No official charges or accusations yet
The NBA gambling scandal centered around former Toronto Raptor Jontay Porter may be larger than it previously appeared. The Wall Street Journal reports that federal prosecutors are investigating the Miami Heat’s Terry Rozier for possibly manipulating his own performance for betting purposes.
Investigators believe that the same group that was involved in Porter’s game manipulation may have also had its tentacles wrapped around Rozier the previous season.
It is important to note that Rozier has not been charged or even accused of anything. The NBA says it looked into the matter and found nothing.
“In March 2023, the NBA was alerted to unusual betting activity related to Terry Rozier’s performance in a game between Charlotte and New Orleans,” NBA spokesman Mike Bass said. “The league conducted an investigation and did not find a violation of NBA rules. We are now aware of an investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York related to this matter and have been cooperating with that investigation.”
Withdrew from game early
According to the Wall Street Journal, the game in focus took place on March 23, 2023 between the Charlotte Hornets and the New Orleans Pelicans (Rozier was a member of the Charlotte Hornets at the time). Rozier averaged 21.1 points and 35.3 minutes per game that season, both figures the second highest of his career. That day, he left the game with an injury after just nine minutes.
U.S. Integrity, a sports betting monitoring firm, saw unusually high wagering activity on Rozier for that game, and, perhaps more importantly, on his stats to come in under the prop bet marks established by sportsbooks. If there is a bet that would be easy to fix, it would prop bet “unders,” as a player can just fake an injury and hit the showers before accumulating the needed stats.
This all may be nothing. There were eight more games in the regular season, one in which the Hornets had the fourth-worst record in the NBA, and Rozier was inactive for all of them. Thus, his injury very well may have been completely legitimate. And, as mentioned, the NBA found no wrongdoing.
But the betting red flags combined with Rozier’s withdrawal from the game are certainly suspicious, which is one reason why the feds are investigating.
Mirroring Jontay Porter’s games
Whether there is a link to Jontay Porter and the sports bettors and poker players involved remains to be seen.
Porter was found to have manipulated two games during the 2023-2024 season. When the NBA announced that Porter had been banned from the league for life, it specifically cited a March 20, 2024 game between Porter’s Raptors and Sacramento Kings. Before that game, Porter schemed with a co-conspirator to leave the game early so that he would not hit his prop bet totals.
That he did, exiting after three minutes, saying he was sick. The bettor wagered $80,000 to win $1.1 million, but because it threw up so many red flags, the sportsbook froze it and never paid out the winnings.
Similarly, Porter left a January 26 game against the Los Angeles Clippers early, supposedly aggravating a pre-existing eye injury. Once again, people he was working with had bet on his stats coming in under the prop bet lines.
Porter has since pleaded guilty to criminal charges. He claims that he was in sizeable gambling debt, leading to his cooperation with gamblers in manipulating his playing time.
