Jontay Porter, banned from NBA for illegal betting, returns to pro basketball

Former NBA player Jontay Porter, who was banned by the league for illegal betting, plans to play professional basketball next month in the United States Basketball League.

If Porter suits up for the USBL’s Seattle Superhawks on March 7, it will be his first professional game since he was banned by the NBA in 2024 for betting on Toronto Raptors games and manipulating his play to help sports bettors win wagers on his performance. He was subsequently charged by the U.S. Department of Justice that summer and pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Federal prosecutors said that Porter took himself out early from two Raptors games during the 2023-24 season so that a sports betting ring could win prop bets. Four other men were charged as part of that scheme the same summer.

Porter is currently awaiting sentencing.

“I am just trying to do what I can to provide for my family,” Porter told The Athletic.

The USBL is a professional basketball league that re-launched this past fall after operating for 24 years until 2008.

Porter had attempted to join Promitheas B.C., a professional team in Greece, after pleading guilty in 2024, but the federal judge overseeing his case denied Porter’s request to play overseas. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, which brought the case, and pre-trial services had not opposed his joining Promitheas.

Last fall, the federal government indicted dozens of people in separate illegal gambling investigations. Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier was indicted in October for what prosecutors say was his role in a scheme involving some of the same people and a similar plan. Prosecutors alleged that Rozier took himself out early from a Charlotte Hornets game in March 2023, when he played for the team, and told a friend, who sold that information to gamblers. Rozier has pleaded not guilty and denied the charges through his attorney.

Some of the men arrested as part of the Rozier scheme have also been charged for their alleged role in a widespread college basketball gambling scandal that involved nearly two dozen college basketball players and more than a dozen schools.