John Chidley-Hill, Canadian Press
Posted on Wednesday, April 17, 2024 12:25 pmEDT
Last updated Wednesday April 17, 2024 2:58 pmEDT
TORONTO – Jontay Porter has been banned for life from the NBA.
The former Toronto Raptors backup center’s punishment was announced Wednesday after the NBA completed its investigation into gambling allegations against Porter.
The league found that Porter violated its 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 banned under the NBA collective bargaining agreement.
“We did all the due diligence and I think from all the reports and everything we had, I think it was nothing we could have known,” Raptors team president Masai Ujiri said an hour before the suspension was announced. Porter. “I think all of that is under investigation by the NBA.
“We went out and tried to do the best due diligence we could on each one individually and we did that with Jontay as well.”
Porter averaged 4.4 points, 3.2 rebounds and 2.3 assists in 13.8 minutes in 26 games with Toronto this season. He also played for the G-League’s Raptors 905, but played more minutes with Toronto in March after starting center Jakob Poeltl suffered a season-ending hand injury.
The NBA’s investigation found that Porter disclosed confidential information about his own health to an individual he knew was a gambler before the Raptors’ game against the Sacramento Kings on March 20.
Another person Porter partnered with and who knew him to be an NBA bettor placed an $80,000 parlay proposition bet at an online sports book to win $1.1 million, betting that Porter would have underperformed in a 123-89 loss to Sacramento.
A prop bet, short for proposition bet, is a bet that is not tied to the final score or outcome of a game and is often tied to an aspect of a player’s performance.
For the game against the Kings, Porter’s performance line was set at 7.5 points and 5.5 rebounds. Porter finished with no points and two rebounds in less than three minutes of play against Sacramento after leaving the game claiming he was feeling unwell.
Due to the unusual betting activity and the player’s actions, the $80,000 proposition bet was frozen and was not paid out.
Additionally, from January through March, while traveling 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 for these bets was $76,059, resulting in net winnings of $21,965.
None of the bets involved any games in which Porter played. Three of the bets were multi-game parlay bets that included a Raptors game, in which Porter bet the Raptors would lose. All three bets were lost.
Ujiri said before the investigation’s findings were announced that he didn’t want this for Porter, the Raptors or the league as a whole.
“My first reaction (to the accusations) is obviously surprise because I don’t think anyone saw something like this coming,” Ujiri said in this season-ending press conference. “You prepare as much as you can for all kinds of situations in the NBA, but you definitely didn’t expect it.
“But we acted in accordance with the NBA’s rules and regulations for dealing with things like this and we moved forward.”
The suspicious bets were reported to the NBA by licensed sports betting operators and an organization that monitors legal betting markets.
The Raptors’ loss to Sacramento was at the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto. A spokesperson for the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario, the government agency that regulates sports betting in the province, said the organization was pleased the NBA addressed the matter quickly and decisively. The AGCO did not say whether it would ban betting on the NBA or player betting.
“The AGCO requires all Ontario-registered gaming operators to ensure that the sports betting products they offer take place on events effectively overseen by a sports governing body,” the spokesperson said in a written statement to The Canadian. Press. “At a minimum, the sport’s governing body should have – and enforce – codes of conduct that prohibit betting by insiders.
“The NBA’s action in this matter speaks volumes to the integrity safeguards and oversight they have in place regarding insider betting and match-fixing.”
The AGCO spokesperson said the Ontario Provincial Police will continue to review the case.
Porter is the second person sanctioned by commissioner Adam Silver for violating league rules. The other was now former Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling in 2014.
The investigation into Porter’s conduct was revealed around the same time as news broke of an alleged gambling scandal involving Los Angeles Dodgers superstar performer Shohei Ohtani.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 17, 2024.