Raptors' Porter promoted college basketball parlay bet, interacted with betting accounts
Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter, who is reportedly being investigated by the NBA for betting “irregularities”, has a lengthy history of offering up public financial advice to just about anyone willing to listen.
Starting in September 2020, Porter began sharing his thoughts on the @TayTrades11 X account, which has been continually active for the last three-and-a-half-years, most recently posting on March 14, 2024, though he posted just twice from the account from the start of 2023.
And if there’s any doubt that the account belongs to Porter, he has linked to it from his main X account in the past.
An ESPN story with a joint byline of David Purdum, Brian Windhorst and Adrian Wojnarowski pointed out two games involving Porter — taking place on January 26 and March 20 — had an unusually high number of prop bets placed on the player.
In both instances, Porter left the game with less than five minutes played, with under bets on Porter’s individual stats reportedly being the highest moneymaker for NBA bettors those two nights on the DraftKings sportsbook.
“I became aware of the situation today, just like everybody else,” Toronto Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic said today following the team’s 96-88 loss to the Nets. “As my perspective, as coach of the team, I never doubt injuries and the honesty of the players.”
The Toronto Raptors declined to comment on the ESPN report.
Porter, who was held out of the Raptors lineup today shortly after an ESPN story dropped of the NBA’s investigation into the matter, appears to have at least once promoted gambling on college basketball from the @TayTrades11 account.
In March 2022, Porter promoted a parlay during the third round of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament via an account he created mainly to share financial advice and stock market tips.
“Shoutout spazzin for the EZ parley”, Porter posted from the @TayTrades11 account following a three-layered bet suggested by @Spazzin_Trades hitting with Duke and Villanova to win, as well as Arkansas covering a ten-point spread as favourites.
Shoutout spazzin for the EZ parley 🙏🏽🤝 https://t.co/yJn8jxjNPT
— Tay (@TayTrades11) March 25, 2022
Porter was not on an NBA roster at the time of the college basketball parlay, having been waived by the Memphis Grizzlies the previous July after suiting up for 11 NBA games in his rookie season of 2020-21.
Betting on the NBA is strictly prohibited while on an NBA roster or working in any capacity for a team, though betting on other sports is allowed as long as sports betting is legal in the jurisdiction of the player or team employee.
Porter signed a two-way contract with the Raptors in December 2023, and has suited up for 26 games this season, including five starts.
Outside of the one post about college basketball betting, Porter is listed as a co-founder of The Financial Cloud, a stock trading group with the stated aim “to help you pursue Financial Freedom through education, institutional-grade stock market trading tools, and a world-class community of expert traders.”
“We do not offer financial advice at all. We offer education revolving around teaching auction market theory and provide proprietary automated trading tools to assist trading,” a member of the Financial Cloud wrote in a message to Daily Hive. “Jontay was a founding member of our group but is not involved in the operation of the company and has not been since shortly after the start of the company. It is independently run by our team of educators.”
The Financial Cloud also offers a Discord server with free and paid access, featuring “a community of traders to bounce ideas off of and develop relationships with.”
(Update: a previous version of this story suggested The Financial Cloud offered financial advice.)
Porter’s @TayTrades11 account was also tagged in a post from @NomadTrader8 sharing a Discord screenshot claiming good value in a playoff pick in the 2022 NBA playoffs betting on the Grizzlies, the year after Porter was waived by them. @TayTrades11 was among the accounts liking the post, with NomadTrader8 since locking their account
For anyone who likes to make a wager or two on sports …
Did any of y’all catch this play yesterday?
May post some plays every once in awhile … there is good value in NBA playoffs.@TayTrades11 @nvrvr pic.twitter.com/MyqitNTYPB
— NomadTrader (@NomadTrader8) April 20, 2022
Porter’s likes on the @TayTrades11 account also show a few interactions with the @CloudFireSports account, which offered up sports gambling advice from its founding in April 2022 through March 2023, though it has not tweeted since.
Porter’s @TayTrades11 account is one of just four accounts followed by the CloudFireSports account, which is also following one of The Financial Cloud followers, as well as TruBet, a peer-to-peer crypto betting service, as well as the Action Network, a popular sports betting media website.
“We have no comment on this story. In general, it is important to note that one of the many benefits of legal and regulated sports betting is that sports betting operators identify and report suspicious activity and the integrity of sport is therefore protected in a manner that does not exist in the illegal market,” a DraftKings spokesperson commented on the ESPN report, as per Purdum.
Follow Channels and Categories