RJ_Bell said:
On a personal note, I defended Vegas Runner from non-stop attacks regarding his honesty. The baggage from his past always follows him – but he convinced me at a personal level that he valued the transparency and customer-focus Pregame.com demands. For him to move in the opposite direction of that now – back to his old ways - makes me feel like no less than a fool.
I think we have all probably encountered this type of situation in the past. A person who was formerly of the dark side joins the good guys and you wonder about whether there has been a full transformation. I don't know any of the history on VR, but he had a certain slick quality about him that he gave me the distinct impression that he was comfortable being a little fast and loose with the truth.
Having said that - I find truth some truth in most of the parting observations about his relative contributions.
He is clearly knowledgeable about sports handicapping and gambling generally, and there are times when you can put that knowledge to use.
He is enough of a character that there was a certain entertainment quality to his podcast contributions (if you were not too upset over following some of his personal selections).
Somehow the success of his selections (or lack thereof) was repeatedly misreported, though I was never able to discern whether he had anything to do with that.
For the time period that I followed his "best bet" podcast selections, they were comically bad. I started a Thread once about fading his best bet selections as a best bet, and that was before he went on his longest losing streak.
I always had the impression that VR's strongest feature in sports handicapping was in identifying value in the actions and judgments of others, whether it derived from direct knowledge obtained through his relationships with sharps or from his ability to make judgments about line movements. This is in contrast to his apparent ability to simply evaluate the strength or weakness of sporting teams and participants, which seemed average at best. An obvious example of this was his relentless bashing of the Seahawks as being highly overrated on the road to their winning Super Bowl.
Anyway, I wish the best of luck to the good folks here at Pregame in adjusting to his departure, as it appears that there will be some extra work and headaches involved, but it really does not impact my judgment as to the value of the Site.