Billy Walters, world’s top sports gambler, talks sports betting with Covers.com

The best information wasn’t available at the simple click of the mouse when Billy Walters began his rise to the top of the sports betting world.

That didn’t stop the planet’s most revered gambler from always having the inside scoop.

“Back in those days, I used to send a crew out to the airport,” Walters told Covers.com in an exclusive phone interview Thursday night. “They went on the airplanes as they came into Vegas with the cleaning crew. We gathered up the newspapers and had readers who read all the newspapers from all around the United States. And that’s how we got all the information on small towns.

“Today, you can go on the internet and read a newspaper from any town in the United States,” Walters continued. “Back in those days, being able to read papers from small towns that colleges were located in was a competitive advantage.”

In the ultimate rags-to-riches story, the 65-year-old Walters has stayed ahead of the bookmakers for over three decades, emerging as the most powerful player in the global betting market while building a net worth reportedly in the hundreds of millions.

A Kentucky native, he grew up poor and was raised by his grandmother. He was betting on sports by the time he was 10, he said. Now, he’s a widely successful businessman, who owns golf courses, real estate and car dealerships throughout the country, not to mention his own seven homes. Author Jack Sheehan has written Walters' biography, which is expected to be published in this year.

Walters lives an extremely private lifestyle. Public appearances and interviews are rare. A 60 Minutes feature last January claimed to be the first time he has “opened the doors to his gambling life in Las Vegas.”

“I probably had to re-invent myself 25 times in the last 20 years,” said Walters during a wide-ranging 45-minute interview. “If I hadn’t re-invented myself, I would have been out of business. That goes for anyone in any business. There’s going to be constant change of any industry you’re in, and if you don’t change with it and you don’t change ahead of it, you become like a dinosaur; you become extinct."

While Walters’ methods and philosophies have adapted, he still believes successfully wagering on sports is based on the same fundamental key that it was decades ago.

“The game of handicapping sports is really the same game as it was 40 or 50 years ago,” he explained. “It’s much more competitive now, and the numbers are much better than they were in the 80s, but it’s still the same game. It still comes down to evaluating information.”

Walters used the status of New England Patriots’ tight end Rob Gronkowski for the Super Bowl as an example.

“He’s probably going to play, but how much do you downgrade him because of his injury?” asked Walters. “Certain handicappers will downgrade him more than others will. And that’s not anything you’re going to find in a slide rule. That’s something that comes with years of experience.”

Walters has been a master of the evaluation process and claims to have posted a profit in 37 straight years betting on football and basketball. Few industry insiders ever question his success; even fewer are eager to take his action.

“Most people who bet on sports, they pick up the phone and make a bet, and they’re the (bookmaker’s) best friend. But in the world I live in, it’s a little more difficult than that,” Walters said with a chuckle. “Smart guys want me to bet with them. They want me to bet with them directly, because they want to know what I’m betting on. They take the business and adjust their business accordingly. They factor that in and it ends up becoming a positive relationship for them.”

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