Jontay Porter pleaded guilty to conspiracy in a scandal that saw him banned from the NBA for life.
“I know what I did was wrong, it was illegal, and I’m very sorry,” the former Raptors center said when he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud.
He added that he did it “to get out of huge gambling debts.”
Porter, the brother of Denver Nuggets champion Michael Porter Jr., admitted he agreed to withdraw early from NBA games so he and four other men could win bets based on his performance.
Porter is free on $250,000 bail, pending sentencing in December.
Prosecutors ranged his sentence from less than three and a half years in prison to just four years.
The 24-year-old suspect told the court that he has been treated for gambling addiction.
Four men (Ammar Awawdeh, Timothy McCormack, Mahmud Mollah and Long Phi Pham) were in court in June in a related case, but have yet to plead guilty.
They are accused of planning to profit from tips from an NBA player that he was going to leave two games early.
The men or their relatives used the information to bet on big wins knowing that an unnamed NBA player would make less on those games, according to a court complaint filed when they were indicted in June.
After hearing from some of the players, the player said he was injured or sick and withdrew from games on January 26 and March 20, the complaint states.
Porter was paid $410,000 this past season and averaged 4.4 points, 3.2 rebounds and 2.3 assists in 26 games for the Toronto Raptors.
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