The Long Con of @RJinVegas: #retweetsTHO

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 90K 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 15th post in a series detailing the reasoning behind that particular feeling. If you'd like to start at the beginning, it's here.

We've previously looked at how, beyond everything else, Bell cannot be entrusted with simple reporting. Which shouldn't come as a surprise, since he has little reason to "provide accurate facts" and every incentive to draw attention to his #brand by stretching the truth.

Last week's Florida St.-Miami line gave us another excellent example of his untrustworthiness:

The Long Con of @RJinVegas: #TERNDZ (Part Three)

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 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 14th post in a series detailing the reasoning behind that particular feeling. If you'd like to start at the beginning, it's here.

This man is out of control. From Monday afternoon:

Entering this week, #Colts only team with 6 covers against the Vegas number.
— RJ Bell (@RJinVegas) November 3, 2014

Great info as always. A slight disagreement, though:

@RJinVegas aren't the chiefs 7-1? versus the #? Only loss in week 1.
— Steve Marsicek (@smarsicek19) November 3, 2014

Hmm. For some clarity, let's check Covers (excluding Week 9, because "entering this week"):

Okay, fair enough. If you count the 49ers game as a loss (or even a push), the Chiefs only had five ATS covers coming into the week. Makes sense, as long as you don't...

#Chiefs have covered the Vegas spread 7 STRAIGHT games - by a combined 91 points.
— RJ Bell (@RJinVegas) November 6, 2014

Oh damn it.

Don't see any getting around this one. RJ is using KC +4.5/5 to make the Colts stat work, and KC +5.5 to claim they've covered seven straight. He was corrected twice along the way, and obviously ignored the haters both times.

@keithlaw @WillBrinson You may or may not agree. My goal is to provide accurate facts for people to consider and be entertained by.
— RJ Bell (@RJinVegas) October 17, 2014

Previous Long Con post: #TERNDZ (Part Two)

The Long Con of @RJinVegas: #TERNDZ (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 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 13th post in a series detailing the reasoning behind that particular feeling. If you'd like to start at the beginning, it's here.

Last week, some folks disagreed with each other on the internet. It started with an exchange between our protagonist and ESPN MLB writer/analyst Keith Law:

The Long Con of @RJinVegas: "Repackaging" Info

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 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 12th post in a series detailing the reasoning behind that particular feeling. If you'd like to start at the beginning, it's here.

As noted, Bell tweets out a lot of annoying/worthless/false nonsense. But nothing is more frustrating than when he takes other people's (actually interesting!) info and makes it his own. One recent example:

The Long Con of @RJinVegas: Q&A

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 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 11th post in a series detailing the reasoning behind that particular feeling. If you'd like to start at the beginning, it's here.

Over the last six weeks, I've written quite a bit about RJ Bell: ten blog posts, including 45 embedded tweets, 18 screengrabbed forum posts, 12 screengrabbed tweets, five charts, and one partially transcribed conference call. Having spent so much time researching and writing about this topic, I figured I should put together a post summarizing my various findings.

Since folks will be encountering Bell in different circumstances, it seems appropriate to organize my findings by the various questions which may arise.

The Long Con of @RJinVegas: Is This Earth?

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 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 tenth post in a series detailing the reasoning behind that particular feeling. If you'd like to start at the beginning, it's here.

In need of some RTs during the slow summer months, Bell tweeted a few times about the odds of LeBron James' free agent destination. The most amusing example;

LeBron odds: Mia -600 (61%); Cle 5/1 (12%); LAC 7/1 (9%); Hou 10/1 (6%) Chi 15/1 (4%); LAL, NYK 25/1 (3%); Dal 30/1 (2%) - via sportsbook.ag
— RJ Bell (@RJinVegas) June 24, 2014

This one might give "12% All-Star game Swing!" a run for its money.

The Long Con of @RJinVegas: "Vegas" Says

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 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 ninth post in a series detailing the reasoning behind that particular feeling. If you'd like to start at the beginning, it's here.

In the world of sports, people tend to ascribe a lot of importance to what "Vegas" says. And in a lot of cases, there's good reason for that. Particularly when you're dealing with mature markets in major sports with high limits, the current Vegas line is not something to scoff it, as it gives you a pretty good indication of how the two teams stack up.

Of course, simply attributing a piece of information to "Vegas" doesn't make it worthwhile: