Over a four-year period – from 2010 to 2014 – Mickelson accrued the multimillion-dollar losses, as revealed by Alan Shipnuck in a preview of his new book published on the Firepit Collective website.
The golfer’s love of gambling is well documented, but as Shipnuck puts it, “the massive scale of Mickelson’s gambling losses has never before been made public.”
Federal auditors conducted a forensic examination of Mickelson’s finances in connection with an insider trading scheme perpetrated by professional gambler Billy Walters.
Citing an unnamed source “with direct access to the documents,” Shipnuck touted the $40m figure and went on to speculate that Mickelson was, at the time, possibly in the red or at best “barely breaking even.”
“In those prime earning years, his income was estimated to be just north of $40m a year,” said Shipnuck, who goes on to give a rough breakdown of the golfer’s finances.
“He had to cover his plane and mansion(s), plus his agent, caddie, pilots, chef, personal trainer, swing coaches and sundry others. Throw in all the other expenses of a big life – like an actual T Rex skull for a birthday present – and that leaves, what, $10m?
“Per the government audit, that’s roughly how much Mickelson averaged in annual gambling losses.”
Shipnuck is no stranger to generating controversy around the golfer. In February, the author revealed comments made by Mickelson in which, to use Shipnuck’s own words, “he callously dismissed Saudi atrocities.”
