Former Toronto Raptors star Jontay Porter texted bettors during games, informing them that he was going to fake an injury to help them win their wagers.
In April 2024, the NBA banned Porter for life after a league investigation revealed that Porter communicated with several different bettors and coordinated with them, so his in-game performances mirrored their bets.
Porter engaged in the prop bet fixing to erase his considerable gambling debts.
The damning information came forth in a Monday article in The Athletic, which cited a man named Shane Hennen, who said he heard from another co-conspirator that Porter “was planning to manipulate his on-court minutes to help bettors win their prop bets.”
Court documents also stated that Porter would “take himself out early” to keep his personal stats in line with his accomplices’ wagers.
As the report states:
Porter told his co-conspirators that he would take himself out early of a Raptors game on Jan. 26 because of an eye injury and that he would leave a March 20 game early by saying he was too ill to keep playing, according to federal prosecutors. Porter did this, prosecutors said, as a way to clear his own ‘significant gambling debts’ and to help the co-conspirators win prop bets placed on him not reaching the over in certain statistical categories.
Porter texted one man during a Jan. 22 Raptors game that he had been taken into the locker room to have his eye examined and that he didn’t anticipate playing more that day and that he wouldn’t start the second half — he had started the game for the Raptors. ‘But if it’s garbage time I will shoot a million shots,’ he followed up. A screenshot of those messages were sent to Hennen the next day, prosecutors said in the complaint. He then told two alleged co-conspirators hours before the Jan. 26 game that he would remove himself from the game that night with an injury. That information was then shared with Hennen. The man who sent the message to Hennen has pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
Hennan was also sent along another message from Porter that read: ‘Hit unders for the big numbers. I told [Co-Conspirator 2] no blocks no steals. I’m going to play first 2-3 minute stint off the bench then when I get subbed out tell them my eye killing me again.’ Hennen bet $3,700 through a proxy, according to the complaint filed against him and who federal prosecutors do not name, that Porter would not reach the 4.5 rebounds total listed for him and won.
Porter played in 37 games during his NBA career. He awaits sentencing in May.
