the fact that no one knows what Mickelson would have said if he had testified.
However, ever since then, there has been some tension in Walters’ relationship with Mickelson. This is understandable, given the circumstances. Former President Donald Trump commuted Walters’ sentence just before leaving office on January 20, 2021. As a result, he did not serve the full five-year prison sentence that he initially faced.
Why There Isn’t A “Next Billy Walters”
Billy Walters is a legendary gambler and widely recognized as the best sports bettor alive. In fact, the Sports Betting Hall of Fame inducted Billy Walters into its ranks in 2023. That is an honor that he richly deserves, but his success is quite difficult to replicate.
He discusses sports betting in two chapters of his book, titled “Gambler: Secrets from a Life at Risk.” One of the reasons that Walters’ success is difficult to replicate is that he has spent decades winning 57% of his bets. That is a percentage that most sports bettors struggle to reach in a single year, let alone decades.
Additionally, so many factors influence the outcome of a single sports game. These factors include officiating, injuries, the decisions of both coaches, and sometimes even weather. It is best to leave high-stakes sports betting to the professionals.
Still, Billy Walters’ story is an inspiring tale of hard work, success, and the potential benefits of taking big risks. In short, it is the story of the greatest sports bettor of all time.