Don Wassall said:
white is right said:
During one Super Bowl I heard Hefty Mickleson won about 500K on the winning team and I heard he is as bad a gambler as Barkley. Supposedly he bets on any sporting event. Unlike Daley it hasn't ruined his image....
Have you actually read that somewhere or seen an actual report, or is it something someone told you? I've been a Mickelson fan for a long time and have never heard or read of Mickelson having a gambling problem, and the media has always been very quick to pounce on Phil's alleged faults. I can remember watching golf tournaments and it was mentioned that Mickelson is keenly interested in current events and sports and likes to make wagers. He makes mucho money, but there doesn't seem to be any indication that I'm aware of that he is winning tournaments and then compulsively betting his winnings immediately thereafter or otherwise being a problem gambler. Probably close to a majority of Americans gamble in one form or another.
It's been circulated by reporters on ESPN when they talked about athletes and betting. It's supposedly common knowledge on the tour. No he isn't Daley but he might be Barkley or Jordan a level below Daley?
I actually searched the net and found this article to back up my rumour mongering read away.....
barstoolsports.com
from the April 20, 2005 issue
Greatest Moments In Gambling HIstory
by Michael James (mike@barstoolsports.com)
Evel Knievel was not a superstitious man. The most famous stuntman of all-time was, and is, a legendary gambler, but he never put a lot of stock in omens. And so, on the afternoon of December 31, 1967, on the way to a jump that would nearly claim his life, Evel Knievel has always maintained that he never gave much thought to something that, in retrospect, seems like one of the worst omens you would ever want to get.
Even though he was scheduled to attempt his most dangerous stunt to date, a 150-foot leap over the fountains at Caesar's Palace, his routine that day was like any other. Witnesses said that he seemed calm and relax. After a customary shot of Wild Turkey he left his hotel room and began his trek through the casino, stopping only long enough to place a bet at a roulette table. He bet $100 on red. The wheel came up black. Unfazed, Evel Knievel went on to perform the stunt as scheduled. He cleared the fountains but the crash upon landing was so violent it would leave him with injuries that kept him in a coma for nearly 30 days. By all accounts, he was lucky to survive.
Evel Knievel would go on to perform many more stunts, of course, and the story of his lost $100 bet before cheating death at Caesar's has gone down into gambling lore. But the story is far from unique. There are hundreds of interesting gambling tales, both real and imagined, that are worthy of note. From wild proposition bets to million-to-one long shots that's nothing quite like a great betting story. Below, with help from famousgamblers.com and other sites, are some of my all-time favorites.
-In 1980 a guy walked into Binion's Horseshoe and asked if he could make a $1 million bet. He didn't actually have the million but he did eventually produce a suitcase with about $770,000. The case was taken to a craps table where it was placed on the Don't Pass Line. Talk about your all-time killjoys, huh? $770,000 on the Don't Pass Line? Well, luckily for him, the woman shooting the dice crapped out after three rolls and the man walked away from the table with over $1.5 million. Which is all well and good. But what about the woman that threw the dice? I sincerely hope she was compensated for the effort. Nobody's come up that big since C rolled Sonny a hard 4 in A Bronx Tale.
-One of the biggest blackjack hauls of all-time, if not the biggest, was scored by a guy named Kenny Packer (no relation to Billy, I hope) at the MGM Grand. Playing six hands at once at $200,000 a pop Kenny cleaned out the casino for a cool $26 million in one session. But Kenny had his share of bad luck too. He lost $17 million in the year before his big hit and, in 2000, lost another $20 million over three days at the Bellagio. Kind of makes the $250 I lost there last fall look not so important.
-In 1963 Sean Connery (yes, THE Sean Connery) won $27,000 at a casino in Italy when 17-Red came up three times in a row for him on the roulette wheel. Apparently the odds of this happening are about 50,000 to win. That one doesn't bother me though. You expect those things to happen to James Bond.
-Speaking of long odds, how about Evelyn Adams, the woman from New Jersey that hit the lottery twice in four months in the mid-1980's? She hit once for $3.9 million and then, four months later, hit again for another $1.5 million. The odds of that happening were calculated at the time to be about 17 trillion to 1, although more recent calculations have proven the actual odds to be much lower. And how is Evelyn doing with her money now? She's nearly broke and living in a trailer according to recent reports. Lottery departments nationwide use her story as a cautionary tale for new winners.
-From the "You Can Bet on Anything" Department comes the story of the man who bet $10 in 1964 that a man would walk on the moon within 7 years at 1000-1 odds. The book didn't even wait until it happened to pay off the $10,000 on that one. Knowing when to admit to defeat, they gave the guy his money as soon as the Eagle landed.
-The biggest Super Bowl bet on record in Vegas is a $2.4 million wager on the 49ers over the Chargers at odds of 1-8 in Super Bowl XXIX. The guy won that bet but only took home $300,000 for the effort. The biggest Super Bowl payday may belong to legendary gambler and casino owner Bob Stupak who wagered $1 million on the Bengals in 1989. The 49ers won the game but Cincy covered the spread to win the bet. Wonder if Bob was doing the Icky Shuffle when that one ended. I think I would've accepted Sam Wyche as my personal savior if I was in his shoes. I'd still be walking around quoting Wyche from the NFL Films microphone he was wearing that day. "It's to Rice now. It's going to Rice."
-Sticking with the Super Bowl, a lot of attention was focused on Phil Mickelson when the Ravens beat the Giants for the title in 2000. It was reported that Lefty, who had tabbed Baltimore to win before the season at 28-1, cashed in for about $560,000. And, even more amazingly, it was reported that he won another $760,000 in 2001 when he bet the Diamondbacks to win the World Series at preseason odds of 38-1. The truth is that, while Phil did win money on both of those darkhorses, he was merely a partial investor in the deal. His winnings were probably closer to one tenth of the overall pot. Still nothing to sneeze at even if it was exaggerated.
-Even though it's a lot less money I always liked the story about how Phil called Jim Furyk holing out from a bunker on the last hole of the 2001 NEC Invitational. According to the story there were a bunch of guys hanging around the clubhouse watching the finish on TV. With Furyk in a bunker on 18 it looked like Tiger would win in regulation. But Phil had a premonition. He bet Mike Weir $20 at 25-1 odds that he would hole it. Sure enough, Furyk knocks it in and Phil collects $500. Of course, the PGA being the sticklers for gambling that they are, the bet was deemed a violation of Tour policy and Phil was forced to give it back.
-The most amazing golf wager I've ever heard about, however, is still the guy who bet $180,000 on Ian Baker-Finch to win the British Open in 1991 which, naturally, he did. I've heard of throwing down $100 or a grand on a long shot but $180,000? And the guy happens to win his only major that week? Very unusual.
-Titanic Thompson was a famous golf hustler and proposition gambler in the early part of the century. One of his most famous bets was that he could hit a golf ball 500 yards; a bet he won by hitting a ball across a frozen section of Lake Erie. According to the bet the shot had to be hit at sea level but they never said what season it had to be. But my favorite Titanic Thompson bet was the one he made at a Tijuana race track on an 8-1 long shot named Nellie A. Believing in a sure thing, Thompson fixed the race by paying off every jockey in the field and threatening to place a sniper near the finish line to shoot at any horse that crossed the line before Nellie A. Everything was going to plan with Nellie A leading by 150 yards as they headed for home when, suddenly, the horse pulled up with a broken leg. The jockeys, fearing for the lives, tried to rein their horses in but there was nothing they could do to keep them from crossing the wire and Thompson, despite his best efforts, lost his fixed race. Something to keep in mind with George Steinbrenner owning one of the pre-Derby favorites this year.
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Edited by: white is right 
