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

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:

The Long Con of @RJinVegas: #TERNDZ

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

One of RJ Bell's favorite things to do during the NFL season is to tweet out "noteworthy" trends relating to upcoming games. As per usual, he does this to get retweets and promote his #brand, while displaying absolutely no interest in providing helpful information.

The Long Con of @RJinVegas: #MATH

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

Beyond lacking any understanding of how betting markets actually work, RJ Bell is also not very good at simple math. I can prove this in under 140 characters:

If #Cardinals had home field: 57% chance to win Series (via @JayKornegay). Actual odds: 45%. 12% All-Star game swing!
— RJ Bell (@RJinVegas) October 23, 2013 

This tweet is concerning for a long list of reasons. For our purposes, I've narrowed it down to four.

The Long Con of @RJinVegas: World Openers

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

RJ Bell has turned himself into much more than the founder and CEO of a tout site that sells shitty picks; there's a reason this series isn't called "The Long Con of @PregameNow". He's a Grantland columnist, an ESPN radio host, an occasional SportsCenter guest, and a very popular tweeter.

Which would be fine, I'm all for more coverage of sports betting markets in the mainstream media. Except Bell either doesn't know, or simply doesn't care about, what actually goes on in these markets. All of these media appearances have nothing to do with sharing accurate or interesting information. Rather, their only purpose is to build Bell's brand so he can eventually get you to his tout site and sell you some shitty picks.

The Long Con of @RJinVegas: "Transparency"

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

RJ Bell really likes to talk about the transparency of his company's business practices:

The Long Con of @RJinVegas: Bet Like A Pro (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 fourth post in a series detailing the reasoning behind that particular feeling. If you'd like to start at the beginning, it's here.

After a brief but worthwhile interlude, let's get back to examining whether Bet Like A Pro (BLAP) contains "any element of a scam".

Step 3: Make it impossible for a neutral third-party to verify the long-term record of your program.

The Long Con of @RJinVegas: Bet Like A Pro (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 third post in a series detailing the reasoning behind that particular feeling. If you'd like to start at the beginning, it's here.

The folks at Pregame love to talk about Steve Fezzik's "network" of "sharps". For example, from the same classic thread we delved into last time:

The Long Con of @RJinVegas: Bet Like A Pro (Part One)

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

When we last left off, RJ Bell was essentially admitting that his touts are not long-term winners, and explaining that yes, he was defending his operation in exactly the same way any scam artist would, but Pregame doesn't have ANY element of a scam, so he is clearly no scam artist.

As good as Bell may be at deflecting and giving non-answers, it's probably not realistic to run a large pick-selling operation without ever being able to claim that any of your touts are long-term winners. Fortunately, about 18 months ago, Bell found a way around this issue. You be the judge regarding whether the following contains "any element of a scam".

The Long Con of @RJinVegas: Defining Value

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 first post in a series detailing the reasoning behind that particular feeling.

When selling sports betting picks, most touts have a fairly standard approach: they claim that the picks will win. This ranges from stating that a game is lock, to advertising how hot they've been over their past 12 3* releases, to saying they'll win in the long-term. Regardless of how they get there, the idea is the same: they're selling winners.

Certainly, Pregame employs some aspects of this approach. But the weird thing is, its founder and CEO doesn't seem to have ever totally bought in.

The Paper of Record

The first problem with James Vlahos' New York Times Magazine piece on sports betting seems to be that the writer simply was not sufficiently knowledgeable about his subject -- either prior to starting his research, or after the article's publication -- to competently report on the topic.

This could be shown in a variety of ways, but for now I'll just pick one.

In this follow-up interview, Vlahos said he was really struck by a former DII football player who is "effectively a host at a strip club" and "loves to bet on sports". Possibly an interesting anecdote, but fairly obviously not the description of an advantage sports bettor, right? Well, no, unless you're hopelessly gullible:

Vlahos: He was very thoughtful and had a statistically-based, well-reasoned approach to his selections for the SuperContest. He was telling me all this as the music was going "BOOM BOOM BOOM".

Nolan: Presumably, he has been less successful than some of the other bettors you profiled if he's working in the club.

Vlahos: His work is fairly lucrative for relatively few hours. His feeling was that he has been around Vegas for a long time and has been around sports gamblers for a long time and has seen a lot of people go bust. One reason that happens is that they depend on betting as their only source of income. They were paying their mortgage or their rent with winnings. When that happens, if you go on a little bad streak, you get desperate much more quickly, as he explained it to me. All of the sudden you need the money, and that's when you make more emotional, less-reasoned choices. It sounded like Vinny was fairly successful as a gambler, and he talked about doing it full time, but maybe he has too good a head on his shoulders.

I think it's very telling here that the most intelligent part of this exchange is the bolded part, from Rachel Nolan, interviewing Vlahos about his story. The fact that Nolan has presumably done much less "research" than Vlahos on this topic perhaps ties it all together, as she hasn't yet had an opportunity to be convinced of things which defy logic by people who make a living out of convincing people of things which defy logic. Which brings us to problem #2: selection bias.

Let's say (hypothetically) that you're a reporter from The New York Times, setting out to write a Super Bowl week story on sports betting, with a focus on the LVH SuperContest. You don't know much about this subject yourself, so you attempt to contact potential "expert" sources for your article; some respond to your inquiry, some do not. In this sense, you're really at the mercy of the responses you get, and the selection bias inherent in which parties will respond to such an inquiry.

So, you didn't really know where to start, and are only going to end up talking to people who want to talk to you. My guess would be that the groups of folks you'll end up speaking to will include:

• The people at the top of the SuperContest standings toward the end of the 2013 season;
• Touts;
• Any other accessible names he came across over the course of conversation with those two groups.

And well, let's go down the list from the article:

• RJ Bell is a tout, shill, and all-around scam artist;
• Vegas Runner is a tout, shill, and all-around scam artist;
• Dennis Montoro bets on football "not with the hope of paying bills, but simply for fun"; the article essentially brags about how he's only down $10,000 lifetime betting on sports;
• Jay Kornegay is the sportsbook director for the LVH, but seems to be more of a PR guy, and has been established to be clueless when it comes to sports betting markets;
• Steve Fezzik is a tout, shill, all-around joke, and indeed the embodiment of a "prototypical Vegas sharp"  in the MSM's eyes, as he bets "occasionally as much as $2,000"; 
• Dave Oancea was named 2013 Las Vegas Socialite of the Year, and has "rules of thumb" which include "not betting against a premier quarterback like Aaron Rodgers, no matter what the numbers might indicate"; he sole qualifications seem to be a strong showing in this year's SuperContest, and recently hitting a couple futures with decent payout odds;
• Amusingly, since sports betting has been relegated to a hobby for him for nearly a decade, David Frohardt-Lane is almost certainly the sharpest football bettor in the group (and not just because he was the eventual SuperContest winner).

Not great, Bob.

So, the entirety of your knowledge of sports betting came from discussions with this all-star list, you probably would come away with the impression that making a consistent living betting on sports is essentially impossible (without having a day job, or funding your bankroll by scamming others). And I do understand the selection bias aspect of trying to get people to talk to you; after all, that's the reason that the general landscape of sports betting "sharps" and "experts" is such a shitshow.

But at some point, you're a features writer for The New York Times, and you need to do better than this. You need to come in with some level of skepticism of RJ, VR, and Fezzik, who are so blatantly and constantly trying to sell you something. You need to be able to identify at least one of the multitude of red flags mentioned in Matt Rudnitsky's excellent post earlier this week.

Obviously that didn't happen. And since the article -- which received no shortage of criticism, much of it tweeted directly at its author -- was published, Vlahos' only Twitter activity has been to attempt to get as many popular accounts as possible to tweet out the link, and thank people who've said nice things about the piece. Which sounds very familiar to the approach of another Twitter user we're all far too familiar with.

In the end, it really seems like we're right back where we started, with Vlahos moving on to his next temporary fascination, and RJ accumulating a few thousand new followers. In a sense, the existence of the article itself is progress, since the MSM has gone from ignoring sports betting entirely, to reporting false narratives and asking the wrong questions to the wrong people. At least it's in good company on both fronts, I suppose.

Not Quite

#Seahawks would be 3.5 point favorites in Super Bowl vs. #Broncos (via Bob Scucci on @chadmillman podcast)
— RJ Bell (@RJinVegas) December 19, 2013

The Problem with R.J.

Yes, this article about the LVH's "massive liability" on Auburn futures has "a much more TMZ feel than actual news". Sure, it's absolutely hilarious that R.J. ends up tweeting stuff like this in response.

But the real issue here, as pointed out by @jbxx, goes back a bit further. Let's look at R.J.'s post from (and the date is important here) July 26:

Who are the Wiseguys betting? Thirty-five-year bookmaker Jay Vaccaro is one of many pointing to Mississippi (from 500/1 to 100/1). LVH also reports significantly sharp action on Auburn (1,000/1 to 300/1) and Florida State (40/1 to 18/1).

Getting past how the phrase "significantly sharp action" is either a typo or makes no sense, this in itself is fine. At 1000-1, a wager wouldn't even have to be that large ($100? $500?) to be considered "sharp" and give the LVH a bit of risk.

Always annoying, though, when somebody comes through with those pesky "facts". Here's generally respected, non-tout Vegas reporter David Purdum on December 10:

The LVH Superbook took 14 ham-sandwich bets on Auburn to win the national championship at 1,000-to-1. All the bets were for $5 and $10 and placed between January and June. The bet the Superbook took in August was much larger. 

As we head into bowl season, a $100,000 futures ticket is in play on the last BCS National Championship Game. 

In August, a bettor placed $500 on three SEC longshots to win the national title. He took Tennessee at 500/1, Ole Miss at 100/1 and …. Auburn at 200/1.

Uh oh. Let's take a look at the timeline of events here:

January through June: Fourteen "ham-sandwich bets" (between $5 and $10) placed on Auburn at 1000-1. 

July 26: R.J. reports that there has been "significantly sharp action on Auburn" at the LVH; odds have moved from 1000-1 to 300-1. 

Sometime in August: Someone bets $500 on Auburn at 200-1. 

December 7: Auburn 59, Mizzou 42. Massive liability, etc.

There's really only one way to interpret this, right? That the LVH got more random tourists than they expected betting $5 or $10 on their Auburn price, and in response moved the Tigers from 1000-1 to 300-1, because why wouldn't you?

And then somehow -- either because noted #makingshitup enthusiast Jay Kornegay misrepresented the facts, or because R.J. has no clue how line movement and #SHRAP action and risk work, or maybe some other reason -- these tiny bets were reported as "significantly sharp action". Which, really, is not acceptable.

Obviously, R.J. the Analyst is pretty much a joke. And anyway, if you think you're going to make money on widely available NFL lines by listening to anybody on the internet, well, probably not.

However, simply reporting facts just shouldn't be that hard. If you were making a legitimate effort, that is. But R.J. is such a fraud that he can't even reach that relatively low bar. When you're so eager to please and so obsessed with people retweeting you (as often as possible), when you have no clue how these markets actually work, and then on top of that you're so loose with the facts themselves...even if you WERE reporting something which was pertinent and interesting, why would anyone believe you?

Giving Thanks For The #WOAT

Thanksgiving #NFL favorites (last 9 years): Won 23 of 25 games (20-5 against the spread). Wow.
— RJ Bell (@RJinVegas) November 27, 2013

Last 9 Thanksgiving games, #Lions have won ZERO and covered ZERO.
— RJ Bell (@RJinVegas) November 28, 2013