Just as Monday’s entry was being written came news of the tragedy of Jontay Porter, the Columbia kid, ex-MU Tiger, fringe NBA player who is the first person permanently banned from the NBA since Jack Molinas was banned 71 years ago for betting on games he played with the Fort Wayne (now Detroit) Pistons.
The Porter case is of special interest not only because of his Missouri roots but also because Missourians might be deciding whether sports betting should be legalized in our state—and what that might mean to the confidence we have in our big-time sports teams and their games.
Alex Kirschner, writing for Slate.com says Porter “did things worse than anything Pete Rose ever got up to.”
Jeff Zilgitt of USA TODAY was equally unforgiving when he wrote, “In all of Jontay Porter’s idiocy, he provided a service to other professional athletes who might consider placing bets on games in which they are direct participants or in which they have insider knowledge to provide to gamblers. It’s almost impossible to pull it off in a world of legal, regulated and monitored gambling. It’s even more impossible when you’re as blatant as the NBA says Porter was.”
Kirschner notes that sports leagues “make a lot of money off of people betting on their games…It’s a cash grab, yes. But from the leagues’ perspective, it’s also a payment in exchange for tolerating certain risks. Sports leagues profit from betting but they are also terrified of it.”
Porter, he says, committed two sins and flirted with a third. He disclosed privileged information to bettors and manipulated in-game outcomes. In Porter’s case, he took himself out of a game early so he would not meet projected performance levels. The third circumstance that terrifies leagues, says Kirschner is outright throwing of games. “The single easiest way to threaten a league’s multibillion-dollar business is for people to doubt that they’re watching a game left to chance…If that goes, everything could go.
Porter is only 24 years old. Kirschner says his career is in the dumpster because he has been involved in the biggest betting scandal involving a player since sports wagering was legalized in this country in 2018. “If the Black Sox were a 10 on the scandal scale,” he writes, “Porter probably is a 6 or 7.”
Zilgitt darkly predicts this will happen again. “Someone always thinks they can beat the system, and maybe someone can but not Jontay Porter and his simple attempt at trying to make extra money. It’s inevitable, just as it was inevitable it happened in the first place.” Porter, who has spent most of his pro career in the NBA’s minor league, was being paid $410,000 this year to play for the NBA’s Toronto Raptors. The league investigation says he made $22,000 on the bets he placed on the game from which he removed himself, claiming illness.
The “idiocy” that Ziglitt attributes to Porter is explained by Kirschner who writes that the kid used the gambling companies that partner with the pro leagues to place his bets—-and those bets are monitored by the leagues. “If Porter were collaborating with underground bettors and bookies, his activity would have gone undetected,” he wrote.
In Kirschner’s view, pro sports teams are just asking for this kind of problem. Sports wagering companies are aggressively advertising their “services,” leading to greatly expanding participation in betting. He bluntly observes, “A bigger pool of bettors means a bigger pool of potential crooks. In a subtle but real way, the NBA courted the Porter scandal.”
Pro sports leagues fought against sports wagering until the U. S. Supreme Court legalized it nationwide in 2018. Once it was legalized, the leagues had no choice but to get in bed with the betting industry. Pessimists might be forgiven for wondering if they’ll stay on their separate sides of the bed.
And whose reputation is damaged by this scandal? Not the gaming industry. It’s sports and those who play them. A player has been banished for life. Pro sports worries whether its fans think its product is genuine and honest.
Zilgitt quotes NBA Commissioner Adam Silver saying the Porter case “raises important questions about the sufficiency of the regulatory framework currently in place, including the types of bets offered on our games and players.” Zilgitt notes Silver has advocated federal regulation of sports wagering and suggests outlawing or limiting certain kinds of bets.
Not considered by either columnist is what role state regulatory agencies can play or should play in terms of disciplinary actions against casinos that handle such bets or wagering companies that process them. In this case, the hammer has fallen on the player, deservedly so, but those who took, paid, and processed his bets appear to be facing no penalties.
Missouri’s pro sports teams are gathering signatures to get a statewide vote on a constitutional amendment legalizing sports wagering.
The proposal mirrors bills introduced in this year’s legislative session that grievously disadvantage the state and the programs that rely on gambling income for their budgets. The Missouri Gaming Commission has warned that the legislation pushed at the Capitol by gaming interests does not raise enough revenue for the commission to adequately regulate sports wagering. Nor does it do anything to punish the betting industry that produced the measley $22,000 that Porter won.
“Measley,” as in how little he gained compared to how much he has thrown away.
The Porter scandal is a tragedy for him and for sports in general. How will Missouri voters see the issue now that one of our own has become a self-induced victim of a system we are being asked to approve? He might be the first but nobody expects he will be the last.
If Missourians approve the proposition, will they also undermine trust in the games that they love? How many Porters are needed before we wonder about every missed free throw, every error, every missed tackle, every overthrown pass, every wide shot on goal?
(If you want to read the full articles on which we’ve based two entries):
Jontay Porter NBA betting scheme is a lesson in stupidity (usatoday.com)
Athletes beware: Jontay Porter NBA betting scheme is a lesson in stupidity (msn.com)