On today’s episode of iGaming Daily, supported by Optimove, Jessica Welman, Editor of SBC Americas, is joined by SBC’s Media Manager, Charlie Horner, to discuss the latest in the case of Jontay Porter and Betway’s exit from the US.

Porter, the former Toronto Raptors forward, is likely to spend time behind bars after pleading guilty to federal criminal charges for his role in a gambling scheme that led to him receiving a lifetime ban from the NBA.

Porter allegedly got into debt with a bookmaker and to pay off the debt he agreed to leave several games early which then saw heavy betting on the under for his performances.’

Porter faces up to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and prosecutors have recommended between 41 to 51 months.

On the charges, Jess said: “[He left the court] after a minute, he was barely in and he didn’t do anything. All of these under [bets] cashed and unsurprisingly a $60,000 same-game parlay on a guy who is not like a superstar of the NBA, who left after a minute, certainly raised some eyebrows and they flagged that as suspicious activity, which led to where we are today.”

As well as spending time in prison, Porter is projected to pay over $450,000 in fines and restitution. 

The pair discuss where this money will go and they suggest that it could be split between the NBA, court costs and paying back the Toronto Raptors for breaching his contract.

Porter isn’t the only athlete to be caught up in a betting scandal in recent times.

Five Detroit Lions players were suspended from the NFL for violating the league’s betting policy and several European footballers have either served bans or are facing the prospect of bans for betting on football.

Charlie and Jess argue that athletes being caught out is a function of a regulated betting market and more athletes will likely be found out going forward.

Charlie said: “I’ve always had the argument that this is the job that the regulated market is supposed to do because it’s being flagged up. 

“We have technology, we have groups like the IBIA, and we have Prohibit now in the US designed to make sure that people who aren’t supposed to be betting aren’t betting. I would imagine that this is rumbling underneath the surface and there’s probably going to be more players in the future who are caught up in this kind of trouble.”

The Jontay Porter case has also added to the conversation regarding player prop bets in the US. In recent months, the NCAA has pushed for the ban on prop bets for college athletes due to fears over student-athlete safety and sporting integrity.

Jess says that she is curious whether some of the more proactive regulators in the US may consider further regulation around college prop bets.’

Charlie added: “I could see a world where there are sort of stake limits on prop bets to stop this kind of thing. Whether people would agree with that or whether the wider industry would be on board with that, I’m not entirely sure. But the more proactive regulators, I’m sure, will be interested in that kind of measure.”

After a short break, the attention then turns to Betway who announced plans to exit the US sports betting market. The operator is currently live in nine states and Jess describes them as a “mid-tier operator” that never managed to break into the top tier.

She added: “ I don’t think they got their footing anywhere. They were part of that group of nine or 10 splitting that last percentage of handle. If you look at the states that they were in, not the most populous states they could potentially choose from.”

“They had pulled out of plans for Massachusetts, they withdrew their license in Illinois. So I think we kind of saw this was that they certainly weren’t going to get any bigger, which is never a good sign for some of these companies as they try to make a dent in the United States.”

Several European-based operators have pulled out of the US which the pair says underscores the difficulty in these operators gaining a foothold in the market when competing with US-based operators. 

“The European player and the American player, they’re just completely different,” explained Charlie. 

“We have different ways of consuming sports, we have different sports that we enjoy and so the way that we bet on those sports are naturally going to be different. Just taking your European strategy and copy and pasting it over to the Americas, that strategy is not going to be a winning one in the US when you look at it and most of the top-tier brands are American.”