Prison time likely
Former Toronto Raptor Jontay Porter’s sentencing hearing for his role in manipulating NBA games for betting purposes was supposed to be Thursday, but it has been moved to May 2025. While he waits, he might think about how he and his accomplices could have ever thought they would get away with it.
Porter, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, is not expected to get off lightly.
premeditated and repeat misconduct over a period of time by a public individual”
“This is a high-profile case, involving premeditated and repeat misconduct over a period of time by a public individual who should be acting as a role model, so that will not be in his favor,” Peter Czegledy, a partner at the Toronto law firm of Aird and Berlis, told the Toronto Sun. “A gambling addiction appears to have been cited as a mitigating factor by the defense, which seemingly would assist Mr. Porter.”
Faked injury to keep stats low
Recapping what happened, Porter intentionally removed himself from two games earlier this year (during the 2023-2024 season) so that bettors could win bets they placed on his “under” props. In admitting his guilt, Porter said that his gambling addiction caused him to rack up significant gambling debts. As a way to repay them, his creditors pressured him into withdrawing from games early to help them cash in on the prop bets.
In a January 26, 2024 game against the L.A. Clippers, Porter exited after four minutes, complaining of a reaggravation of a previous eye injury. He ended up with no points, three rebounds, and one assist.
On March 20 against the Sacramento Kings, Porter did the same thing, saying he was sick and leaving after three minutes and a box score of zero points and two rebounds.
bet $80,000 on the “under” Porter prop for the Kings game to win $1.1m
The news of Porter’s possible transgressions came out about a week later. At the time, it was alleged that he told an associate “confidential information about his own health status.” That person then bet $80,000 on the “under” Porter prop for the Kings game to win $1.1m. The sportsbook froze the bet because of the unusually high activity on such a wager.
The NBA banned Porter for life shortly thereafter.
Flew too close to the sun
It is that last tidbit above that is the primary reason the scheme was never going to work. Porter clearly owed the four co-conspirators (who have since been arrested and charged) a lot of money, more than he could handle on his $412,000 salary that season.
Ok, so just leave a couple games early with a reasonable excuse. He was a bench player, so nobody will think much of it, right?
Nobody bets on Jontay Porter props, especially not on the under.
The problem, though, is that the gang went too big, too fast. Nobody bets on Jontay Porter props, especially not on the under. Of course the bets were going to get flagged. The last thing you need if you’re trying to pull this off is unwanted attention, and there you go, you sure as heck got it.
And with that, they were dead in the water. They got greedy.
Make it up with volume?
Ok, you might be thinking, if betting big on a couple games was a bad idea, then they could have just gone smaller for longer, right? That may have actually been worse.
When news originally broke, a sportsbook source told ESPN that the typical maximum stake on the sort of bet Porter’s associates made was $1,000 to $2,000. Thus, the number of bets they would have had to make to win whatever amount of money they were trying to win (at least over $1m) would have been way too large.
The people betting might have gotten away with it for a while, but the problem is that Porter wouldn’t have. Pulling himself out of two games two months apart didn’t raise eyebrows without knowledge of the bets that had been placed. There is no possible way, though, that he could have done it for what would have had to have been most of the season. Even with zero knowledge of what was actually going on, the team would not have tolerated it. Porter would have been put on the injured list, sent down to the G-League, or even heavily investigated by medical staff to see what was wrong with him.
Porter would not have had a job to rig if he had enacted the plan too many more times.
The bottom line is that Jontay Porter and the men to whom he owed money were destined to fail.