Jontay Porter described a gambling spiral that reached staggering levels, saying he wagered more than $50 million at FanDuel over roughly 18 months before the NBA banned him for life in April 2024.
In a profile for The New Yorker, Porter said his betting escalated from day-trading and online casinos into sports wagering, eventually becoming part of the misconduct that ended his NBA career. The picture that emerges is not just one of losses, but of a habit that grew rapidly, with borrowed money, repeated bets and increasing risk.
How the gambling escalated
Porter said his first big bet came in Week 2 of the 2021 NFL season, when he wagered $125,000 on the Chiefs against the Ravens. He said he deleted the app, suspended his account that night and then came back the next morning looking for more action.
From there, the activity intensified quickly. Porter said that over a four-day span that included the Chiefs-Ravens game, he placed 144 wagers totaling $1.2 million. At one point, he said he was up over $1 million betting on Russian ping-pong before ending a five-day stretch more than $400,000 in the hole.
He also said he took out a $500,000 loan on a house he owned in Memphis and lost that money gambling before April 2024. Those details add scale to what had already been understood as a serious betting problem and show how quickly the losses could snowball.
Why the story matters
Porter is one of the first athletes in a major American sport to receive a lifetime ban for sports gambling violations after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act in 2018. The case has become a reference point for how gambling access can collide with professional sports, especially when debts begin to pile up.
Porter said his addiction worsened over time and described the emotional pull of betting as the thrill of the in-between, when the outcome is still uncertain. He also said he was driven by the rush that comes from winning after that kind of tension, even if it only lasted a moment.
By April 2024, the NBA had uncovered his betting activity and banned him for life. The new details do not change the punishment, but they do help explain how the problem grew to such a large scale and why it became impossible for the league to ignore.
Porter’s account is a reminder that gambling issues in sports can move fast, and that what starts as a single wager can turn into something much bigger.
