Commissioner Adam Silver and the NBA brought the hammer down hard — the league has banned Toronto Raptors two-way player Jontay Porter for life due to his involvement in betting on NBA games.
A league investigation found 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.”
“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,” Silver said in a statement announcing the lifetime ban. “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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This was the harshest penalty Silver could hand down but he needed to make a statement. With the NBA and its teams doing more and more business with legal sports books in the 38 states where sports betting is legal — next season fans watching on NBA League Pass will be able to add a betting overlay to the games with real-time odds and links to betting — Silver needed to draw a line and say this involvement isn’t directly influencing game outcomes.
The NBA’s investigation found multiple instances of Porter violating league rules, particularly around prop bets — which can include an over/under bet on an individual player’s performance, probably the easiest bets to manipulate.
• Before the Raptors played the Kings on March 20, Porter told someone he knew to be a big NBA bettor about his health status, which was going to limit how much Porter could play in the game. A person Porter is associated with placed an $80,000 parlay prop bet on Porter’s prop unders to win $1.1 million. Porter played three minutes in that game then left claiming an illness.
• Between January and March 2024, while a member of the Raptors 905 G-League Team, Porter placed at least 13 bets on NBA games for a total of $54,094, with Porter winning $21,965 on those bets. Porter did not play in any of those games, but the bets violated league policy.
• There was other suspicious betting around Porter and his limited participation in games. For example, on Jan 26, when the Raptors played the Clippers, there was a spike in bets on Porter’s prop unders, then he played just four minutes in that game before saying he couldn’t continue due to a re-aggravation of an eye injury.
• Porter bet three times on the Raptors to lose (not games he played in).
Porter averaged 4.4 points, 3.2 rebounds and 2.3 assists a game playing 14 minutes a night in 26 contests for the Raptors before being sent away from the team during this investigation. Porter is the brother of Nuggets star Michael Porter Jr.
