The NBA world was rocked last week by the league’s permanent banishment of Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter for his involvement in gambling on NBA games. This is not, however, the first time the NBA has handed out such discipline. In 1954, the NBA permanently banned Fort Wayne Pistons forward Jack Molinas for similar transgressions. Molinas’ path thereafter is a cautionary tale for Porter.
Porter’s Banishment
The NBA’s investigation determined that Porter had provided unspecified “confidential information” to sports bettors, limited his participation to aid an associate’s $80,000 bet on Porter underperforming in a specific game, and placed 13 bets on NBA games in which he did not participate. Each act was a violation of the league’s gambling policy.
Notably, the strange betting activity caused by Porter’s conduct was discovered and brought to the NBA’s attention by sports betting operators. The NBA and its clubs have lucrative sports betting contracts with the major operators, including DraftKings, FanDuel and BetMGM. Given the increasing prevalence of sports betting more generally (which followed a 2018 Supreme Court decision permitting states to legalize sports betting), to many it was only a matter of time before there was a scandal like Porter’s.
The Molinas Precedent
Jack Molinas, a native Brooklynite, was drafted third overall by the Pistons in the 1953 NBA Draft after an outstanding career at Columbia University. Molinas’ career got off to a solid start. Through 32 games, he was averaging 11.6 points per game and was selected to the All-Star game. Then it was discovered that Molinas had been betting on games in which he played. More specifically, he was betting on the Pistons to win.
Molinas’ betting activity was discovered as part of the investigation into one of the biggest sports betting scandals ever up to that point. Between 1947 and 1950, 32 players from seven colleges took bribes from organized criminals to fix 86 games. The colleges involved included the City College of New York (CCNY), which had in 1950 won both the National Invitational Tournament and the National Collegiate Athletic Association tournament. Molinas had been one of the leaders in getting players involved.
Molinas’ actions violated NBA rules prohibiting gambling. Consequently, NBA President Maurice Podoloff banned Molinas indefinitely.
Molinas didn’t go without a fight. First, he brought a lawsuit in New York state court alleging that he had not received a fair hearing and also that Podoloff lacked the authority to impose a permanent ban. The court ruled in the NBA’s favor.
After that loss, Molinas attended and graduated from Brooklyn Law School and was admitted (remarkably) to the New York bar. At the same time, he was playing minor league basketball.
With his newfound legal chops, Molinas changed his legal theory and brought a new lawsuit in 1960. In that suit, he alleged that the NBA and its member clubs had violated antitrust law by barring him from the league. Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act prohibits competitors in an industry from reaching agreements which unreasonably restrain trade. Molinas argued that the ban against him constituted an unlawful agreement among competitors to prohibit him from participating in the NBA player labor market.
The court disagreed, finding that the NBA’s rule and its application against Molinas was reasonable and therefore did not violate antitrust law.
Molinas’ story unfortunately only goes downhill from there. He spent time in prison related to a variety of schemes, produced pornographic films, and was murdered in 1975 at the age of 43 in an apparent mob-related hit.
Porter’s Options
On the merits, the Molinas case does not bode well for Porter. Procedurally, he is also bound to present any challenge to his suspension via the arbitration processes in the NBA-National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) collective bargaining agreement.
Under Article XXXI of the agreement, Porter can appeal his suspension to a neutral arbitrator. However, because the suspension concerns “the integrity of, or the maintenance of public confidence in, the game of basketball,” the arbitrator can only overturn Commissioner Adam Silver’s discipline if they find it to be “arbitrary and capricious,” a very high standard of review.
Unfortunately for Porter, permanent banishment is the standard punishment for athletes involved in sports betting. Eight members of the 1919 Chicago White Sox team were famously banned after throwing the World Series. Pete Rose, Major League Baseball’s all-time hits leader, is also permanently banned for his wagering on the Cincinnati Reds while he was the club’s manager in the 1980s. Consequently, he is unlikely to persuade an arbitrator that his punishment is unfair.
More realistically, if Porter wants to continue playing professional basketball, he is likely going to have to do it overseas.
