Wednesday, April 22, 2015

The Long Con of @RJinVegas: "Vegas" Says (Part Two)


RJ Bell is the founder and CEO of Pregame.com, a sports betting website that includes forums, odds, contests, and picks (both of the free and for purchase varieties). It is one of the most successful sites of its kind, in no small part due to the popularity of Bell, who has accumulated over 80K 100K Twitter followers and established himself as the mainstream media's go-to "expert" for stories involving gambling on sports.

An American success story if there every was one. That's only one side of it, though. In some corners of the internet (including this blog), there is a feeling that Bell has not found his success in a legitimate way. This is the 16th post in a series detailing the reasoning behind that particular feeling. If you'd like to start at the beginning, it's here.

Back in August, we established that:
using "Vegas" as a meaningless buzzword to attribute an undeserving level of importance to the information you're tweeting
...is bad. In this post, I'm going to attempt to expand on that thought by looking at two more subsets of "Vegas Says".


Imaginary Lines


Monday, February 23, 2015

2013 Degen Tweat of the Year: The Ship


F4 results:













Such an Asshole took a surprising early lead, but even the selection committee couldn't fuck up the top two seeds in this tourney. It was RJ's year, and it is RJ's final.


The Ship

(1) 12% ASG Swing!


(2) Misanthropes




Friday, February 20, 2015

Thursday, February 19, 2015

Monday, February 16, 2015

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

2013 Degen Tweat of the Year: Round 1, Part 2


R1P1 results:





















Significantly more votes on one of these matchups than on the other three. Huh. Moving right along:

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Monday, January 26, 2015

One Tweat Above Them All


Your 2014 Degen Tweat of the Year winner:

Thursday, January 22, 2015

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

2014 Degen Tweat of the Year: Final Four


E8 results:























The left side of the bracket really came down to the wire, but in the end we got the semifinal matchup that most pundits have expected since the field was announced. Conversely, the committee's work in the North Korea and Airbud regions left something to be desired, as the combined seeds of those two semifinalists (18) is the highest in DTOTY history.

The updated bracket:

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Friday, January 9, 2015

2014 Degen Tweat of the Year: Round 1, Part 2


R1P1 results:



R1P2:

Colorado vs. I Know Nothing

Thursday, January 8, 2015

2014 Degen Tweat of the Year: Round 1, Part 1


Twenty-four tweats made the cut, eight got byes, eight will be voted on tomorrow, leaving eight for today:

#TERND Sustainability vs. Buying the Hook