The NBA has banned Jontay Porter for life after completing an investigation into gambling allegations against the former Toronto Raptors' two-way player.
A league investigation found that Porter violated league rules by disclosing confidential information to sports bettors, limiting his own participation in one or more games for betting purposes, and betting on NBA games.
All three are prohibited under the NBA's collective bargaining agreement.
Porter averaged 4.4 points, 3.2 rebounds, 2.3 assists, in 13.8 minutes over 26 games with Toronto this season.
He also played for the G-League's Raptors 905, but was seeing more play time with Toronto in March after starting centre Jakob Poeltl sustained a season-ending hand injury.
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The NBA's investigation found that before the Raptors’ game against the Sacramento Kings on March 20, Porter disclosed confidential information about his own health status to an individual he knew to be a bettor.
Another person that Porter associated with and knew to be an NBA bettor subsequently placed a US$80,000 parlay proposition bet with an online sports book, to win $1.1 million, wagering that Porter would underperform in the 123-89 loss to Sacramento.
A prop bet, short for proposition bet, is a wager not tied to the final score or outcome of a game that is often tied to an aspect of a player's performance.
The league’s investigation also found that Porter limited his own game participation to influence the outcome of one or more bets on his performance in at least one Raptors game. In the March 20 game, Porter played only three minutes, claiming that he felt ill. Due to the unusual betting activity and actions of the player, the $80,000 proposition bet was frozen and was not paid out.
In addition, from January through March 2024, while travelling with the Raptors or Raptors 905 Porter placed at least 13 bets on NBA games using an associate’s online betting account. These bets ranged in size from $15 to $22,000, for a total of $54,094. The total payout from these bets was $76,059, resulting in net winnings of $21,965.
None of the bets involved any game in which Porter played. Three of the bets were multi-game parlay bets that included one Raptors game, in which Porter bet that the Raptors would lose. All three bets lost.
The suspicious bets were brought to the NBA’s attention by licensed sports betting operators and an organization that monitors legal betting markets.
The investigation into Porter's conduct was revealed around the same time that news broke of an alleged gambling scandal involving the interpreter of Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 17, 2024
