Jontay Porter went from being a two-way player at the end of the Toronto Raptors’ bench to the biggest story in basketball on Monday, with ESPN revealing the NBA had begun investigating him for apparent “betting irregularities”.
In simple terms, the report detailed two games where an abnormally large amount of money had been wagered on Porter finishing with less than a certain number of points, rebounds, assists and three-point makes.
Porter then exited both games early with injury and illness complaints respectively, resulting in the “under” bet hitting in each statistical category and Porter’s props becoming the most profitable NBA bets for each night, according to DraftKings.
Jontay Porter was pissed this 3 went in 😭 pic.twitter.com/GCyMqV5beX
— Brick Wrld (@BRICKWRLDD) March 25, 2024
Here’s what we know about Porter:
After playing college basketball at the University of Missouri, including one season alongside his brother Michael Porter Jr., Jontay went undrafted in 2019. In March 2020, he signed with the Memphis Grizzlies, and in July 2021 he was waived after making just 11 appearances for the team.
Porter then spent time in the G League and did not return to the NBA until December last year, when he signed a two-way contract with the Toronto Raptors worth $415,000.
As well as being a professional basketball player, Porter is the co-founder of The Financial Cloud, a company that claims to “help members pursue financial freedom” with its live trading methodology.
In a guest appearance on a podcast called “Bound to be Rich” in 2021, Porter spoke about his desire to grow his money “as quickly as possible”.
“Once I turned 5K into 100K off our earnings play on Robinhood,” he said. “I took out most of that and just traded with a little bit of count. Got that up to 50,000 recently and then 50,000 into 200,000 in a few days.
“… I think that was on Tesla and Neo and a few other trades that were just wild… I think I go against a lot of the typical rules of safe traders with that account because I just try to grow it as quickly as possible. And obviously, I’m not doing this as my main source of income. It’s more of a side gig… It’s like my fun money.”
Porter added that he had always been interested in cryptocurrency and trading and that he strongly pursued it after tearing his ACL in 2018 and again in 2019.
“I still had dreams and I felt like I still had a chance to make it and I kinda just had to remind myself that life’s not all about basketball,” he said. “Because up until that point, that was all my dream, all my goal, was just to make it to the NBA and I knew I’d be happy.
“But that wasn’t looking as sure as it was a few months prior, so I guess I just kinda reminded myself that life is so much more. I can learn more things, I can do more stuff, and that’s kind of when trading became a new hobby and I started learning more about that, saw how much fun that was, while simultaneously working to come back in basketball.”
Porter has explored creative ways to make money since seventh grade when he charged other students to fix and customise their phones, according to a feature published by The Ringer in 2019.
“The entrepreneurship didn’t stop there,” the article states. “Early on in high school, Jontay invested in Bitcoin after he saw a famous YouTuber tweet about it. When Bitcoin first blew up, he says he took out half the money he’d earned and bought a new iMac and his first car.
“He got into stocks, researching trends and strategies before investing in Roku and Apple, both of which have made him money. He says he wants to get to a point where he can manage his own finances, even after he enters the NBA.”
In the present day, Porter will have to wait to discover his fate as the NBA launches its investigation.
This is not the first time the league has faced the prospect of a gambling scandal, with former referee Tim Donaghy famously admitting to betting on games he officiated between 2003 and 2007.
READ MORE: NBA Investigating Whether Jontay Porter Placed Bets On Himself
