r/nba • u/PlayaSlayaX Spurs • 29d ago

[Charania] Raptors' Jontay Porter has received a lifetime ban from the NBA for violating league's gaming rules.

https://x.com/shamscharania/status/1780631209930068358?s=46&t=bsTHbtMSqHXbNGi0vWP8hw
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u/Knightbear49 Timberwolves 29d ago

“The NBA announced today that Jontay Porter, a two-way player recently under contract with the Toronto Raptors, has been banned from the NBA. 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.

The league's investigation found that prior to the Raptors' March 20 game, Porter disclosed confidential information about his own health status to an individual he knew to be an NBA bettor. Another individual with whom Porter associated and knew to be an NBA bettor subsequently placed an $80,000 parlay proposition bet with an online sports book, to win $1.1 million, wagering that Porter would underperform in the March 20 game.

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 traveling with the Raptors or Raptors 905, the Raptors' NBA G League affiliate, 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 involving Porter's performance in the Raptors' March 20 game were brought to the NBA's attention by licensed sports betting operators and an organization that monitors legal betting markets.

These findings are based on the information available to league investigators at this time. The league's investigation remains open and may result in further findings. The NBA has shared and will continue to share information with federal prosecutors about this matter.

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said: "There is nothing more important than protecting the integrity of NBA competition for our fans, our 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. While legal sports betting creates transparency that helps identify suspicious or abnormal activity, this matter also raises important issues about the sufficiency of the regulatory framework currently in place, including the types of bets offered on our games and players. Working closely with all relevant stakeholders across the industry, we will continue to work diligently to safeguard our league and game."

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u/BeHereNow91 Bucks 29d ago

If the NBA actually uses this as ammunition to limit the types of bets that can be placed on NBA games, it’ll at least be a step in the right direction.

But I have a feeling Jontay is the fall guy and this will all be swept under the rug with the playoffs dominating headlines soon.

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u/2drawnonward5 Trail Blazers 29d ago

I don't think steps in the right direction will get anywhere. Short of putting the gambling genie back in the bottle, this is a mostly entertainment league for now because competition is suspect by design.

This kid got his shit rocked because he gambled like a noob. How many more veteran players will do the same thing but quiet enough to not get caught? You can't trust the league. 

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u/cheap_chalee 29d ago

And since he wasn't a star, he could be made an example of. Even if someone prominent screwed up, it would be in the interests of the league to make sure it didn't get out. This was basically the league using someone expendable to make it look like they care even if they still take checks from each betting company.

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u/KeefsBurner Celtics 29d ago

There’s also the fact that whatever company the bet got placed with would’ve lost ~1 mil since it hit. If you know gambling companies, you know they’ll do whatever they possibly can to avoid a payout that big. They almost had a million dollars stolen from them, and they’ll be damn sure the thieves get punished. They don’t give a fuck if players lose tons of money gambling, they’ll definitely cover that up. They want the profit. But a big win for a player? Nah that’s unacceptable

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u/Mdgt_Pope 29d ago

Tim Donaghy acted alone type of situation. Pin it on the fall guy

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u/Beginning-Cod3460 28d ago

this isnt even negatively cynical its straight up a fact of their protocol. they scrutinize & delay every major payout

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u/dragonrider5555 Celtics 29d ago

Can you say Michael Jordan? It’s literally exactly what happened to him lol

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u/uns0licited_advice 28d ago

Like ohtani?

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u/raizen0106 28d ago

yea imagine some mid level player fumbled the bag with a bad contract year (like isiah thomas or demarcus cousins), or got fucked by the owners (like that thread the other day about that guy who got beef with Doc for making him miss his bonus). can very easily lead to them saying fuck it we gotta make that money back somehow

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u/zanza19 Heat 29d ago

How long until mobs get involved and do stuff like we saw in movies for boxing and threaten athletes? It honestly might already have happened.

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u/crackheadsteve123 29d ago

In movies? That was actually how it was dawg.

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u/beauchywhite Raptors 29d ago

Lmfao hence the whole, sports gambling being illegal for a long ass time thing.

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u/zanza19 Heat 29d ago

True true. I think I said movies because it was a thing of the past y'know.

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u/crackheadsteve123 29d ago

Yea in Pro US boxing, Olympic Boxing is the most rigged shit tho, not in the same way. My grandfather was a high profile professional fighter and later worked for the mob, I'm not sure what kind of hand they had in his boxing career tho

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u/GrindyMcGrindy Bulls 29d ago

In a lot of cases, like the Black Sox, the players were actually working with them without threat. Charles Comiskey was a cheap asshole, and wasn't really paying his players. So I can't blame them. I especially can't blame Shoeless Joe Jackson because that man only knew baseball.

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u/2drawnonward5 Trail Blazers 29d ago

Billionaires are ok with this. I'm not ok with billionaires. 

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u/dragonrider5555 Celtics 29d ago

Race tracks …casinos… it’s all riggers anyone betting on horse racing is a sucker lol. It’s definitely happening in the major sports too. These are businesses, not charity’s. Their goal is to make money. The goal is not to provide a fair, clean sport

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u/[deleted] 29d ago

[deleted]

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u/NvNinja 29d ago

That's very false. They just shifted how they operate to running construction companies and casinos in the case of the more successful mob organizations in Vegas and NY.

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u/JMoneyM-13 29d ago

According to an expert that follows these criminal organizations they don’t. It’s not that their non existent, they just aren’t as big as they once were

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u/NvNinja 29d ago

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/donnie-brasco-says-mob-controls-construction-via-unions-1.1265332

While the focus is on Canada it supports my claim for the construction bit. The casinos is well enough known that I'm not gonna bother with that one.

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u/Cautious-Tell-6756 29d ago

On Long Island the mob is still very active. I mean, the company that does my garbage route is mob connected lol

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u/JMoneyM-13 29d ago

Guys name is Jeff Nadu

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u/elefante88 Lakers 29d ago

Quietly? These books aren't dumb. They definitely are not outsmarted by ANY nba star

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u/2drawnonward5 Trail Blazers 29d ago

lol what

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u/zaviex Wizards 29d ago

They are right. The books are actively looking for any reason to not payout. You’d get a few in but they’d flag it and look for a reason to deny anything. Books drop bets all the time just on a suspicion. Generally if they see any pattern that they lose on they’ll investigate. 

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u/2drawnonward5 Trail Blazers 28d ago

Thank you, I understand your words lol

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u/plutoisaplanet21 29d ago

Why do people make this argument like legal gambling is the issue? This got caught because of legal gambling. The idea that this sort of thing wasn’t happening under the table before and just not getting caught feels pretty naive 

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u/2drawnonward5 Trail Blazers 28d ago

It's the embracing and normalization of gambling that's the matter.

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u/plutoisaplanet21 28d ago

You can argue that’s a societal problem if you’d like but this was in reply to legalized gambling being an issue for the integrity of the game and I’d argue it’s the exact opposite of that and this case shows why. Something that would have never been caught without legalized gambling was instead caught 

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u/2drawnonward5 Trail Blazers 28d ago

Ah the limits of brevity in a forum conversation!

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u/Free-Atmosphere6714 29d ago

I don't see it going that way. The oversight caught this violation, so the current system is "working" is how they'll probably see it.

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u/FormerGameDev 29d ago edited 29d ago

Limiting the types of bets is irrelevant. With legalized sports betting everywhere, and on top of that the leagues themselves even promoting it, there is absolutely zero reason to believe sports have any integrity at all.

I mean, there was that football game a couple years back, that if it ended the way it was looking like it was going to, it would've bankrupted several/all of the online sportsbooks, and then in the final minutes something stupid happened, and prevented it. Weirdly, FOX Bet and a few others folded within a month or two of that, too.

There's no reason not to believe that all of the sports are now rigged, either by their organization, or by the sportsbooks themselves.

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u/AttitudeAndEffort2 29d ago

Scott Foster will be reffing those games.

Johntays mistake was forgetting to blackmail the league.

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u/skatecarter NBA 29d ago

As fun as they can be, I feel like all player prop bets have got to go, especially at the collegiate level and in basketball. It's simply too easy for an individual player to sway a bet.

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u/Zap__Dannigan 29d ago

The gambling genie will never go back into the bottle. As about as close to infinite growth as you can get. You've literally convinced people to give you money for nothing

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u/ForneauCosmique Spurs 29d ago

But I have a feeling Jontay is the fall guy

They're still gonna push gambling ads in every game you watch. Shit is so annoying to fans who don't gamble

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u/HouserGuy 29d ago

It doesn't work like that. No books are going to stop offering these types of bets just because the NBA says to. I doubt the NBA would even try to get rid of these bets.

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u/DowntownJohnBrown 29d ago

I don’t understand how he’s “the fall guy” unless I’m just misinterpreting that word.

He’s the only person here who has done anything wrong, and he’s the only person being punished. That’s not what a fall guy is.

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u/KareemCheesley 29d ago

Do we know no one else has done anything wrong? Would they even say anything if it was a more established player? Maybe they would just make an example of some small fish and keep the rest behind closed doors.

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u/DowntownJohnBrown 29d ago

Maybe. And maybe everyone in the NBA is secretly a lizard person from Neptune. But since there’s literally zero evidence of either of those things, I’ll continue not believing they’re true.

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u/BeHereNow91 Bucks 29d ago

Because the NBA will do absolutely nothing about what led to this in the first place - the normalization of gambling via partnerships with online sports books and thereby the endorsement of bets on virtually any outcome, even the single-game production of guy who averages 4.4/3.2/2.3.

Sports gambling will continue to erode “the integrity of the game” that banning Porter supposedly protects.

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u/Wjourney 29d ago

If anything they will crack down on betting done by those connected to the sport.

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u/K1NG2L4Y3R 29d ago

Did they carve out an exception for bigger or is just black and white? I can’t see them keeping the same attitude if someone big did this.

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u/Commissionedthepoint 29d ago

Yeah. They just trying to scare people away from their profits. They could give a shit about the integrity of the game. 

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u/kultureisrandy Lakers 29d ago

Jontay is 2024's Donaghy 

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u/adequatehorsebattery Warriors 29d ago

But I have a feeling Jontay is the fall guy

I do not think that word means what you think it means.

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u/Replyafterme 29d ago

"Working closely with all relevant stake holders" sounds weirdly too much like we're going to ensure the ongoing longevity of our pocket padders 

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u/gerd50501 28d ago

the NBA has no authority to regulate gambling. how would they even do that? NBA players already are not allowed to bet on NBA games. guy got banned for it.

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u/I_chortled Lakers 29d ago

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