{"id":286281,"date":"2023-08-22T12:07:42","date_gmt":"2023-08-22T17:07:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/?p=286281"},"modified":"2023-08-22T21:48:45","modified_gmt":"2023-08-23T02:48:45","slug":"billy-walters-claims-wynn-lobbied-trump-against-pardon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/billy-walters-claims-wynn-lobbied-trump-against-pardon\/","title":{"rendered":"Billy Walters Claims Steve Wynn Lobbied Trump Against Pardon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Billy Walters, the legendary sports bettor, claimed a long-running spat with Steve Wynn is the reason former President Donald Trump commuted his insider trading sentence rather than granting him a full pardon.<\/p>\n

\"Billy
Famed sports bettor Billy Walters believes Steve Wynn lobbied President Trump against pardoning him in his insider trading case. (Image: RealBillyWatlers.com)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In his widely anticipated autobiography, “Gambler: Secrets from a Life at Risk,” Walters includes a chapter dubbed \u201cSpinning Wynn\u2019s Wheel,\u201d containing details about an instance in which he won $3.8 million playing roulette at the Golden Nugget in Atlantic City, NJ.<\/p>\n

At the time of Walters\u2019 big payday, the venue was owned by Wynn. Today, Tilman Fertitta controls the Golden Nugget casino empire<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the book, Walters noted he and Wynn were once friends and played golf together.<\/p>\n

During a round at Las Vegas Country Club, the two hatched a plan under which Walters would put up $1 million and play roulette at Golden Nugget at $1,000 a spin if Wynn removed one of the zeros from the wheel, in essence making it European roulette. The American version of the popular table game features 0 and 00.<\/p>\n

That plan was scrapped because of New Jersey gaming regulations, but Walters and Wynn got around it. The former ponied up $2 million to play $2,000 per spin, and the latter \u201cinvented\u201d a new game in which one of the zeros was removed. Walters took the Golden Nugget house for $3.8 million, which didn\u2019t sit well with Wynn.<\/p>\n

When Wynn lost that roulette money to me, you would have thought I\u2019d waltzed into his mansion and put my elbow through one of his Picassos,\u201d Walters wrote. \u201cThus marked the beginning of a bitter feud with Steve Wynn that lasts to this day.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The reference to a punched Picasso isn\u2019t a literary liberty. In 2006, Wynn was poised to sell Picasso\u2019s Le R\u00eave,\u201d for which he paid $48.4 million five years earlier, to financier Steven Cohen<\/a> for $139 million. But the casino mogul accidentally elbowed the painting, puncturing it, before the sale.<\/p>\n

Wynn Held Sway with Trump, Says Walters<\/h2>\n

In 2017, Walters was convicted of insider trading in shares of Dean Foods. Though not found guilty of criminal wrongdoing, Golfer Phil Mickelson was involved in the case. Eventually, he forfeited $931K in ill-gotten gains from insider trading tips he allegedly received via his relationship with Walters.<\/p>\n

The six-time major winner could have helped Walters avoid prison time by publicly admitting to insider trading, which is something the golfer refused to do. While he was in prison<\/a>, Walters\u2019 daughter committed suicide, and his relationship with Mickelson was severed.<\/p>\n

\n

Walters was released to home confinement in May 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and on his last day in office on Jan. 20, 2021, then-President Trump commuted the bettor\u2019s sentence. That wasn\u2019t the pardon Walters was expecting or wanting. A pardon eliminates a conviction, but a commutation merely bestows leniency with no exoneration upon the convicted.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Walters believes Wynn, a GOP mega-donor<\/a>, exerted influence over Trump in an effort to block the pardon.<\/p>\n

Walters Has Salacious Details<\/h2>\n

Walters can\u2019t say for certain that Wynn blocked the pardon, but he said in an interview with the Las Vegas Review-Journal that \u201cmultiple people that I believe and respect\u201d told him as much.<\/p>\n

\n

The famed sports bettor claims that he got wind of chatter that took place at a Republican retreat at which big donors, including Wynn, attended. At that event, Wynn supposedly bragged to friends that he prevented Walters from getting the pardon.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cAt the retreat, Wynn was overheard bragging about killing my chances for a pardon, his fundraising influence over the president, and the enormous pleasure he took in, essentially, screwing me over,\u201d according to the book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Billy Walters, the legendary sports bettor, claimed a long-running spat with Steve Wynn is the reason former President Donald Trump commuted his insider trading sentence rather than granting him a full pardon. In his widely anticipated autobiography, “Gambler: Secrets from a Life at Risk,” Walters includes a chapter dubbed \u201cSpinning Wynn\u2019s Wheel,\u201d containing details about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":286288,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[81886,1,84511,1074],"tags":[23,81967,82714,80968],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBilly Walters Claims Wynn Lobbied Trump Against Pardon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Billy Walters believes Steve Wynn pushed President Trump to not pardon him following insider trading case.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/billy-walters-claims-wynn-lobbied-trump-against-pardon\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Billy Walters Claims Wynn Lobbied Trump Against Pardon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Billy Walters believes Steve Wynn pushed President Trump to not pardon him following insider trading case.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/billy-walters-claims-wynn-lobbied-trump-against-pardon\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Casino.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Casino.OrgNews\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-08-22T17:07:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-08-23T02:48:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/bw3.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"700\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"550\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Todd Shriber\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@etfgodfather\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Casino_Org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Todd Shriber\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/billy-walters-claims-wynn-lobbied-trump-against-pardon\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/billy-walters-claims-wynn-lobbied-trump-against-pardon\/\",\"name\":\"Billy Walters Claims Wynn Lobbied Trump Against Pardon\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/billy-walters-claims-wynn-lobbied-trump-against-pardon\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/billy-walters-claims-wynn-lobbied-trump-against-pardon\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/bw3.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-08-22T17:07:42+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-08-23T02:48:45+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f4cecf70a5032bc4e60eb73fc86d4a85\"},\"description\":\"Billy Walters believes Steve Wynn pushed President Trump to not pardon him following insider trading case.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/billy-walters-claims-wynn-lobbied-trump-against-pardon\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/billy-walters-claims-wynn-lobbied-trump-against-pardon\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/billy-walters-claims-wynn-lobbied-trump-against-pardon\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/bw3.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/bw3.jpg\",\"width\":700,\"height\":550,\"caption\":\"Famed sports bettor Billy Walters. 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