Commissioner Adam Silver brought the ultimate hammer down on Toronto Raptors Jontay Porter. He has been given the Pete Rose treatment, a lifetime ban by the NBA for violating the league’s gambling policy.
The NBA released a statement Wednesday announcing and detailing their ruling.
“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 statement read.
The NBA’s internal investigation revealed that Porter committed a horrible act of betrayal by purposely limiting his participation in the Raptors’ March 20 game against the Sacramento Kings specifically to influence the outcome of one or more bets on his performance. Against the Brooklyn Nets, Porter claimed he was suffering from flu-like symptoms after playing a sparse three minutes.
Embed from Getty ImagesThe NBA also discovered that prior to the game, Porter disclosed personal information concerning his health status to “an individual he knew to be an NBA bettor.” Another person in Porter’s circle also bet that Porter would underperform March 20 as part of an $80,000 parlay the bettor placed with an online sports book.
It did not stop there. From January through March 2024, while on the road with the Raptors and the Raptors’ G League affiliate, Porter placed at least 13 bets on NBA games using someone else’s betting account. These bets ranged from $15 to $22,000 for a grand total of $54,094. The total payout from these bets was $76,059, resulting in winnings of $21,965. None of the transactions involved any game in which Porter played, however, he did bet on the Raptors to lose as part of a trio of different parlay bets. All three bets resulted in a loss.
Porter, 24 years-of-age, has not taken the floor since the NBA launched an investigation against him for betting irregularities on March 25. The Raptors removed him from the lineup prior to that night’s game against the Nets and he has not been with the organization since. Porter, who is the brother of Denver Nuggets star Michael Porter Jr., was in his inaugural season with the Raptors. He was on a two-way deal with the franchise, and he averaged 4.4 points and 3.2 rebounds in 26 games this season.
On April 10, one week before the NBA announced Porter’s ban, commissioner Silver said that banning Porter was a strong possibility.
“I have an enormous range of discipline available to me,” Silver said at a midtown Manhattan hotel, after the league’s annual board of governors’ meetings. “But it’s a cardinal sin, what he’s accused of in the NBA, and the ultimate, extreme option I have is to ban him from the game.
“That’s the level of authority I have here. Because there’s nothing more serious, I think, around this league when it comes to gambling: betting on our games. And that is a direct player involvement. And so, the investigation is ongoing, but the consequences could be very severe.”
Legal sports gambling has been on the uptick in the U.S., and incidents of professional athletes gambling on sports have been climbing rapidly. The NFL has suspended a number of players over the past two years for gambling. But outright bans are rare and a last resort. Porter will now be remembered alongside former MLB player and manager Rose, who was banned for gambling on his sport in 1989.
