Worst of all, the plan didn\u2019t even work. DraftKings noted that the unders on Jontay\u2019s stats were the most profitable bet of the whole night, a surprise for such a small-time player. But Awawdeh said that, because of spending limits that they hadn\u2019t anticipated, they couldn\u2019t put enough money down to clear Jontay\u2019s debt. They pressed him to do it again. For weeks, Jontay resisted.<\/p>\n
By that time, Awawdeh had put Jontay in touch by text with a guy named Vinny, whom Jontay understood to be a bookie for the Italian Mafia. Soon, Jontay owed Vinny some two hundred thousand dollars. According to Jontay, Awawdeh warned that Vinny had just been released from prison for manslaughter, and \u201cdidn\u2019t take kindly to people who crossed him.\u201d One gambler who hadn\u2019t paid his debt, Awawdeh told him, was tied to a chair in a warehouse and had his finger cut off before giving up his crypto wallet. (Awawdeh denies saying this.) Jontay said that, at one point, he received a threat that enforcers would pay Kelli a visit in Toronto. \u201cI guess that was my weak spot,\u201d he said. Kelli had recently told him that she was pregnant, and Jontay didn\u2019t want to bring a child into the world with a gambling debt to the Mob hanging over his head.<\/p>\n
In March, 2024, Jontay pulled himself out of a game against the Sacramento Kings, saying that he felt sick. Meanwhile, Awawdeh went with Pham, their friend Timothy McCormack, and a friend of Jontay\u2019s named Mahmud Mollah to a brick-and-mortar DraftKings location in Atlantic City. According to prosecutors, surveillance footage shows them approaching the casino cage with a blue gift bag full of cash and handing the money to a teller. They made at least seven parlays against Jontay\u2019s stats, which would have paid out for more than a million dollars.<\/p>\n
Instead, the bets were immediately flagged. Sportsbooks track bets in real time and use algorithms to spot suspicious activity. A huge parlay on LeBron James would earn a second look. One on Jontay Porter, a little-known reserve, might as well have been a confession. The minute Jontay took himself out of the game, a digital dye pack exploded all over their cash. (FanDuel and DraftKings, unlike illegal operators, can accept suspicious bets because if a bet loses they can keep the money, and if it wins they can notify law enforcement and will likely never have to pay out.) Jontay didn\u2019t know it at the time, but the plan had also been leaked to other co-conspirators. Similar bets had been placed on several other sportsbooks. DraftKings reported the activity. (Mollah, Pham, and McCormack have all pleaded guilty to wire-fraud charges.)<\/p>\n
A few days later, while taking a pre-game nap in a hotel suite, Jontay got a call from the Raptors\u2019 general manager, who told him that he was under investigation for \u201csuspicious betting activity.\u201d \u201cI knew I was toast,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He was soon banned from the N.B.A. Kelli considered divorcing him. Jontay Googled whether or not he could still go to Heaven if he killed himself. He bought a gun. \u201cThere was one incident where I\u2014I don\u2019t even think my wife knows this\u2014but I held it to my head and I was just crying: \u2018I can\u2019t do this anymore,\u2019\u00a0\u201d he said. Gambling has the highest suicide rate of any addiction; nearly twenty per cent of addicts attempt to take their own lives. But, as he thought about pulling the trigger, he imagined his unborn son. \u201cI can\u2019t leave this earth without meeting him,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Worst of all, the plan didn\u2019t even work. DraftKings noted that the unders on Jontay\u2019s stats were the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":957149,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[524501,20607,64,63,5275,590,6450,85,524502,327009],"class_list":["post-957148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-_override_articleheader","tag-_sensitivecontent","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-magazine","tag-nba","tag-onecolumnnarrow","tag-sports","tag-textoverlaycenterfullbleedgradient","tag-the-sporting-scene"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=957148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/957149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=957148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=957148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=957148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}