by Mike Fish, ESPN
Billy Walters, one of the most successful sports gamblers ever, has been approved to complete the remainder of his five-year federal prison sentence for insider stock trading at his Southern California home.
Under Federal Bureau of Prison guidelines in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, Walters, 73, is eligible for a transfer to home confinement due to his advanced age, as well as his having served more than 50% of his sentence and not having committed a violent crime. Walters has been confined since 2017 to the Federal Prison Camp in Pensacola, a minimum-security facility housed on a naval station in the Florida panhandle.
Walters is expected to leave the federal facility for his home in Carlsbad, California, on Friday or Saturday, according to a source close to Walters. His sentence will continue through January 2022. Because of his age, Walters normally would have been eligible to apply for home confinement in January.
Walters and other inmates have been quarantined inside the Florida facility in recent weeks, but the source said he is unaware of a major outbreak or Walters having the coronavirus.
In his prime, Walters had the financial muscle and acumen to move betting lines worldwide. He was convicted in 2017 of 10 counts of conspiracy, securities fraud and wire fraud after federal prosecutors in New York said he illegally made $40 million while trading Dean Foods stock from 2008 to 2015. Walters was accused of using nonpublic information from his friend and former Dean Foods chairman Thomas Davis, who later cooperated with the government.
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