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Raptors forward Jontay Porter is under NBA investigation as string of curious early game exits aligned with an alarm-sounding increase in prop bet activity at the sportsbook. He is reportedly out of the Toronto lineup.
ESPN broke the news on Monday with the Raptors gearing up for a matchup against the Nets.
More from Adrian Wojnarowski, Brian Windhorst, and David Purdum:
Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter is under investigation by the NBA following multiple instances of betting irregularities over the past several months, multiple sources told ESPN on Monday.
At issue are prop bets involving Porter from games on Jan. 26 and March 20, multiple sources told ESPN. The NBA did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In those two games, bookmakers saw an uptick in the UNDER on prop bets involving Porter, the brother of Denver Nuggets star Michael Porter Jr.
Jontay Porter played a combined seven minutes in that pair of contests, exiting for unexpected reasons in both.
The January 26th game saw him suit up for just four minutes before leaving with the “re-aggravation of an eye injury” suffered a few days prior. On March 20th, he left due to illness.
In each case, his projected points and rebounds fell well below the listed total as he combined to go 0-for-1 from the floor, being held scoreless while securing five boards.
What’s most interesting is the output in games occurring directly before and after the early departures.
In the outing following the January exit, he played over 19 minutes, scoring 12 points and posting seven rebounds.
After the March instance, he saw 20 minutes of action while also playing at least 20 minutes in the four games leading up to his reported illness.
It’s far from the only investigation seen regarding athletes and sports betting over the last few weeks. At the college level, Temple was recently under scrutiny for eyebrow-raising line movement ahead of massive blowout losses.
In baseball, we’re seeing MLB star Shohei Ohtani get put under the spotlight after $4.5M of wire transfers to a bookmaker were linked to his bank accounts.
With sports gambling becoming more and more accessible, these cases surely won’t disappear. We’ll wait and see how it turns out for Jontay Porter.