Coincidence?
Hot on the heels of the Shohei Otani scandal involving his interpreter allegedly stealing millions from him to pay off gambling debts comes another developing scandal in the NBA. According to ESPN’s David Purdum, Brian Windhorst, and Adrian Wojnarowski, Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter is under investigation for a possible connection to multiple betting irregularities this season.
The two games under the magnifying glass are a January 26 contest against the Los Angeles Clippers and a March 20 meeting with the Sacramento Kings. In both, there was unusually strong betting on the under for Porter prop bets.
For the Clippers game, sportsbooks had the Porter over/unders at 5.5 points, 4.5 rebounds, 1.5 assists, and 0.5 made three pointers (give or take depending on the book). Porter played just four minutes in that game, leaving early because of what his team said was discomfort from an eye injury he incurred a few days earlier. The under hit on all prop bets, as Porter logged minimal stats and did not even attempt a three-pointer.
Sportsbooks often announce betting highlights and sure enough, DraftKings reported that the under on Porter’s threes was the biggest winner for its customers that night. Porter returned to regular action a couple days later and had a solid stat line.
In the Kings game just last week, sportsbooks set the over/unders for Porter at 7.5 points and 5.5 rebounds. Lo and behold, he left the game after three minutes with an alleged illness. Once again, DraftKings reported that Porter unders were the most successful bets for that day’s games.
Large wagers raised red flags
ESPN is reporting that according to a sportsbooks source, there was unusually high betting on Porter unders in that Clippers game. Betting limits on NBA player props tend to be $1,000 to $2,000, but some customers tried to place bets as high as $20,000.
“People were trying to do whatever they could to bet Jontay Porter props [against the Clippers],” the source told ESPN. “And then, just a few days ago, the same thing. We had a bunch of people trying to bet under for more.”
As one would expect, NBA players are not allowed to bet on NBA games, no matter the type of bet. We have already seen NFL players suspended for partial and full seasons in the last couple years for betting on football, but in those cases, investigators did not find any evidence that the integrity of games was affected. While the investigation is just beginning into the Jontay Porter situation and we do not have all the facts yet, it initially looks like it could be much worse than a player simply betting on a league game.
Porter has missed the last two Raptors’ games for what was listed as “personal reasons.”
Image credit: Flickr.com / Michael Tipton
