TORONTO: The NBA’s investigation of Toronto Raptors backup center Jontay Porter, according to a Canadian match-fixing expert, is a grave warning to professional sports leagues in North America.
For almost 15 years, Declan Hill, an associate professor of investigations at the University of New Haven’s Henry C. Lee College of Criminal Justice and Forensic Science, has researched match fixing.
He claimed that the Porter probe and a related controversy concerning baseball player Shohei Ohtani need to serve as a warning to both governments and sports enthusiasts.
Hill declared on Tuesday that “this is the beginning of the end of one of North America’s professional sports leagues.” “For the past five years, we have been living in a honeymoon period, wherein sports fans have not fully grasped who the sports leagues have slept with or the business deals they have made with Satan.”
Porter is the subject of an NBA investigation regarding anomalies in wagers made on his performance.
The NBA’s investigation of Porter’s actions during games on January 26 and March 20 was first made public by ESPN on Monday.
Porter left after making a brief appearance in each game, citing an illness or injury. He played 2:43 against Sacramento in the second game and 4 minutes, 24 seconds against the Los Angeles Clippers in the first of those two games.
For points, rebounds, and three-pointers that gamblers could play, Porter fell well short of the prop-wager lines in both situations. Prop bets, also known as proposition bets, are bets that are not dependent on the game’s outcome or final score.
Porter finished with no points, three rebounds, and one assist against the Clippers, despite the props surrounding him, according to ESPN, being 5.5 points, 4.5 rebounds, and 1.5 assists. Porter concluded the Kings game with two rebounds and no points, while they were roughly 7.5 points and 5.5 rebounds.
Hill added, “I have no idea about a specific case. I don’t know if it was him, whether it was his entourage, whether it was just somebody who heard he was injured, or whether it was pure coincidence.” “However, the story has enough credibility for a sincere sports fan who watches the NBA to read it and wonder, ‘Wow, what’s going on here?'”
Hill claimed that doubt might make fans less interested in professional sports.
“A good-faith sports fan may be asking themselves, ‘Is this real?’ when they watch the activity on TV, in stadiums or arenas, or anywhere else. Or is it prearranged?” Hill questioned. “The graveyard, or death, of our professional sports, is just enough people having that doubt, even if it is real, as it will be 99.9% of the time.”
According to Hill, it’s troubling that certain teams and professional sports leagues have formal sponsorship agreements with online gambling companies. According to him, there needs to be “clear blue water” separating bookmakers from leagues.
Vice-president of the National Basketball Players Association and veteran forward for the Raptors Garrett Temple remarked on Monday that the NBA’s financial ties and sponsorship agreements with online gambling sites are “awkward.”
“When you watch a game, you might see FanDuel or DraftKings as a major sponsor for a team, but it’s obviously against the law for us to do so for any professional basketball league, such as the NBA, G League, or WNBA,” stated Temple. “We recognize that. Although it has always existed, sports betting is clearly now much more accessible.
While awkward, we know what we’re getting into because it’s not like there has been a change in the rules.
The two games in which Porter is said to have influenced the betting by leaving the game early happened in Toronto. The NBA has rigorous procedures in place prohibiting players and team or league staff from placing bets on professional basketball, despite the fact that online gambling is legal in Ontario.
Porter is not under investigation, according to statements made on Tuesday by the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport and Toronto police.
Because bet fixing is not specifically prohibited by the Criminal Code, Canadian law enforcement has few resources at its disposal to prosecute cases involving it.
According to a CCES spokesman, Canada does not currently have a national program to combat competitive manipulation in the NBA, and the non-profit watchdog, which enforces anti-doping regulations in Canada among other integrity issues in sports, has no jurisdiction over it.
Hill claims that the core of the issue is a lack of oversight in both the US and Canada.
“As the Trudeau government did, don’t introduce legalized sports gambling to Canada without amending the Criminal Code,” Hill warned. “I recall that in eSports, some of my contacts said, ‘We’ll move to Canada because we adore this country!'” Here, we have the ability to correct, to be crooked, to do everything we want, and we achieve public health.”
Hill suggested that federal regulations governing competitive manipulation be enacted by the governments of both Canada and the United States. He claimed there are too many loopholes in the current patchwork of federal, provincial, and local regulations.
He added that organizations such as CCES ought to be given greater authority and resources in order to combat corruption.
“The federal government should have made CCES far more resourced and equipped to deal with all the integrity challenges in sports if they were stepping up to the plate, as they should have done when they legalized sports gambling,” said Hill. “Whether it’s match-fixing of this kind, doping, or the sexual abuse scandals that have plagued Canadian sports so regularly.”