A few weeks ago, the NBA was hit with a bombshell report involving Jontay Porter of the Toronto Raptors. They had been alerted of some suspicious gambling activity in games that Porter was involved in with large sums of money and wagers being placed on his performances.
Two games, on January 26th and March 20th, were the ones in question. In both instances, Porter left the game early and the unders on his betting props hit. Based on the investigation done by the NBA, he has been found guilty.
On Wednesday, it was announced that Porter had been banned from the NBA for his involvement. He provided information that is considered confidential to bettors while actively limiting his participation in the games in question. In addition, Porter was found to have wagered on NBA games himself.
NBA NEWS & TRADE RUMORS: Jontay Porter & Toronto Raptors Updates
While he was not on an NBA roster, Porter became popular on social media for offering advice on stocks and NBA gambling. Since he was not in the NBA, it was okay for him to be placing wagers, but evidently, the activity did not stop once he was part of a franchise, resulting in his ban.
“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,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement.
“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,” Silver said.
What Porter did was ruin the integrity of the game. He was actively sabotaging his performance so that he and other bettors to whom he provided the information would benefit monetarily.
NBA NEWS & TRADE RUMORS: Jontay Porter & Toronto Raptors Updates
Throwing away your NBA career to make a quick buck is a wild thing to do. Porter worked his entire life to get to this point and quickly ruined it with a few poor decisions that could have easily been avoided. One of the wagers that he made included his own team, the Raptors, to lose.
Porter threw away his livelihood as an NBA player for a profit of $21.965. He was making so many times more than that playing basketball yet still decided to throw it all away.
Porter, the brother of Denver Nuggets star Michael Porter Jr., took himself out of the games in question. In one instance he had an eye injury, in the second he claimed to have an illness. All the wagers on his unders would have hit, but the bet on March 20th for $80,000 was frozen and the investigation by the NBA began.
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