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The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) is seeking to sideline sports betting operators PointsBet Canada for five days, saying the company failed to properly flag and report questionable bets connected to a high-profile NBA gambling controversy.
On Thursday (February 12), the province’s gambling watchdog released a Notice of Proposed Order to temporarily suspend PointsBet’s online gaming registration. Regulators described the lapse as a “systemic failure,” saying the operator did not adequately monitor, detect, document or escalate unusual betting tied to the former. NBA player Jontay Porter.
The matter traces back to early 2024, when concerns arose that Porter was involved in an insider betting scheme linked to his playing time and on-court performance in Toronto Raptors games. When the allegations surfaced, AGCO ordered all regulated sportsbooks in Ontario to find out if they offered Porter markets and to report any suspicious betting activity.
How AGCO is investigating PointsBet Canada’s NBA betting failures
According to the regulator, PointsBet was slow to respond and initially told officials it did not offer Porter bets. Months later, after the US Department of Justice indictment outlined the details of broader schemeAGCO has again ordered operators to comb their records.
Eighteen months after its original response, PointsBet acknowledged that it had in fact taken bets on Porter’s games. After reviewing the company’s betting data, AGCO concluded that the operator’s internal controls detected and reported unusual betting patterns when they occurred. That reporting, the regulator says, never happened.
Under Ontario’s iGaming framework, licensed sportsbooks are expected to serve as an early warning system for threats to sports integrity. They should immediately alert the leagues, independent integrity monitors and law enforcement if Betting activity suggests match fixinginsider information or other forms of manipulation.
“Protecting the integrity of sports and the sports betting market in Ontario is a top priority for AGCO,” said AGCO CEO and Registrar Dr. Karin Schnarr. “We require all operators to have robust systems and comprehensive staff training to reliably detect and report suspicious activity.”
PointsBet has faced regulatory trouble in Ontario before. AGCO fined the company in 2022 for advertising violations and again in 2023 for failing to meet responsible gambling requirements.
The proposed suspension is not final. Under Ontario rules, an operator who receives a proposed order has 15 days to challenge the decision before the License Appeal Tribunal, an independent adjudicative body within the province’s tribunal system.
The broader NBA scandal ultimately led to Porter receiving a lifetime ban from the league in 2024 after an internal investigation found he violated gambling rules. Legal proceedings and the related fallout tied to the case have continued since, continuing to focus on how betting operators and regulators respond to integrity risks.
Featured image: PointsBet / NBA
The post The Ontario regulator acted to suspend PointsBet due to major NBA betting failures first appeared in ReadWrite.
