Gambler In Golfer Mickelson Case Was No Small Timer

The episode led to indictments against Walters, his wife and 17 others for conspiracy and interstate gambling-related offenses. They went to trial and were acquitted. Billy Walters was later indicted by Nevada officials three times for the same offenses, which included money laundering. Those charges were ultimately dismissed.

Attempts to reach Susan Walters weren’t successful. Messages left at a company she founded with her husband and with Richard Wright, a Las Vegas lawyer who represented the couple after they were charged, weren’t returned.

Over the years, Billy Walters became a gambling legend by employing a network of handicappers and analysts whom he took pains to keep anonymous -- including from one another -- so that he alone could call the shots, he told “60 Minutes” in a 2011 profile of him. He was everywhere and nowhere.

“This was Henry Ford with his manufacturing line,” Malinsky says. “Your job is to install the spark plugs, install them as well as you can. You get paid very well, and that’s pretty much that.”

New Charges

Beating the house is one thing. Beating federal authorities is another. In an era when insider trading has become notoriously difficult to prosecute, the latest charges against Walters are relatively simple.

According to authorities, for six years beginning in 2008, he traded giant blocks of the same company, Dean Foods. On some days, Davis’s buying and selling accounted for as much as 37 percent of the stock’s trading volume. Big, lucrative trades occurred right around the time that high-profile deals were shining a spotlight on the shares.

Walters allegedly received his tips directly from Dean Foods insider Davis, whom the government says received substantial financial benefits in return.

The timing of the trades was a red flag to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, according to a person familiar with the matter. Finra alerted prosecutors and the Securities and Exchange Commission, the person said, both of which filed charges against Walters and Davis, the Dean Foods chairman.

“Las Vegas betting is a very different game from playing the stock market,” said Brad Simon, a former federal prosecutor in private practice. He added: “Career insider traders traditionally know better than to make these kinds of purchases.”