Adam Silver is the commissioner of the NBA. He is also the Adam Silver J.D. at the University of Chicago Law School. Therefore, as the great Howard Cosell would say, a “law-trained'' Silver would not carelessly use the term “mortal sin.''
When Silver met with reporters after the NBA's Board of Governors meeting last week, he was asked specifically about the NBA's investigation into Toronto Raptors two-way forward Jontay Porter, who is suspected of betting on NBA games. A reporter asked Silver what his options as commissioner would be to discipline Porter if the league determined that the 24-year-old was actually betting on NBA games.
“When it comes to questions about results, it gives me very broad discipline,” Silver said at a news conference. “But what he is accused of in the NBA is a mortal sin, and the ultimate extreme option I have is to ban him from the game. That's about the level of authority I have here. Because I don't think there's anything more serious in this league when it comes to gambling and betting on games, and it involves players directly, but there are very serious consequences. may occur.”
So while the NBA didn't use the word “lifetime” in Wednesday's announcement that it had banned Porter for betting on NBA games and sharing confidential information with gamblers, we can say that with a lot of confidence. By: Younger brother Jontay Porter Denver Nuggets forward Michael Porter Jr. will never play in the league again. This is not the “normal” multi-year suspension that the league imposes on players who fail the terms of a substance abuse program. These players can apply for reinstatement within two years.
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So is Porter. But I wouldn't bet on him coming back. Think Pete Rose.
The NBA didn't throw the book at Porter. They threw the entire library at him.
Wednesday's league release revealed the devastating case against Porter, how he set up so-called “prop bets” with gamblers and told them they were “under,” meaning Porter hit a certain statistic. It was detailed how they had made a bet that it would not happen. The “over/under” in Porter's expected stats for that game is when Toronto played the Sacramento Kings on March 20th, with 7.5 points and 5.5 rebounds, compared to his season averages of 4.4 points and 3.2 rebounds. exceeded. . But Porter had played better in the four games prior to that March 20 game, including a season-high 14 points in a March 11 game at Portland. So the line wasn't crazy.
But Porter left the game after playing just three minutes against Sacramento, saying he felt sick. Thus, “Under” became a hit that night.
According to the newspaper, “another person connected to Porter and known to be an NBA bettor subsequently placed a bet at an online sportsbook that Porter would underperform in a March 20 game. He made an $80,000 parlay offer bet to win $1.1 million.” Its release. However, due to “unusual” betting activity before tipoff on Porter's prop bet for that game, the league announced that the $80,000 prop bet was “frozen” and would not be paid.
In addition, Porter bet on NBA games at least 13 times from January 2024 to March 2024 using an employee online betting account, according to the release.
And ominously, the NBA release said its findings were and still are “based on information available to league investigators at this time.” The league's investigation is still ongoing and further findings may be forthcoming. The NBA has shared and will continue to share information with federal prosecutors regarding this matter. ”
So the league aims to end the problem by treating and blocking the suspected antibodies circulating in the bloodstream and cauterizing the wound.
But it's not that simple.
The NBA says Jontay Porter is the only current employee to bet $1, $2, $15, or $22,000 on a game, whether for or against that employee's team. If you think you're the only person who has, that's a whole other level. Naive.
This is the world that professional sports, and even college sports, and millions of Americans have helped create.
The American Gaming Association reported in February that Americans will wager a record $119.84 billion on legal sports bets in 2023, as more states legalize sports betting, representing the highest revenue for the gaming industry. This is equivalent to more than $10 billion.
The nation's obsession with betting on everything, every moment of every sporting event, has created an ecosystem full of people desperate for money. Money isn't earned, it's won on a whim just by pressing a betting app. Since the Supreme Court effectively legalized sports betting in the United States in 2018, the sports world has been turned upside down. After decades of treating gambling as a third rail, nearly every major professional sports league in the United States is not only comfortable tying gambling to their games; Gambling is routinely encouraged, including a cacophony of ads from each league's betting partners during games.
(And here you have to be careful: The Athletic We also have a business partnership with BetMGM, a gambling entity. )
The line between prop bets and increasingly violent fan behavior at NBA games, starting with fan bets on Jontay Porter, is clearly pulsing red. No one knows where it will go, where it will go, or whether it will stop short of catastrophe. Catastrophe is someone a little more famous and beloved than Jontay Porter, who is into gambling.
Major League Baseball apparently dodged a major bullet when a federal investigation determined that A-list star Shohei Ohtani was the victim, not the perpetrator, of a gambling scheme run by a former interpreter. It seems so. The Los Angeles Dodgers superstar's cash over the past few years. The NFL has imposed harsh penalties on then-Atlanta Falcons receiver Calvin Ridley, suspending him for the entire 2022 season for violating the league's gambling regulations by betting on NFL games during the 2021 season. I received it. He will return in 2023, played last season with the Jacksonville Jaguars, and signed a four-year contract worth up to $92 million with the Tennessee Titans last month.
When the NBA had to investigate Michael Jordan in 1993, it revealed in court that a $57,000 check Jordan wrote to a North Carolina man was not “a lot of money.” We came as close as possible to a hell-level conflagration. As Jordan originally claimed, he provided the man with a “loan” to help build the golf course, but the payment was to settle a gambling debt Jordan owed him. . Later, another man who had played golf with Jordan many times claimed that he owed Jordan more than $1 million because Jordan had lost a bet during the match. The two settled for $300,000.
The league subsequently concluded that Jordan did not bet on NBA games and did not violate league rules.
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The flameout came even closer when former referee Tim Donaghy admitted to betting on NBA games and implied that other referees with similar information about team trends were doing the same. The league fired Donaghy, claiming he was a “rogue” official. An outside investigation conducted by official federal prosecutor Lawrence Pedowitz in 2008 found that many of the umpires gambled outside of their NBA duties, although no other umpires ever bet on NBA games. I came to this conclusion. Pedowitz said there is “no evidence” to support Donaghy's claims that the two playoff games, including the infamous Game 6 of the Western Conference finals between the Lakers and Kings, were manipulated by game officials.
In 2020, an ESPN.com investigation detailed how Donaghy profited from the games he officiated and the bets on them, finding that the spread on Donaghy's games depended on which teams he bet on. Depending on the case, Donaghy and gambling officials claimed to have covered 60 to 70 percent. He is said to have bet on dozens of games in the four years between 2003 and 2007, when he was arrested. But the Pedowitz report tied things up neatly for the league, as did Wednesday's statement. A man made a bet. There is nothing else. There is no reason to doubt Pedowitz's veracity. But there's also no question it was a positive outcome for the league.
And all of these controversies and investigations occurred before the new state of betting in America. What used to be funneled into offshore accounts is now done publicly.
Silver said last week that he wants sports betting to become a regulated industry and that if people are going to gamble, it's better to at least do it in public than behind the scenes. That's certainly a valid point.
But that doesn't alleviate the risk that remains for all universities that run teams in any sport, not just professional sports leagues. There are cracks in the dam. And the NBA is not unilaterally disarming itself. We continue to have relationships with gambling companies and profit from transactions with gambling companies. Of course, it's not illegal to do so. But the league's claims of concern about gambling have lost much of its momentum.
And there's an even bigger bombshell there. And it's ticking. And it's going to do more damage to the league, to the universities, to the sport, and probably sooner or later, more than Jontay Porter's prop bet.
(Jontay Porter Photo: Kate Frese / NBAE via Getty Images)
