The World's Most Successful Gambler | Billy Walters

[00:00:05] Imagine betting hundreds of millions of dollars on sports over a 36-year period and winning every year, having a positive record every year. This guy, Billy Walters, he wrote the book Gambler, Secrets from a Life at Risk.

[00:00:22] He describes completely his method for gambling. He also talked about stocks, and he's got some crazy stories. He went to jail for insider trading. He hung out with Carl Icahn. He's hung out with the best poker players in the world. And just insane stories from the gambling world.

[00:00:37] And I always wanted to talk to him. He wrote this great book. I read the book and I said, we got to get this guy on the podcast. He came on. He's made hundreds of millions of dollars gambling. And I want to do that too. Here's Billy Walters.

[00:00:49] This isn't your average business podcast. And he's not your average host. This is The James Altucher Show. Billy, I really enjoyed the book Gambler, Secrets from a Life at Risk. Thank you for coming on the podcast. No, thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

[00:01:17] Really, really great book. I don't even know where to begin. You've had this almost movie-like story as a gambler, a businessman, so many people you've met from the poker world, the gambling world, the investing world. You spent time in prison, unfortunately.

[00:01:36] Again, I don't know where to begin, but it seems like one thing that fascinated me in the book was so many days you would bake like $100,000, a million dollars, whatever in the morning, let's say playing golf or whatever,

[00:01:51] and then lose it in the evening and be broke and borrow money from Doyle Brunson just to get by. Like, just describe one of those days so I understand because I can't even imagine that kind of roller coaster.

[00:02:03] And I've been through a few roller coasters myself, but nothing like that. Well, James, the reason I wrote the book is I wrote the book to share those experiences. You know, early on in my life, I've had addictions, I've had issues in my life, alcohol at one time.

[00:02:20] I was addicted to gambling at one time and I wanted to share those experiences with the little world, so to speak, because, you know, my life has been, you know, it's been ups, it's been downs, and you're right.

[00:02:36] You know, it hasn't always been easy, but one of my biggest motivations for writing the book was to share my life with others or try to help them through similar experiences that they're dealing with.

[00:02:47] And that along with the fact that, you know, sports betting, I've been betting sports my entire life, and to be able to take something that I was so addicted to and being able to turn it around and actually become pretty good at it, I wanted to share that.

[00:03:02] And then I see sports betting as legal in the majority of the states and the United States now, and that's something that really was always kind of a lifelong dream. But although it's legalized, you got millions and millions of people betting sports that have ever bet sports before.

[00:03:16] So I wanted to share my story there again, both with the good part of it and the bad part of it. And then I wanted to put everything in the book, James, that I've learned about handicapped

[00:03:26] and sports betting my entire career to, you know, I wanted to share that with the public for the first time ever to help people who are actually getting involved with that. And then I went through, you know, something in my life later on in life

[00:03:38] that I never dreamed that I would ever have to deal with and that was going to prison. I walked into prison when I was 71 years old in Pesticola and never dreamed I would ever have to deal with that.

[00:03:49] And while I was in prison, I dealt with the most difficult thing in my life, my daughter committed suicide. So once that happened, that was a defining moment for me. I knew I had to write this book.

[00:04:02] And so when I got out of prison and I finally got in the position to work on this book and write the book, that was what motivated me to share my life story. And so again, there's so many different entry points there.

[00:04:17] So first off, you started, let's call it a legit business. You were selling cars. You could have really gone a traditional path. And like many people were not many, but you could have built a bunch of dealerships,

[00:04:32] made a ton of money, tens of millions of dollars sold to dealerships and retired a wealthy man. That's I don't want to say that's a traditional path, but that's a path many people in the car business have used and become very wealthy.

[00:04:42] And you were on your way to that. You were an excellent salesman. Obviously, you've got a personality that takes you to extremes and you were using it for cars. And then on top of that, you also became a really good golf player

[00:04:53] and was using your golf skills to gamble successfully on your own golf ability. And it took a turn. What happened? Well, James, you know, the county explained to you how really was brought into gambling, so to speak. At a very early age, I was introduced to gambling

[00:05:13] and I love gambling from the day I was introduced to it. Any type of risk taping to me, it was that's what, you know, it was it was exciting to me, so to speak. When I got out of high school, you know, I'd gotten married.

[00:05:25] Well, I was in high school. I had a child and and, you know, my father died when I was here in my mother left and I was raised by a grandmother and I really had no opportunity to go to college or get a formal education.

[00:05:37] So when I got out of high school, I had a daughter and I had responsibility and I had a couple of jobs, but obviously got me out of mobile business and I was very good at it. I realized early on that the whole key to it

[00:05:50] was staying busy the entire time and and I did things that most people weren't doing back in those days. And as a result, like what? Well, you know, I was every customer that I sold a car to

[00:06:04] had a crisscross directory and and, you know, I got the identification and the names of all of their neighbors and, you know, I would contact them either directly or I would send them a postcard and introduce myself and point out to them that I'd sold Mr.

[00:06:20] Smith his car and who I was and we were on a sale and and I would encourage them to come down. I would in every customer that I sold the car to, I turned him into a referral source. I paid them, you know, the furlancy and substantial

[00:06:35] with her see I stayed in touch with them. I created personal relationships with them. Yeah, I would go to the local newspaper each day and people would have their cars in their list of for sale take over payments. Well, they weren't going to start walking.

[00:06:49] They were they wanted to sell their car because they could no longer afford it. So I would bring them in and I would sell them a less expensive car, take their car in spray and reduce their payments.

[00:07:00] And so I and then when when there was nothing else going on, I would just pick up the phone and start calling people with the same prefix as the number is the area of Louisville that I was working in South and the Louisville.

[00:07:13] I just call people and introduce myself. And sometimes they'd slam the phone on me sometimes, you know, but sometimes they would engage in conversation. I would tell them, you know, we're running a sale, telling who I was, where you were located, people would come in.

[00:07:27] And as a result, James, I sold a lot of cars and and made a lot of money. And the more money I made and clearly the more money I spent, whether it be, you know, and my gambling habit is,

[00:07:39] you know, it just increased the amount of money that I was earning. Were you net winning or losing at that point in gambling? No, I was losing. I was a sucker. I mean, I worked very hard. My family lived well, but I never accumulated any money.

[00:07:54] As you noted, I work for two different people work for one guy for two years is competitor. I had me to run his place. I ran it for five years and then I went in business myself for nine years.

[00:08:05] So I was in the automobile business for 16 years, made a lot of money. I mean, in the seventies in the automobile business, James, when I was in business myself, I was making five, six hundred thousand dollars a year. Never accumulated any money. I lost it all gambling.

[00:08:20] I mean, that would be the equivalent now with inflation of about three million a year, maybe even a little more. Yeah. Yeah. And in Louisville, Kentucky, it's not the most expensive place in the world like you were doing really well for yourself.

[00:08:32] I mean, taxes were pretty high then, but you know, I'm sure you must have been gambling quite a bit to not really accumulate tens of millions of dollars at that point. Well, I didn't accumulate it anybody really.

[00:08:42] I well, what I did was I lost it all gambling either. You know, I had a I had an issue with alcohol all the time. I didn't realize I had an issue because I didn't drink it

[00:08:52] often. But when I did drink is when I did all the dumb, destructive things that I did, I when I started drinking, I drank until I got hammered and then my personality changed. I became aggressive, but more importantly,

[00:09:05] my judgment in regards to things I would bend over a gamble on, it was it was terrible because all I would do is gamble. I was looking to take the best of it, but if I couldn't take the best of it, I take the worst of it.

[00:09:17] I just learned to gamble and and as a result, you know, I lost a lot of money. I mean, the as an example, I would work six days week in the automobile business. I'd play golf with guys on Sunday who practice all week,

[00:09:31] or I would work at I'd get off work at the car dealership at night and night, I'd go to a bar and I, I started drinking the boys bar plan poker about 12. And I would play sometimes all night.

[00:09:44] Sometimes I would play in a six, seven in the morning, go home, take a shower, put on a first set of clothes and go back to work. And I was betting sports. I've had had a goal sheet on the schedule

[00:09:55] and I've been on almost every game there was. And as a result, all the money I made working, I lost gambling. But let me ask you like after, let's say even after a short time of this, wouldn't you say to yourself, okay, there's a skill to poker.

[00:10:10] I need to study it. Maybe even, I don't know, there were a few books out there. There was, you know, your buddy Doyle wrote Super System. There were other books out there. Were you getting a sense that I need to improve

[00:10:23] or were you thinking to yourself, I was good already. I just was made the other guy got lucky or like, what was happening in your mind psychologically that unless you really wanted to lose all the money, you must have recognized that you needed to improve.

[00:10:38] No, I definitely needed, I knew I needed to improve. I mean, but I always believed James that if I could focus 100% of my time in being a professional gamer, that I could be successful. Now, most of my friends, they thought it was just the opposite.

[00:10:54] It was the equivalent of a drug addict, being turned over to a drug store so to speak. But I always believed that if I could focus on full time, I could be successful. Golf, I didn't take up golf until I was 20 years old.

[00:11:08] Really, you know, where I was born and raised James, I didn't even know there was such a thing as a golf course until I was like 19 years old. And then as far as poker was concerned, you know, wherever I learned playing poker,

[00:11:20] you know, I learned it the hard way. And after I got out of the automobile business and I became a full-time professional gamer, that's when I started to be successful. And there were a number of things that happened, which I've shared in the book. Obviously, I quit drinking.

[00:11:35] And that was a major turning point in my life is when I quit drinking. And the other thing that happened, James, is I got married and matter of fact, our anniversary will be this week. We'll be married 47 years. And wow, congratulations.

[00:11:49] I married an incredible, incredible lady, a partner. I mean, that was the best thing that ever happened to me in my life. And then there were a number of things that took place after that, which again, I've shared in detail in the book, that took place.

[00:12:05] You know, I quit drinking, I quit smoking. There were things that just took place. And once I quit drinking, then clearly it was first sailing after that, I quit making dumb decisions, both personally and business-wise. And then I became fairly successful

[00:12:23] at the things I was involved with after that. And you were already, if correctly you're wrong, you're already a professional gambler when you quit drinking. You were in Las Vegas when you quit drinking and you had had a bad night at Binion's casino. By the way, quick story,

[00:12:38] I once stayed with Jack Binion for a day and he's like, I'm gonna take you to my favorite restaurant. And I thought this is gonna be it. I'm going with Jack Binion in Las Vegas to his favorite restaurant. It was probably some like secret,

[00:12:51] golden key kind of restaurant where all the hot shots are at. He goes to Cheesecake Factory. We wait in line for a half hour. He's a billionaire, like we're waiting in line for a half hour. And he's like, oh, get the pasta.

[00:13:05] And it was great, but it was a funny thing. But anyway, you were already in Las Vegas, you were in that life. So you were obviously on your quest of becoming a professional gambler. But what would you say turned you from net losing to net winning?

[00:13:20] Well, there were a number of things that took place. And again, I shared those things in the book. When I first moved to Las Vegas, again, most of my friends and the lovable thought I essentially had no chance to be successful and handicapped it myself.

[00:13:35] If it would have been someone else other than me, I would have thought they had no chance either. When I moved to Las Vegas, I knew a lot of people there before I moved there because I've been spending quite a bit of time with Las Vegas.

[00:13:47] I moved there in 82. I started spending quite a bit of time there in the mid-70s. And I actually started playing in Jack Binyon's professional golf tournament. And that's where I met these people. So when I moved there, I knew Dole, I knew Billy Baxter, I knew Chipper,

[00:14:05] I knew Pogie Burst, I knew Bobby Ball. And I mean, I knew everyone there. You knew them just by playing poker with them at the tables? Because I mean, these are the most famous poker players in history now. Well, I played golf with them.

[00:14:16] I played poker with them. And that's primarily where I knew them mostly from golf and some poker. So when I moved there, Dole Brunson was actually my first partner. I moved there, I was broke. When I moved there from Louisville,

[00:14:32] matter of fact, I was a couple of $1,000 at that. And I was betting sports and I was to invest like a wind. And I went to Billy Baxter first who's one of my best friends in the world and really graciously declined,

[00:14:48] which, and he kind of tells a story today. And like I said, I don't blame it for declining because at the time I was a guy that, I was a really dangerous gambler but I could win a lot of money. But I was also at this issue

[00:15:03] with I was my great money manager. And then when I drank and when I drank, I just gave my money away. So anyway, Dole ended up being my first partner. The first week we bet on sports, I know we lost over a million dollars in 82,

[00:15:18] which was a lot of money in 82. Dole almost went to shock. I mean, he was a big gambler but losing a million dollars on one weekend betting on sports, especially something that wasn't his expertise, almost put him in the shock. How did you feel like,

[00:15:34] like I think, I mean, I would go on the shock, losing a million dollars, sports betting. And that's the dollars worth, you know, much less now. Like that was like equivalent of like three to five million dollars losing in a week. And what was your bankroll

[00:15:49] that you could so easily lose a million? And you don't really discuss your emotions as much that weekend. You describe Dole going in shock, but not yourself. Well, you got to picture this. I lived last week, I guess I was broke at no money. I was 200,000 in debt.

[00:16:03] And I didn't look like, you know, Philly Baxter had already declined on being my partner. I had Dole as a partner. In the very first week out of the shoot, we lost some billion bucks. So I thought to myself, oh man, this isn't going to be good.

[00:16:16] Well, fortunately, Dole, he hung on. And the next week we won the money back and we're 240,000 a winner. And Dole said, I can't take this anymore. He said, this is too late. So he quit. When he quit, you know, I had half 120,000 after 240,000, I had 120,000.

[00:16:34] But Chip Riespa became my partner. And at the time, Chip was the best all around poker player in the world. And Chip was also a great, great money manager. And that was something that I really didn't have much of at the time.

[00:16:47] I was a very poor money manager. And by money manager, you basically mean, don't put 100% of your money on the Cardinals this weekend. You know, you mentioned put one to 3% of your bankroll on any one bet. Right. And Chip Riespa was known with this in poker as well.

[00:17:02] Like he was very good at understanding the math behind how much you should bet on each bet. Yeah, but not only that. I think Chip had been in Las Vegas for a period of time. And Las Vegas back then, frankly, the card rooms

[00:17:16] are a lot of cheating going on. And I think he'd been cheated so many times that I think what happened is, you know, if he was in the card game and he felt like things were on the square, he would quit.

[00:17:27] I think that had a lot to do with everybody and a good money manager. But it worked perfectly for him and our partnership because we had a money management system. He put up X number of dollars and we were gonna bet if he worked

[00:17:39] one to 3% of our bankroll based upon the size of that. And that's what we did. What do you feel was your edge back then? You discussed later in the book, your system essentially, but from the beginning, I always get the sense here.

[00:18:09] And this is true for every great gambler. They're looking for an edge. Like there are reason why they could not only win the game but beat the house and the big and the taxes and so on. Like you had to have a really good edge

[00:18:20] and everybody's looking for an edge. So what made you special? Well, it's all about value. And regardless of whether you're playing a hand to poker and the cost got 10 grand in it, there's one to come and you put everybody on a hand, you do an evaluation

[00:18:34] and that's gonna tell you whether it's worth the investment and calling that better or not. Sports is the same thing. All I do, James, is I make a line on every game, a prediction the same as the Osmic or that.

[00:18:46] And I bet my opinion against whatever the line is out there, if there's enough of a differential, I'll make a bet. The larger the differential, the larger bet I'll make. I mean, and I know layin' 11 to 10, there has to be a certain amount of differential

[00:19:03] before I have a mathematical advantage. And that's really all I do, nothing more, nothing less. And I started off with a guy in the late 70s his name was Michael Kent. He had developed the first computer software program to handicap sports with.

[00:19:17] And at the time, we had an enormous advantage. And I realized after about three years that that advantage was eroding and that if I didn't continue to reinvent myself, I was gonna be out of business. Well, I recruited essentially over the next five years,

[00:19:34] I recruited another six Michael Kent, so to speak. So I had seven different people independent of each other that were providing me with independent sources of information. They didn't know each other, they didn't communicate with each other. The only person that they knew was me.

[00:19:49] And as a result, I spend millions of dollars every year in research and development. That's the reason I've been able to stay out of the game that's reason I still beat sports today. It's gotten more competitive, it's gotten more difficult, but it's like anything, whether you're,

[00:20:04] if you're investing in stocks, if you're investing in real estate or anything else, if you can't continue to find an advantage, you're going to be out of business. And that's how I did what I did and that's what I continue to do today.

[00:20:20] It's such an interesting thing because I'm assuming what Michael Kent and these other people did, and Michael Kent is the founder of what you call the computer group in the book. He basically would take statistics. Like if you had one of the odds,

[00:20:33] this team beats this team and it's raining outside and it's the home advantage, he would have a bunch of factors, I'm assuming, and statistically figure out what the odds were given past history, what the odds were that one team would beat another team and buy how much.

[00:20:49] Obviously as more people do that, advantage erodes because the line takes all of that into account. The odds makers take all that into account. Now this is 40 years, 50 years later, you have hedge funds with PhDs, thousands of PhDs doing similar types of things with sports betting.

[00:21:07] How do you compete with that kind of manpower? Well, I mean, frankly, I'll play, we're a little bit better at it than they are. I've been doing this a long, long time. My team, some of my teams have been with me for over 30 years.

[00:21:22] I don't exactly have a bunch of dummies working. For me, I've got one guy graduated, number one in his class at Caltech. I got another guy that, you know, he was the head of an economics department. He was the chair of it at a major university.

[00:21:35] But there's a lot more of betting sports than just the connotating side of it, James. And that's where I think maybe I have a little bit of advantage over what we'll call it just strictly the tech guys. There's a qualitative side of betting sports also,

[00:21:49] but you can't, you know, as an example, if you've got an issue with a team and you've got morale, there's really not a slide really you go to for that. Evaluating injuries, I mean, we all generally do this thing the same way.

[00:22:02] You know, you've got players and they have values and if they're injured and they're playing, you have to make an adjustment for that value. If they're out, okay, and there's a backup, there's a replacement, okay, what's the differential between that starter and the backup?

[00:22:18] And how is that going to, you know, and it's gonna change from opponent to opponent. Some opponents, you know, if a key guy's out and you got a backup, the start of some parties is maybe another opponent. You can't go to a slide room for that.

[00:22:32] There's a lot of things that have to be done qualitatively that, you know, the nerds don't totally understand. So you're right. As far as the quantitative side of things are concerned, it's a, you know, you've got a lot of smart people doing the same thing,

[00:22:50] you know, putting a handicap and system together. I've shared everything that I know, 100%. I didn't hold one thing back about sports handicapping or by sports betting. Another thing James, that says really is super duper important and almost as important as a handicap in aspect of this

[00:23:08] is a betting strategy. And a lot of the guys that know how to make numbers, they don't know how to bet. You know, they take bad numbers, they bet it's the wrong time. And the other big, the biggest issue that most of them have,

[00:23:19] they don't know how, you know, they can't bet much money. They don't know how to go out and bet several million dollars on a ball game. And that's something that I know how to do. That's reason that I've won so much more money than anyone else.

[00:23:32] Jack Benion, who you mentioned, I had a great pleasure of, you know, they had a sports gambler's hall of fame this year in Las Vegas, the very first one. And I had a great pleasure of Jack introducing me to that.

[00:23:44] And he made a comment and the truth is the truth. I'm not, I don't want to come across here as somebody who's being a real braggart here. But the truth of the matter is where I won hundreds of millions of dollars, but in sports, you know,

[00:23:57] I would say that the guy of second, maybe I doubt if he won 20. And there's a reason for that. And the reason was I was a, I put together a network James where I was able to bet millions of dollars on a ball game

[00:24:10] where most people could only bet maybe say a couple hundred thousand. So there were a number of the things we kind of did over the years and other people. I had an office in Panama City, Panama. When I closed it up in 2016

[00:24:23] to prepare for the trial in the Southern District of New York, I had 1600 accounts in that office. And those were 1600 accounts that we used around the world. And then I'm more in the U S they were all outside the U S.

[00:24:36] And then I had an office in Las Vegas that I had about 150 accounts. And that's, that's another part of what I did that was quite a bit different than most other people. Most of these other people today that are betting and I was forcing throughout the years.

[00:24:52] Again, they weren't, they were never able to bet a significant amount of money in sports. What's the benefit other than obviously betting more money makes or loses more money? What's the benefit of having so many different accounts and were you able to like move the line

[00:25:05] or would you be able to make more bets so to diversify appropriately or? Well, the benefit is that you're able to bet a larger volume, a larger amount of money. And then more importantly is the next thing James is a lot of these bookmakers

[00:25:19] when you beat them out of their money, you know, they'll close your account down. They'll throw you out. Well, you know, the whole key is not to get thrown out and keep the account and not only to keep the account

[00:25:29] but to be able to bet them more money than, you know, then they're posting limits. And there's a number of things that you do that already achieve that. A lot of bookmakers, it's real simple. If you beat them, they're gonna throw you out.

[00:25:41] And there's only so many bookmakers. So if you, you'll look around next thing, you know, you don't have anyone to bet with. If you went on a continual basis and I did that for 36 consecutive years and that's really kind of what separated me

[00:25:57] from other people doing what I do. You know, when the line first comes out on Sunday night or say Monday morning, there are people who can beat that line. I mean, I think I only bet a small amount of money.

[00:26:11] Okay, once the line, once you're into a Tuesday or Wednesday and that line, you know, has been bet and it's basically solid. The number of people that can win after that, it's less than 1% of the people who are betting sports can win consistently.

[00:26:25] You know, over the years, I've seen a lot of guys come along and you know, they're successful for a year or two years or maybe three years or guys will come along with all they do is bet college basketball or all they do is bet certain conferences.

[00:26:39] You know, a lot of them, you know, two, three, four years, five years in, then you never hear from them. They can't win anymore because they've lost whatever advantage they had is gone, you know, because essentially the public's caught up, you know.

[00:26:52] And so the benefit of being able to bet a lot more money is that you could look for advantages in many more places, not just bet one conference or one sport or whatever. What's the actual percentage benefit of what advantage does it give you?

[00:27:08] Again, other than that, if you bet more, you can make more, what advantage does betting more money give you? Because it seems like it's harder to be flexible with more money. Well, it is much harder, but it just, it just really, it's just a simple,

[00:27:19] I mean, I could bet the second bet all, let's say Monday morning, I could maybe bet a grand total of 60, 80,000 or 100,000. Let's say I had a 6% advantage, okay? So I'm about 100 grand, I'm gonna get a $6,000 return on my money, okay? But let's say come Saturday,

[00:27:37] that game I bet a million dollars on it, I get a 3% return. You know, so did you go to have 30,000 or did you go to have 6,000? It's told to me it was, you know, it was all about volume and return, nothing more, nothing less.

[00:27:52] You know, the more money I could invest, the greater amount of money I could earn, I mean. So like you could bet on Monday, but you could also bet on Saturday as the line changes. You could do things that diversify. Well, the other thing I didn't want,

[00:28:04] I didn't want anyone to know when I was betting on Russell James because I have people over the years and who try to buy people who work for me. A lot of the bookmakers we bet with, the clerks who worked in there,

[00:28:15] they were being paid to tell people who you're betting on. And what happens, I bet on a game and the line moves too much, there's no value. I mean, I can't bet, you know, that they shut me out. There's, so there's nothing.

[00:28:27] And then, you know, contrary to public opinion, you know, I want to see the bookmakers win. I don't want to see the bookmakers lose. Anyone who was involved with me directly or indirectly, I want them to win, but I'm not looking for someone to steal my information

[00:28:42] and go out and beat bookmakers out of a lot of money with it because nothing good, nothing good is going to come out of that for me. All the bookmakers are going to do is reduce these limits or either go out of business

[00:28:51] if he loses too much money. So over the years, I mean, I've had people go through our trash. I've had people tap my phones. I've had people borrow my employees. I've had everything in the world people trying to steal our information. So, you know, between creating 1600 accounts,

[00:29:10] maintaining 1600 accounts and keeping people from stealing your information and then handicapping and betting on sports and winning consistently, I've been a busy guy. You know, it seems like you're in a, it's a dangerous field gambling, right? There's a lot of organized crime. There's a lot of violent figures.

[00:29:29] Like you say, you had people wiretapping your phones, stealing your trash, paying off your employees. Like how do you keep sane and all that? You're juggling a lot and, you know, focusing on the betting. What points were you scared?

[00:29:44] Well, well, James, I want to set the record straight as far as organized crimes concern, as far as, you know, at least as far as what I know. And I think I know quite a bit. There's been an organized crime involved in sports betting or gambling period

[00:29:57] since Tony Svartro was in Las Vegas. You know, that was a guy who was killed in the movie because say no, once he was killed and he was gone, I think any influence of organized crime and in sports betting,

[00:30:09] I think that went out the window with it also. And their involvement was primarily booking sports anyway. You know, that's one good thing about legalized sports betting today. It's totally transparent. The people involved in it have been vetted. They've been given a license.

[00:30:23] You got jobs have been created, you know, taxes are being collected and people are able to bet on sports, which is great. I think that's all good. But I don't think there's any organized crime involved in sports betting or sports bookmaking.

[00:30:38] So that's why I don't think there's been any involved for a long, long period of time. And as these, like we discussed with gambling, how what was sports betting? How there's a lot more quants out there but you have this also this qualitative side just from your experience.

[00:30:54] I guess you have a network of people who tell you when, oh, the team's morale is low today or whatever. Like you must have a network of information that you tap into. I guess a similar thing, you know, this relates to when you later went to prison

[00:31:08] but with stock trading, stock trading is really just a form of gambling. And you know, you can use statistics, which many people do. There's all sorts of quantitative traders. And then there's the qualitative where you still need an edge. You still need some way to say to yourself,

[00:31:23] I know more information than other people. I'm not talking about insider information but you need to have maybe you go to industry conferences or you know people who do or you know people at the company. You know what other big investors are investing

[00:31:36] like you were friends with Carl Icahn. You know, and this is where you started to get in trouble. There's a, you know, can you talk about the case that was against you? Like what happened? Sure. I've been investing in stocks for a number of years,

[00:31:49] you know, 15 years prior to this case I've been coming about. I'd invested in hundreds and hundreds of stocks not just a few. The end of stock that I went to prison with I've been investing in a stock for 10 years. So. Dean Foods.

[00:32:03] It wasn't like, yeah, it wasn't like a stock that I just happened to buy and made a few bucks on and then I ended up having a problem and it's a long, long story. That's one of the primary reasons I wrote this book

[00:32:13] was to give the details of that because you know, you can never do that in an interview as much as you'd like to be able to go into details. You know, we'd be here for a while explaining it but you know, to me stock investing frankly

[00:32:25] is child's play compared to betting on sports that wouldn't consist so late but all stock guys do whether it be Carl Icahn when you mentioned or Warren Buffett or David Tepper or there are a lot of people that I respect in that world

[00:32:40] but all they do is they do an assessment of a publicly traded company. They come up with what they believe the value of that company is. If it's underpriced, they're gonna buy that stock and that company. If it's overpriced, they may short it. I do the same thing.

[00:32:55] I mean, I'm invested in the stock market substantially today. And again, they're doing the same thing that I'm doing as sports. They do an evaluation of a publicly traded company and so you have more Cuban on your show, Mark's a very, very smart guy.

[00:33:10] That's all anyone does with any type of business or whether it be public or private. You do an evaluation and you invest your money, you bet your money based upon what you feel like there's value there. And if you're right, you know

[00:33:23] but the thing about the stock market there's things that can happen in the stock market to have nothing to do with an individual stock that can either positively or either negatively affect it. I mean, you can have geopolitical issues that come up in the stock that could

[00:33:37] end up devastating the stock market. You may own a great stock or great company. So you're not only invested in that particular stock you've gotta have a pretty good audit. You know, ow, what's going on around the world and things that could happen

[00:33:49] that could have a negative or positive effect on the stock you're investing in. But again, it's all the same thing James. It's identifying, finding value and betting your money one way or the other. With sports betting, I could see how you had confidence

[00:34:03] you had an edge because you had the quantitative side which had a known statistical edge and you had the qualitative side. You had a network of people with information you knew a lot about every sport and game and team and player. So you had both the qualitative

[00:34:18] and quantitative confidence that you had an edge. How do you build now confidence that you have an edge in the stock market or with any particular stock? I'm a contrarian investor. I mean, anytime, you know, the majority of the money that I made outside of sports betting

[00:34:33] I'm buying things when other people are selling and I'm selling when other people are buying. I mean, it's just pretty, it's fair. And a lot of times you'll see stocks get in my opinion way oversold or way overbought and that creates opportunity.

[00:34:46] You know, when we had the financial downturn in 2008, nine and 10 I bought 22 automobile dealerships at that time. I mean, no one wanted to buy automobile dealerships ever, one was selling. So I bought 22 went in and we turned them around and to me it's just really that simple.

[00:35:06] I'm looking for value of stocks also. I mean, when stocks are trading to a certain multiple and you don't see a lot of room for a particular broker so to speak or if you're on the other side of the coin do you see a company that's poorly managed,

[00:35:19] poorly ran, got a bad CEO and the stock is underperforming. I mean, I'll give you an example Walgreens right now. I mean Walgreens is stocks in an all-time low and the CEO she just left and they're in the process of trying to locate a CEO.

[00:35:39] They've got other issues. I mean, you've got everybody, everyone's familiar with these in-store thefts and then of course they've got a number of their stores in the UK and whatever but I think that's the stock that potentially has got a tremendous amount of room on the upside.

[00:35:58] So, okay, everybody's dumping that stock and buying it. So am I right or am I wrong? But when I look at the revenue, I look at the balance sheet and I look at, I mean the most conservative analysis

[00:36:12] that I can do as far as what the PE is gonna look like going forward, stock looks really, really cheap to me. I bought it. I mean, and on the other hand, stocks that I own that I feel like you're too pricey, I'm gonna sell them.

[00:36:25] Am I right all the time? Nope. Am I wrong all the time? Nope. Same thing goes with force. I win 57 or 70 games that I bet on James but I bet on a lot of games. I bet on 30, 35, 40 games a week. So when you can do the math

[00:36:42] and the amount of money I invest in the return I get on a weekly basis is still a pretty good business. Throughout these decades of successful gambling and a successful career, you've obviously been the subject of many investigations particularly the issue of whether you were a bookmaker

[00:37:14] or not and you had to convince the FBI. You know, you had to explain to the FBI the difference between bookmaking and making bets. What really finally got you was this insider trading one and at age 71, you actually had to go to jail.

[00:37:30] Were you in a state of panic at this point or what was going on in your head? Well, you know, first of all, I'll address the things with the sports betting. When I organized a group of organized betters in 1982 in Las Vegas,

[00:37:46] the FBI law enforcement had never seen a group of organized betters. The only thing they'd ever seen was organized bookmakers and the majority of them were involved with organized crime. So I had about 30 guys in Las Vegas. We were betting sports all over town.

[00:38:02] We were winning a lot of money and there was an FBI agent who had been out of the academy for a couple months and he started this investigation under the belief that we were organized bookmakers that were affiliated with organized crime.

[00:38:16] But we're attached on our phones for a couple of months. No one ever took a bet, all we did was bet, but they still rated 13, 14 places throughout the United States with confiscated records and what have you. After they got them, they realized we weren't bookmakers

[00:38:30] and all we were doing was betting. Four years, 11 months, two weeks later, two weeks before the statute of limitations ran out, I got indicted in 1990 in Las Vegas and I was charged, believe it or not James, and the game and capital of the world.

[00:38:45] I was charged with being part of a criminal conspiracy conspiring to bet on ball games. Now stop and think about that for a moment. The majority of the states in the United States, sports baiters is now legal. I was indicted in Las Vegas

[00:39:00] about a 1990 for betting on ball games. Now, I went to court, they indicted my wife also. I saw my wife being taken out of the front of our home with handcuffs on and leg guards for betting on ball games. And we went to court and of course,

[00:39:18] we reshorated the jury and the newspapers. They basically ran the FBI agent out of town. When the facts came out in court, what it was all about, it was a travesty for everyone involved, including the government. And then after that, I was indicted three more times

[00:39:39] by the state prosecutor for the same thing, betting on ball games, nothing more, nothing less. Every time that was thrown out of court. And over the years, I spent millions of dollars in legal fees and you can imagine what it put my family through.

[00:39:56] That's the reason I'm so excited today to see legalized sports betting. How did your wife and you survive the strain of that? Like she, I mean, not that anybody gets used to being indicted and threatened with jail, but it seemed like you were a little bit more comfortable

[00:40:12] than most at being able to surf these ups and downs in gambling based on your experience. You mentioned in the book, that your wife was shocked at the thought that she might have to go to jail. How did you guys survive and deal with it personally?

[00:40:28] Well, we knew James, we weren't doing anything wrong. I mean, we had a very, very strong concrete belief. We knew we were not doing anything wrong. And at the end of the day, that's the reason that, you know, we continued to do what we were doing.

[00:40:42] You know, we both knew that we weren't doing anything. That's the clear morally wrong. And as a matter of fact, when I got indicted in 1990, in the FBI, they indicted my wife also. And strictly, they were just trying to blackmail me

[00:40:56] and to force me into pleading guilty to something. They were to let her out of the diaper. That's the only reason she was indicted. Well, we met with our attorney and again, we share all this in the book. My wife is actually the one,

[00:41:14] I was ready to plead guilty of anything to get her dropped out of the diaper. The thought of my wife spending one night in jail was something I could, there's no way I could have lived with that. But she is the one that says,

[00:41:25] no, we are not going, you're not gonna plead guilty to anything. We were, if we're gonna put you in this country in jail for betting on sports, she said then, you know, she said, I just can't believe it. So we both decided and we got indicted.

[00:41:40] We went to court and sat next to each other at federal court every day. And then of course we were exonerated, but yeah. What's the law that they had? But the idea and the thought of somebody that was going to indict you and for betting on ball games,

[00:41:58] but they indicted me for something. It's not even against the law. I mean, betting on ball games is not illegal. That was what was such a big joke about it. If you were to read a local newspaper for the review journal, they had a big front page story.

[00:42:10] This is like Alice in Wonderland. They have mistakenly indicted a guy called the name of Proctor Hawkins, who was a bookmaker. He was actually taking best in violating the law. They had indicted him and charged him with being a better.

[00:42:25] His lawyer went to the court before the judge and filed a motion to have his case thrown out because he was wrongfully charged. So they had to throw his case out and guy was actually violating the law. And they were prosecuting people

[00:42:40] who were betting on sports who were not violating the law. I mean, it was literally, I mean, it was hilarious unless you were part of it. And but it was just, bottom line is it was a mistake. It was something that happened that shouldn't have happened.

[00:42:57] Again, law enforcement didn't understand at the time the difference between betting and bookmaking. And then as happens a lot of times, they spent a lot of money resources and then someone made a decision to very at the very end, we're gonna go forward with this indictment

[00:43:12] and that's what they did. But the outcome was we were exonerated. And unfortunately, I had to go through that four times and Las Vegas I had to go through four times. And so okay, so then when they, it seems like they had a thing for you

[00:43:27] because then they did the thing with the insider trading which is something that's notoriously difficult to, there's so many gray areas and it's notoriously difficult to pin down but you got indicted and sentenced and so on and you spent some time in jail.

[00:43:45] And like you mentioned, your daughter, you found out your daughter committed suicide while you were in jail. Like what was going on? What was going on with her? What was going on in your mind? And maybe describe that story as a sad story.

[00:44:00] Yeah, again, I tell this story I complete detail in the book and that's the reason that I wanted Arm Catan to work with me on Armans. He worked for 60 minutes for a number of years. He's a great investigative reporter

[00:44:13] and the tell the story and the tell it detail. You know, I needed some assistance for that and you're right. I mean, I was either under investigation or indicted for over 20 years. And then what happened is what I realized is

[00:44:27] is there's a little thing I think called a vendetta so to speak and I was right in the middle of that. And then what had happened in New York initially, I was being investigated along with Carl Aka and that investigation went on for three years

[00:44:42] and there was nothing to it and basically it was over. And the agent who was leading that case was a guy named David Chavez. He was the supervisor in charge of the FBI why call her crime unit in New York.

[00:44:54] And he ended up being a, you know, a rogue FBI agent. I mean, later on they, in our case they found out he's a bunch of illegal unethical things. He was suspended from the FBI. And again, it's all, I can't explain all of it in an interview.

[00:45:10] That's the reason I wrote the book, but it's really truly unbelievable. I mean, when you know all the facts and but I'd owned this stock off some old for 10 years and it was a company called the Info. So I ultimately ended up being indicted for buying this stock.

[00:45:27] And that's what I went to prison for. I served 31 months in Pesticole in person. The only reason I got out after 31 months is because of COVID. And the only positive thing that happened in there was I mentored a couple dozen men. But while I was in there,

[00:45:43] my daughter unfortunately committed suicide. She had an opioid addiction and she had it for a period of time. And when, you know, I'm as sure as I am talking to you, James, if I hadn't been in prison, my daughter would be alive.

[00:45:59] And because she and I could have communicated which we, you know, had over the years when she had issues, we were always able to deal with these things. But because I couldn't communicate whether that's she ended up committing suicide while I was in there.

[00:46:15] But again, I keep going back to the book because the only way that you're really, you know, it's in detail in the book, everything that you've talked about all the facts are in there. It's not a, you know, he said, she said, you know, it's a fact-based book.

[00:46:37] As you know, you've read it and there's, it's filled with nothing but transcripts, court documents and everything that I'm, you know, alleging here. It's all in the book and it'd be very easy for someone to read it cover their own conclusion one way or the other.

[00:46:52] Yeah, no, it's a riveting book. It's a great story. I really encourage people to read it. Plus you do have spent several chapters outlining your entire editing system, as you said earlier. If someone were to, let's say someone's 20 years old and they read this and they're inspired

[00:47:07] and they wanna, you know, gambling is legal everywhere. There's not the same issues you dealt with back in the 70s, 80s and 90s and so on. Someone wanted to be a gambler. How would they think to themselves, how can I come up with my edge?

[00:47:22] You know, there's thousands, tens of thousands of people trying to be, you know, gamblers, how do you formulate coming up with an edge? What's the strategy you would use now if you were 20 years old? Well, everything that I know about it, 100% of it's in the book, okay.

[00:47:38] I mean, I did not leave one thing out. 10 years ago, James, I wouldn't have sold this information for $20 million. I'm 77 years old. It's my legacy and it's something that I wanted to leave for sports gamblers and the sports world. But the person you described when I would,

[00:47:58] if they're gonna try to pursue it as a professional, then okay, fine, go take a look at it. You know, I'll explain to you how to build your program. I'll explain to you how to do everything that you have to do.

[00:48:09] Now, if you're someone who's got a normal job or you're someone who's gonna do this, you know, and you're not gonna pursue it that way, my advice to you is look, you wanna bet on sports. Betting on sports is a lot of fun.

[00:48:21] Look at it like it's a recreation. You're gonna lose your money. Take the amount of money that you can afford to lose and no more. Now, I put a basic betting strategy in there that will give you a chance to win. And I've explained in there,

[00:48:36] I put all kinds of charts in there that shows the public for the first time ever they're gonna know, okay, this is exactly what I have points for. This is exactly how the money line compares with points for it. These are what the exact odds are.

[00:48:49] These are the various factors that go into all these games. So regardless of what your level of sports better than you are, you're gonna learn a lot just reading this. But my advice to the average person is don't look at this as a get rich quick scheme

[00:49:04] because it's not. It's something you're probably gonna lose your money doing and it's a lot of fun. It's a recreation. Take whatever you can afford but do give yourself a chance to win. You know, you don't wanna have one bookmaker. You need to have, you know,

[00:49:19] four or five, six as many as you possibly can. You gotta take good prices. You know, you gotta have a betting strategy. You gotta have a money management system, which again, that's all laid out in the book. But don't get involved in this.

[00:49:31] Think you're gonna get rich betting in sports because you're not. If you take that approach to it, you know, you could have some of the same problems that I had as a young man and I can tell you how that one goes. You're gonna start off,

[00:49:43] you're gonna get looser, then you're gonna have this little conversational yourself mentally. As soon as I get even, I'm gonna quit. Well, if you do get lucky and get even, you're not gonna quit. You're gonna even be more fired up to bet.

[00:49:56] And then you're gonna go down that road and that was road that I went down thinking that I was gonna get rich quick. That's not the case now. How I came from where I was at to where I've gotten to today in this sense that I've shared,

[00:50:13] beyond zone that are probably 20 million to one. And if you read the book, you'll see the various things that happened in my life that I dealt with. But again, that was horse have some fun, put up whatever amount of money you can afford to lose,

[00:50:29] figuring you're gonna lose it. And but if you really wanna be a pro and you really want to try to pursue this and you've got that kind of passion for, having advanced masterclass in my book that explains to you exactly what I do

[00:50:43] and exactly how I do it. So they're both there. Do you think there will be new areas of betting? Like let's say political betting. There's not really a market for political betting at the moment, but maybe in the future there will be. Do you think there's ways potentially

[00:50:58] in new areas of betting to get easier to get an edge? That could be. I mean, if you can bet any serious money on elections, I would have an interest in that myself, but I don't know if anybody can bet any serious money

[00:51:12] on it, anything to make it worthwhile. I do think there's a tremendous amount of potential growth in sports, bookmaking. These public-intraining companies that are licensed today, they're great internet marketers. They're not really, they don't know, as far as they are to bookmakers concern,

[00:51:33] the guy was 20, 25 years ago, or I think much smarter. I think they knew a lot more about bookmaking these guys through today. I think there's a big market out there that these people haven't pursued. Now, in order to do that,

[00:51:50] there's gonna be some things that have to happen. A taxation with sports betting is ridiculous in this country. The people who got sports betting legalized, I don't know if they didn't realize it. It was an oversight or whatever, but they've gotta go back and fix this.

[00:52:07] Sports betting today, I'll give an example, James. If you bet on 50% water, you're gonna get 95.4% of your money back. So betting slot machines, you're gonna get between 96 and 98%. So it's a tough way to win to start with. But if you happen to win any money

[00:52:24] about any sports in this country, you have to pay ordinary income on the winnings, plus you have to pay your state taxes. Now, and it's the only thing that I know of in the IRS tax code, you cannot carry forward a loss from one year to the next.

[00:52:37] Now, there were to be treated like, say, Wall Street, and there were to be a capital gains option or something there. Like you do that, you're gonna attract more sophisticated people that smart, smart people aren't going to bet large amounts of money on those 40% of us

[00:52:59] because of, again, what I just pointed out to you. Okay, if you win, you're gonna pay over half your money in taxes if you lose, you can't carry forward a loss from one year to the next. Okay, that law has to be changed

[00:53:10] where you can carry forward a loss. If they do that and they treat the taxation similar to what they treat Wall Street, there's a tremendous amount of room for growth. You'll have a lot of people who are in different sectors of the United States, wealthy people

[00:53:25] that are betting on sports. Okay, although they've got an uphill road to travel, it's, they still got a chance. The way it is today, beating sports number one is very, very difficult. And if you do win, you're gonna get half your money that governments can lose,

[00:53:43] you can't carry forward a loss. If this law gets amended, the IRS is, they're gonna collect a lot more money in taxes because they're not gonna collect anything today. But what I'm really afraid of, and it hasn't happened yet, but I think it's gonna happen like any day,

[00:53:57] every one of these publicly held books, or these sports books, the IRS has everyone's information. They know who you are, I mean, they know everything. So you take a small better, or you take any kind of better. You give an example, let's say, okay,

[00:54:13] let's say you lose 10 grand in December betting on bowl games or playoff games, okay? And you win 10 grand in January. Well, you gotta pay tax on the 10 grand you won. You can't carry forward a loss that's the money you won in December, it's ridiculous.

[00:54:31] Now, like I said, these public authority companies, the guys are running them today know a lot about marketing. The people that they've hired as a whole are running sports books. They really don't understand the art of bookmaking. And so I think if the right person

[00:54:47] were to get involved with it, I've never met Mark Cuban personally. I've seen him interviewed a lot of times. I think he was an extraordinarily bright guy. If someone like he were to get involved in the world and compete against the guys around here today,

[00:55:03] I think someone like that could do very, very well. Now for you, when you've been hiring people, you said you mentioned you found an economist who had been the head of the economics department as university, you found guy who was number one guy at Caltech.

[00:55:20] It's not like you put out like a help wanted ad in the newspaper, like how did you find these guys? Well, you know, I'm pretty successful at what I do. And most people are involved or have been attracted to sports in some way.

[00:55:36] A lot of them come to me and a lot of them I learned through the great find so to speak in the industry and I recruited some. I mean, it's been a combination of people who sought me out of people who I've sought out.

[00:55:47] And again, I started doing this in 1979. So I'm a kind of a known commodity and people who work for me, Frank, can make a lot more money than they work for other people who work in the business. You know, there's an example,

[00:56:04] I mean, some of these guys I pay on me and Bucks are here to do analysis and things such as that. So it's, I would say, it's a combination of my success and again, you know, and the compensation and James, you know, my origin point

[00:56:25] was like it's been with me 12 and a half years. So, you know, we proud ourselves and the relationship that we are with the people who we work with. It seems like part of your success too is like reading the book,

[00:56:38] you have this charisma where you're able to meet just about anyone, like people want to meet you and sit like how did you like Carl Icahn is not known for having social dinners with people. And yet just out of the blue,

[00:56:51] you were arranged to have dinner with Carl Icahn when he first comes to Las Vegas. So like how did you kind of get a meeting like that? Actually, he raised it with me. I didn't reach out to him.

[00:57:01] There was a guy named Dan Casella who worked for him and Dan called me and asked me if I would have done it with Carl. And I said, yeah, well, you know, I agreed to do it. And that's how he and I met. He was interested in handicapped

[00:57:13] but in sports betting, that's how he met. You know, it's funny, you mentioned Jack Benion earlier and Jack is if not my best friend in the world today. He's certainly in the top two. Jack, you know, it was a few months ago.

[00:57:27] He said, Billy, you have the largest, most diverse group of friends of anyone I've ever known. And he's right about that. And I'm very proud of that. And but I don't know, I've always kind of met people easy, James. And I don't know, I can't answer it,

[00:57:44] but the majority of my friends are people you've never heard of or you never will. Well, you know, Billy Walters, you know, author of the book, Gambler, Secrets from a Life at Risk. This is definitely the best book on gambling

[00:58:00] I've ever read, plus your story is just fascinating. It's riveting. They should make a movie out of this book. I'm sure you're gonna at least sell the rights for this to be a movie. And it's gonna do very well.

[00:58:11] So I encourage everybody listening to this to read it. Again, not just for the gambling, but also Billy, your personal story and your tales on the way to success. And it's an inspirational story in an odd sort of way to say that. But it's a great book.

[00:58:26] Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. And I appreciate it. Thank you. James, thank you. And I've got an invitation to you. You come back to Las Vegas, I tell you what we're gonna do. We're gonna get Jack Benjamin.

[00:58:40] I'm gonna take you to dinner this time with Jack. And we're gonna take you to, we'll take you to a little different restaurant. Not that, you know, the one you went to wasn't great. But if you come out, we'll get Jack and the three of us.

[00:58:51] So we'll get to go and have dinner and I've got a club. I've got a good one to take you to. I'm gonna take you to Michael's at the South Point Hotel. Excellent. All right. I look forward to that. All right. Thank you so much Billy.

[00:59:02] Yeah, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.