Porter given lifetime ban
Raptors player Jontay Porter was banned for life from the NBA on Wednesday after a league probe found he disclosed confidential information to sports bettors and wagered on games, even betting on the Raptors to lose.
Porter is the second person to be banned by Commissioner Adam Silver for violating league rules. The other was now-former Clippers owner Donald Sterling in 2014, shortly after Silver took office.
In making the announcement, Silver called Porter’s actions “blatant.”
“There is nothing more important than protecting the integrity of NBA competition for our fans, teams and everyone associated with our sport, which is why Jontay Porter’s blatant violations of our gaming rules are being met with the most severe punishment,” Silver said.
The investigation started once the league learned from “licensed sports betting operators and an organization that monitors legal betting markets” about unusual gambling patterns surrounding Porter’s performance in a game on March 20 against the Kings. The league determined that Porter gave a bettor information about his own health status prior that game and said that another individual — known to be an NBA bettor — placed an $80,000 bet that Porter would not hit the numbers set for him in parlays through an online sports book. That bet would have won $1.1 million.
Porter took himself out of that game after less than three minutes, claiming illness, none of his stats meeting the totals set in the parlay. The $80,000 bet was frozen and not paid out, the league said, and the NBA started an investigation not long afterward.
“You don’t want this for the kid, for our team and for our league, that’s for sure,” Raptors President Masai Ujiri said Wednesday in Toronto, speaking shortly before the NBA announced Porter’s ban.
“My first reaction is obviously surprise, because none of us, I don’t think anybody, saw this coming.”
The NBA has partnerships and other relationships with more than two dozen gaming companies, many of whom advertise during games in a variety of ways. Silver himself has been a longtime proponent of legal sports wagering, but the league has very strict rules for players and employees regarding betting.
The league also determined that Porter — the brother of Nuggets forward Michael Porter Jr. — placed at least 13 bets on NBA games using someone else’s betting account. The bets ranged from $15 to $22,000; the total wagered was $54,094 and generated a payout of $76,059, or net winnings of $21,965.
Those wagers did not involve any game in which Porter played, the NBA said. But three of the wagers were multi-game parlays, including a bet where Porter — who was not playing in the games involved — wagered on the Raptors to lose. All three of those bets lost.
The 24-year-old Porter averaged 4.4 points, 3.2 rebounds and 2.3 assists in 26 games, including five starts. He also played in 11 games for the Grizzlies in the 2020-21 season.
The league said its probe “remains open and may result in further findings,” and that those findings are being shared with federal prosecutors.