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.