Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Clinton Portis reaches deal over $190,000 gambling debt

Houston Texans v Washington Redskins

LANDOVER, MD - SEPTEMBER 19: Clinton Portis #26 of the Washington Redskins scores a touchdown against the Houston Texans at FedExField on September 19, 2010 in Landover, Maryland. The Redskins lead the Texans at the half 20-7. (Photo by Larry French/Getty Images)

Getty Images

Former NFL running back Clinton Portis has had more than his fair share of financial issues during, and more importantly after, his career. He has resolved one that arose from a $200,000 line of credit at the Borgata casino in Atlantic City.

Via ESPN.com, Portis has agreed to pay the Borgata 10 percent of any income he receives above $30,000 over the next three-and-a-half years.

If I understand this one (and there’s a good chance I don’t), Portis will have to make more than $1.93 million through August 2021 in order to fully satisfy the debt. If he earns less than that between now and then, the Borgata apparently ends up writing off at least part of the obligation.

Portis reportedly borrowed $200,000 for gambling in 2011, when he expected to make roughly $8 million in the coming football season. Washington cut him a month later.

Washington dumped Portis and his $8.3 million salary on February 28 of that same year. This means that Portis decided to roll the dice (literally) with $200,000 as the NFL and the NFL Players Association was careening toward a lockout, which began on March 11 of that year. Portis also was assuming (incorrectly) that Washington would be keeping an aging running back with a significant cash and cap obligation even though he had rushed for only 227 yards during the 2010 campaign.

As noted in a lengthy SI.com item from 2017 regarding his financial woes, the Borgata had challenged a bankruptcy petition previously filed by Portis. The rest of his debts were discharged in 2016, but the Borgata apparently won its own gamble regarding the gambling loan, and the Borgata will now get something over the next few years, even if it may be unlikely to get everything Portis owes.