Jontay Porter's mob threats may have been a scam by betting associates

Former NBA player Jontay Porter said he feared mob enforcers would target his pregnant wife over a $200,000 gambling debt. An investigation by The New Yorker suggests the Mafia figures he believed were threatening him may not have existed. Porter, who was permanently banned from the league in April 2024, has said gambling debts drove him to conspire to manipulate bets on his own performance. He later pleaded guilty to a federal conspiracy charge related to wire fraud.

Porter began accumulating debt in 2022 through an acquaintance, Johnny Kalaj, who found him bookmakers offering credit. He soon owed more than $160,000 to a group he understood was linked to the "Jewish Mafia." Kalaj warned him of frightening consequences if he did not pay. Porter then dealt with another intermediary, Ammar Awawdeh, who introduced him by text to a contact named "Vinny," described as an Italian Mafia bookmaker. His debt to Vinny reportedly grew to about $200,000.

Porter told the magazine that Awawdeh said Vinny had served time for manslaughter and told a story about a debtor having a finger cut off. Awawdeh denied making that claim when contacted by The New Yorker. Reporter Nick Berardini traced phone numbers supposedly belonging to mob bookmakers and found they were linked to people already implicated in the betting scheme that ended Porter's career. None of those individuals have been identified by prosecutors as having Mafia connections.

Berardini discovered Porter never spoke directly with the alleged mobsters, communicating only by text and sending repayments through Kalaj or Awawdeh. The phone number for Vinny was registered to Bruce Pham, an associate of Awawdeh and a participant in Porter's betting conspiracy. Numbers for contacts supposedly representing separate criminal groups also used the same phone-service provider. Several professional gamblers and others connected to the case suspect a scam where middlemen collected losing bets but invented excuses to withhold payouts on winning wagers. In one example, Awawdeh refused to give Porter nearly six figures in winnings, citing previous late payments. When asked directly by The New Yorker whether "Vinny" actually existed, Awawdeh declined to give a straight answer. Porter eventually agreed to leave Toronto Raptors games early so associates could profit from underprop bets on his statistics. Ultimately, his fear of mob retaliation may have been genuine even if the enforcers sending the texts were manufactured.