Re: NBA Investigating Gambling Irregularities Involving Jontay Porter

[RealGM Wiretap]

Jontay Porter is under investigation by the NBA following multiple instances of betting irregularities over the past several months, sources told ESPN.

Prop bets involving Porter from games on Jan. 26 and March 20 are under investigation with the league "looking into it."

There was increased betting interest on the under for Porter props, which for the night were set at around 5.5 points, 4.5 rebounds and 1.5 assists. There was also an over/under for Porter's made 3-pointers, which was 0.5.

Porter played just four minutes before leaving the game because of what the Raptors said was an aggravation of an eye injury he had suffered four days earlier in a game against the Memphis Grizzlies. Porter did not score against the Clippers but three rebounds and one assist, and he did not attempt a 3, meaning the under hit on all of the props.

On March 20, in a game against the Sacramento Kings, Porter played just three minutes before leaving the game because of what the Raptors said was an illness and did not return. He did not score, attempted and missed one shot, and had two rebounds.

Sportsbooks had his over/unders set at around 7.5 points and 5.5 rebounds.

The next day, DraftKings SportsBooks reported to its users that Porter's prop bets were the No. 1 moneymaker from the night in the NBA.

"People were trying to do whatever they could to bet Jontay Porter props [against the Clippers]," the source said. "And then, just a few days ago, the same thing. We had a bunch of people trying to bet under for more."

Porter missed games on Saturday and Monday for personal reasons. 

Porter plays for the Toronto Raptors on a Two-Way contract earning $415,000 this season.

[Future Coach]

He's done.

Even if these bets can't be definitively linked backed to being associated with him and/or some info that he provided, no team should want to get anywhere near this. For a franchise to give a player a contract and have it appear that he is tanking his own efforts to hit the under on personal prop bets is about the worst look a franchise could put on the floor (from a competitive standpoint).

And this comes out around the time that the NBA announced they would have prop bets on league pass....

[MitchB3]

I mean the guy isn't getting a lot of playing time so?

[binjumper]

He's done.

Even if these bets can't be definitively linked backed to being associated with him and/or some info that he provided, no team should want to get anywhere near this. For a franchise to give a player a contract and have it appear that he is tanking his own efforts to hit the under on personal prop bets is about the worst look a franchise could put on the floor (from a competitive standpoint).

And this comes out around the time that the NBA announced they would have prop bets on league pass....

Franchise is supposed to predict everyone's moves? This on the nba for promoting the hell out of gambling and the player. Organization had him on a two way. He'll be dropped/

[Dennis 37]

So every game is plastered with gambling ads and they are surprised it has a corrupting influence?

Gambling ruins people.

The NBA should apologize to Jontay.

Betting on the outcome of games is one thing, but betting on the minutia of every player's performance is something else.

Players are getting hate messages for not performing how the haters bet.

[Pickled Prunes]

So every game is plastered with gambling ads and they are surprised it has a corrupting influence?

Gambling ruins people.

The NBA should apologize to Jontay.

Betting on the outcome of games is one thing, but betting on the minutia of every player's performance is something else.

Players are getting hate messages for not performing how the haters bet.

It isn't a "moral" issue for me. I just don't gamble. It doesn't interest me. There are a lot more negatives than positives associated with gambling, not the least of which is voluntarily handing your money over to some of the wealthiest people in the world.

That said, the NBA is in serious danger of becoming horse racing. Who goes to the track just to see the horses anymore?

[Future Coach]

He's done.

Even if these bets can't be definitively linked backed to being associated with him and/or some info that he provided, no team should want to get anywhere near this. For a franchise to give a player a contract and have it appear that he is tanking his own efforts to hit the under on personal prop bets is about the worst look a franchise could put on the floor (from a competitive standpoint).

And this comes out around the time that the NBA announced they would have prop bets on league pass....

Franchise is supposed to predict everyone's moves? This on the nba for promoting the hell out of gambling and the player. Organization had him on a two way. He'll be dropped/

That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that no team will touch him now given this association, and the Raptors will just let his two-way contract expire. He's done after that.

And I agree on the NBA pushing gambling too much. It's clear that they don't have the proper systems and checks in place to prevent such occurrences. It's not like the league was hurting for revenue before, so this is really just a case of the super wealthy wanting to grab more wealth...

[Kingsway_fan]

He's done.

Even if these bets can't be definitively linked backed to being associated with him and/or some info that he provided, no team should want to get anywhere near this. For a franchise to give a player a contract and have it appear that he is tanking his own efforts to hit the under on personal prop bets is about the worst look a franchise could put on the floor (from a competitive standpoint).

And this comes out around the time that the NBA announced they would have prop bets on league pass....

Why stop at players??? Look at the refs....NBA GONE DOWNHILL after Stern....

[t-rexCity]

He's done.

Even if these bets can't be definitively linked backed to being associated with him and/or some info that he provided, no team should want to get anywhere near this. For a franchise to give a player a contract and have it appear that he is tanking his own efforts to hit the under on personal prop bets is about the worst look a franchise could put on the floor (from a competitive standpoint).

And this comes out around the time that the NBA announced they would have prop bets on league pass....

I don't get it. Why is he done? He matched the bets 3 times. Possible it was just an accident? He's just shown up on the stats for best outcome because he plays 3 to 4 minutes a game. It's like questioning the guy who plays once a while and shoots 100% on FGA and accusing them of dopping. Doesn't make sense. This is quiet funny actually. The NBA is going after a no name to make a point that they are in control when in reality they have zero control

[Roy T]

So the real issue is, people won too much. Right?

[deeps6x]

Gambling ruins people.
Gambling ruins the game.

[Indeed]

He's done.

Even if these bets can't be definitively linked backed to being associated with him and/or some info that he provided, no team should want to get anywhere near this. For a franchise to give a player a contract and have it appear that he is tanking his own efforts to hit the under on personal prop bets is about the worst look a franchise could put on the floor (from a competitive standpoint).

And this comes out around the time that the NBA announced they would have prop bets on league pass....

Franchise is supposed to predict everyone's moves? This on the nba for promoting the hell out of gambling and the player. Organization had him on a two way. He'll be dropped/

That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that no team will touch him now given this association, and the Raptors will just let his two-way contract expire. He's done after that.

And I agree on the NBA pushing gambling too much. It's clear that they don't have the proper systems and checks in place to prevent such occurrences. It's not like the league was hurting for revenue before, so this is really just a case of the super wealthy wanting to grab more wealth...

He is done in the NBA regardless of gambling.
Every year there are prospects, team will look for younger ones (limited age on a two-way contract), and he is far from ready for any minutes in a meaningful NBA team.

[Billl]

So the real issue is, people won too much. Right?

It's not really for the reason you are implying, but yeah, that's the issue. If there is a significant influx of money being bet on a relatively unknown player, and that money is all going in the under direction, and the player exits the game early assuring the under wins, yeah, that's the suspicious part. It's not the fact that a role player had a good or bad game, because obviously that happens all the time. It's the betting pattern that is making investigators want to take a closer look.

[dougthonus]

I don't get it. Why is he done? He matched the bets 3 times. Possible it was just an accident? He's just shown up on the stats for best outcome because he plays 3 to 4 minutes a game. It's like questioning the guy who plays once a while and shoots 100% on FGA and accusing them of dopping. Doesn't make sense. This is quiet funny actually. The NBA is going after a no name to make a point that they are in control when in reality they have zero control

It's not that he matched the bets 3 times.

It's the pattern:
1: Unusually high amount of betting activity on a bet that normally wouldn't draw activity
2: All that activity being on one side of the action
3: The player's performance matching the bet due to "unforeseen" circumstances that the player completely controls.

[dougthonus]

And I agree on the NBA pushing gambling too much. It's clear that they don't have the proper systems and checks in place to prevent such occurrences. It's not like the league was hurting for revenue before, so this is really just a case of the super wealthy wanting to grab more wealth...

Counterpoint:

It's clear they DO have controls, perhaps even really good controls, because they're investigating a two way player and spotted this anomalous behavior on a relatively small prop bet for a minor player after few occurrences. It shows that they are tracking all the bets, the amount of money on each side of the action, weighing whether that is unusual and correlating unusual things back to the players. I'd wager, they're doing the same things back to the refs as well.

Not so say they have it all under control, but if they caught a betting anomaly on a small prop bet that happened a couple times, they've clearly got guard rails set up that are at least reasonably sophisticated.

[shackles10]

And I agree on the NBA pushing gambling too much. It's clear that they don't have the proper systems and checks in place to prevent such occurrences. It's not like the league was hurting for revenue before, so this is really just a case of the super wealthy wanting to grab more wealth...

Counterpoint:

It's clear they DO have controls, perhaps even really good controls, because they're investigating a two way player and spotted this anomalous behavior on a relatively small prop bet for a minor player after few occurrences. It shows that they are tracking all the bets, the amount of money on each side of the action, weighing whether that is unusual and correlating unusual things back to the players. I'd wager, they're doing the same things back to the refs as well.

Not so say they have it all under control, but if they caught a betting anomaly on a small prop bet that happened a couple times, they've clearly got guard rails set up that are at least reasonably sophisticated.

Counterpoint to the counterpoint:

How clear is it really that they do have controls? The article states the next day DraftKings released it was the number 1 prop bet the night before. Did the NBA and its controls know that on their own due diligence and what they track or was it talked about on some podcast/morning sports radio show the next day, someone hears it and tells someone else who tells someone else and eventually (whether through 1 step of communications or 5 doesn't really matter) someone tells a person within the league what they heard and the league might want to look into it? Did they suspect something after the first time, second time, or third time? Or did they never suspect anything until someone said you better look into this before it makes the league look bad? We don't really know, but one is proactive and the other is reactive with obvious motives to seem proactive.

[oaktownwarriors87]

And I agree on the NBA pushing gambling too much. It's clear that they don't have the proper systems and checks in place to prevent such occurrences. It's not like the league was hurting for revenue before, so this is really just a case of the super wealthy wanting to grab more wealth...

Counterpoint:

It's clear they DO have controls, perhaps even really good controls, because they're investigating a two way player and spotted this anomalous behavior on a relatively small prop bet for a minor player after few occurrences. It shows that they are tracking all the bets, the amount of money on each side of the action, weighing whether that is unusual and correlating unusual things back to the players. I'd wager, they're doing the same things back to the refs as well.

Not so say they have it all under control, but if they caught a betting anomaly on a small prop bet that happened a couple times, they've clearly got guard rails set up that are at least reasonably sophisticated.

It's easier to catch anomalies on a relatively unknown two-way player because of the low volume of bets. If Luka tells his friend he isn't feeling well before a game it would be a lot harder to catch.

[puja21]

And I agree on the NBA pushing gambling too much. It's clear that they don't have the proper systems and checks in place to prevent such occurrences. It's not like the league was hurting for revenue before, so this is really just a case of the super wealthy wanting to grab more wealth...

Counterpoint:

It's clear they DO have controls, perhaps even really good controls, because they're investigating a two way player and spotted this anomalous behavior on a relatively small prop bet for a minor player after few occurrences. It shows that they are tracking all the bets, the amount of money on each side of the action, weighing whether that is unusual and correlating unusual things back to the players. I'd wager, they're doing the same things back to the refs as well.

Not so say they have it all under control, but if they caught a betting anomaly on a small prop bet that happened a couple times, they've clearly got guard rails set up that are at least reasonably sophisticated.

Counterpoint to the counterpoint:

How clear is it really that they do have controls? The article states the next day DraftKings released it was the number 1 prop bet the night before. Did the NBA and its controls know that on their own due diligence and what they track or was it talked about on some podcast/morning sports radio show the next day, someone hears it and tells someone else who tells someone else and eventually (whether through 1 step of communications or 5 doesn't really matter) someone tells a person within the league what they heard and the league might want to look into it? Did they suspect something after the first time, second time, or third time? Or did they never suspect anything until someone said you better look into this before it makes the league look bad? We don't really know, but one is proactive and the other is reactive with obvious motives to seem proactive.

great point but does it really matter if we believe this claim in an ESPN article is 100% effective (or if we even believe it at all):

"Sports betting is monitored by dedicated personnel from each NBA team, and the league has a team of data scientists focused on sports betting anomalies and possible integrity issues and also works with third-party integrity monitors."

Even if DraftKings, the Feds, informed fans on twitter, and/or independent data scientists are tracking it better/more than the NBA's own staff.... how much should we care if the NBA has 100% of it in-house and under control today?

As long as they are working actively with "whomever" and improving any in-house processes along the way, isn't the end result largely the same?

[CobraCommander]

He's done.

Even if these bets can't be definitively linked backed to being associated with him and/or some info that he provided, no team should want to get anywhere near this. For a franchise to give a player a contract and have it appear that he is tanking his own efforts to hit the under on personal prop bets is about the worst look a franchise could put on the floor (from a competitive standpoint).

And this comes out around the time that the NBA announced they would have prop bets on league pass....

Haha I think I told you so - partnering with big time legal betting is going to kill
Sports

[puja21]

And I agree on the NBA pushing gambling too much. It's clear that they don't have the proper systems and checks in place to prevent such occurrences. It's not like the league was hurting for revenue before, so this is really just a case of the super wealthy wanting to grab more wealth...

Counterpoint:

It's clear they DO have controls, perhaps even really good controls, because they're investigating a two way player and spotted this anomalous behavior on a relatively small prop bet for a minor player after few occurrences. It shows that they are tracking all the bets, the amount of money on each side of the action, weighing whether that is unusual and correlating unusual things back to the players. I'd wager, they're doing the same things back to the refs as well.

Not so say they have it all under control, but if they caught a betting anomaly on a small prop bet that happened a couple times, they've clearly got guard rails set up that are at least reasonably sophisticated.

If you listen to David Purdham (who co-headlined the story) in his interview today on Dan Patrick, Purdham claims that both Windy and Woj brought the story to the NBA for comment and he says the NBA's reaction "was pretty quiet for a while. Eventually they did get back to us and said they're looking into it"

The first Porter anomaly in Purdham's story is listed as Jan 26, so although they could've approached the NBA as recently as "hours" before breaking the story. I read "quiet for a while" to at least mean days.

I think it's reasonable to assume the NBA either had no idea or at least was not taking action, since we're now 2 months out from the first "flagged" behavior and it's only become public knowledge after journalists broke the story.

Also throws *some* doubt on the league's claims that they work with "third party integrity monitors" and have "a team of dedicated data scientist" (or how effective these are at least).

if the books were this proactive in their public disclosure of the anomalies, shouldn't the league be getting this info directly from them immediately? Otherwise, what value are these "third party monitors bringing" if you're 8 weeks past the infraction and unprepared to answer questions from 2 of the league's most visible reporters.

The timing isn't a great look for the NBA.