 |
 Basketball Betting |
 |
||||
|
 |
||||
|
||||
Celtics get back to work in UtahBasketball Betting Lines02/19/2009 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Boston Celtics kick off the second half of their season tonight by resuming a torturous six-game road trip in Salt Lake City against the Utah Jazz. The Celtics improved to 2-0 on the trek before the All-Star break when Paul Pierce outscored the Mavericks in the final period, pouring in 18 of his 31 points down the stretch as Boston rallied to claim a 99-92 victory over Dallas last Thursday. Boston outscored the Mavs, 30-17, in the final 12 minutes, led by plenty of daggers from Pierce. The All-Star's two biggest came in the closing minute- plus, with a fall-away jumper giving the Celtics a 93-91 edge with 1:12 on the clock and another tough mid-range bucket pushing the lead to four with 38.5 ticks to play. Rajon Rondo allowed Boston to hang on in the early going, registering his second career triple-double. He finished with 19 points to go along with 14 assists and a team-best 15 rebounds, and achieved the feat with 53.2 seconds still left in the third quarter. Kevin Garnett added 16 points and five rebounds and Ray Allen had 20 points, as Boston, which headed into the break with the most victories in the league at 44-11, has won three of four overall. The C's have also won nine straight on the road and are 20-7 on the year as the visitor and will finish their current swing with games against Phoenix, Denver and the LA Clippers. The Celtics did receive some bad news off the court, however. The team's top bench player, the athletic Tony Allen, underwent surgery to repair ligaments in his left thumb on Wednesday and will miss the next eight weeks. The 6-foot-4 Allen is currently in his fifth season with the Celtics and is averaging 7.8 points and 1.25 steals in 19.1 minutes per game. The Jazz, meanwhile, improved to 2-0 on a five-game homestand on Tuesday when C.J. Miles scored a game-best 24 points, Deron Williams added 20 and Utah welcomed Andrei Kirilenko back to the lineup in a 117-99 rout of Memphis. Kirilenko, who missed 11 games after undergoing ankle surgery, played 17 1/2 high-energy minutes with 14 points on 5-of-6 shooting. Ronnie Brewer chipped in 19 points and Williams added 15 assists to his point total. Paul Millsap tallied 18 points, eight rebounds and four blocked shots. "He (Kirilenko) made a big steal and then on the other end had a big basket and then blocked a couple of shots. That was something that we missed with him," Utah head coach Jerry Sloan said of Kirilenko. Star forward Carlos Boozer (knee) remains out for the Jazz but center Mehmet Okur, who missed the win over Memphis with the flu, is expected back tonight. Utah won its ninth consecutive game against Memphis and improved to an impressive 22-6 at home this season. It will conclude its homestand against New Orleans and Atlanta. The Jazz had a 37-4 record at EnergySolutions Arena last season, the NBA's best home mark, but the Celtics were responsible for one of those losses. -- a 104-98 triumph on December 29, 2007. Overall, the Celtics have won two of their past three games with the Jazz, including a 100-91 win in Boston earlier this season.
<< Bucs re-sign DT Sims
Tampa, FL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Tampa Bay Buccaneers re-signed defensive tackle Ryan Sims, the team announced Thursday. Terms of the deal were not released. Sims appeared in 15 games last season, starting two, and recorded 27 tackles
<< Derksen's 64 leads Johnnie Walker Classic
<< Name of A-Rod's cousin who supplied steroids revealed
<< Marsh and Dennis sign contract extensions
<< Wade files lawsuit against estranged wife
Blue Devils battle Red Storm in Madison Square Garden >>
New York, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The ninth-ranked Duke Blue Devils will take a break from ACC action this evening, to take on the St. John's Red Storm in non-conference play from Madison Square Garden in the 2009 Aeropostale Classic. Mike Kr
Colts, Hayden reach agreement >>
Bombers acquire Johnson from Argonauts >>
'Canes hope to break out of slump versus Islanders >>
Biron, Flyers welcome Sabres to City of Brotherly Love >>
SPORTS BETTING - Tennis is an underrated and under-utilized bettors' sport.Ten years ago, at just about this time, I called Alan Boston in Vegas and left him a voicemail that went something like this (abridged version): "Hey Alan, Chad Millman from ESPN The Magazine calling. I want to do a book about wise guys, you in?" A couple weeks later I got a message back (abridged version): "I don't know, maybe," Boston said. "Call me and we'll talk about it. But not later today. I got $1,000 on Andre Agassi to win the French Open at 40-1, and he's in the finals."
Here's what happened next (abridged version): Agassi won his tourney. Boston won his $40,000. I wrote sportsbook. In the ten years since, how much has been wagered on the big-time tennis events? Put it this way: The Nevada Gaming Commission doesn't even track the number year by year because it's so small. "Tennis makes up about one-tenth of one percent of our take," says Lucky's bookmaking boss Jimmy Vaccaro. "The last big golf major we probably had $100,000 worth of bets. In tennis, we might have written two big tickets." But Wimbledon? Doesn't exactly reel in the whales. "Seriously, it's the nuts as an event," says Boston. "But who even knows when it's on?" Here's another reason that helps explain why golf gets traction, something I call "The Bubbe Theory." My Bubbe is pushing 95 and has cataracts so bad that, to her, even the most crystalline Chicago day is mostly cloudy. But she still listens to the Cubs games, and she still calls me in a fit if she disagrees with something Rick Telander writes in the Chicago Sun Times. She's a sports fan. If she doesn't know you, you're just filling a niche. And niche players, even historically good ones like Roger and Raf, don't drive betting volume. Only the highest profile names attract square money, which inflates wagering totals like a shot of saline to the lips. Bubbe, and the public, loved Agassi, tennis' last cross-the-rubicon, mainstream draw. She also has a crush on Tiger. She's given me standing orders to put a sawbuck on the big cat whenever I walk through a sports book (or mistakenly tap into one via my Internet machine.) That explains why the Masters is getting $100K in action at some books while the four tennis majors might not get that combined this year. This isn't a case of tennis being a difficult sport to bet. In fact, in Europe, it's probably the second most popular sport for gambling after soccer. Granted, as the WSJ football betting last week and The Mag's Shaun Assael examined in even greater depth last year, that might be because gamblers across the pond see it as an easy game to fix. But it could also be because, over there it holds the kind of sway the big two do over here. Street corners in Spain are peppered with public courts and kids doing their best Raffy impressions. In some war torn parts of Eastern Europe poverty-stricken kids view tennis as an escape route, like football or basketball here. A couple years ago The Mag's Lindsay Berra wrote a great piece about Belgrade's Jelena Jankovic, Ana Ivanovic and Novak Djokovic. They learned the game as kids while bombs were raining down on their homeland. They practiced in drained swimming pools. Not exactly Nick Bolletierri conditions. In the United States, casual fans think tennis is played four times a year. But on the tightly packed European continent, national interest in homegrown talent runs deep every weekend. Of the ATP's current top 20 players, only two, tennis betting and James Blake, are American. Fourteen are from Europe, representing six different countries. No wonder fans from Lisbon to Bhudapest get jacked up for the net game, whether it's Wimbledon or a low-level tourney like the Estoril Open in Portugal (congrats to Spain's Albert Montanes for winning that one, btw). Chances are good that someone representing their flag will not only be playing, but have a shot at winning. And that's all any bettor can ask for. To visit this sports book go to MySportsbook.com for all your football betting needs.
Sportsbook Betting LinesWho Makes the Sportsbook Betting Lines?Las Vegas Sports Consultants (LVSC) is the world’s premier oddsmaking company and the most respected authority on making the lines. Mike Seba is a Senior Oddsmaker at LVSC and has been making lines for the last six years. In our extended interview, Seba explained that there are 4-5 oddsmakers assigned to make lines for each of the major sports (pro & college football and basketball; MLB, NHL, boxing, golf). Each of these oddsmakers bring unique opinions, strengths and weaknesses to the process. Oddsmakers at LVSC are professional sports junkies who love what they do and would probably do it for nothing if you asked them, but they do get paid for it. By necessity their approach is very research-oriented and concise, since with millions of dollars at risk there is little margin for error. “You either have a passion for it or you don’t,” Seba said. “The #1 thing for us is to make a line for each game that creates good two-way action. We do this by drawing from past experiences and applying them to current situations. People think it’s much more complicated, but it’s not. “What are the Football Betting Lines Trying to Accomplish?There is a common misconception that point spreads represent the oddsmakers’ prediction of how many points the favorite will win by. That is not the case at all – their intent is NOT to evenly split the ATS result between the teams; rather, their goal is to attract equal betting action on both sides. Stated another way, they want to create a line that half the people find appealing to bet one way while the other half find it appealing to bet the other way (known as ‘dividing the action’).Divided action means the sportsbook is guaranteed a profit on the game because of the fee charged to the bettor (called juice or vig – typically $11 bet to win $10). How the Opening Line Is MadeThe opening line is the first line created by the oddsmakers, which is then sent out to sportsbooks. Of course there is an entire method to the madness on how the opening line is created. Seba explained that it all starts with each oddsmaker creating a line on each game based upon their own personal approach. This usually includes having up-to-date power ratings on each team.Power ratings are the oddsmaker’s value of each team and are used as a guide to calculate a "preliminary" pointspread on an upcoming game. The power ratings are adjusted after each game a team plays. Examples of non-game factors that would require an adjustment to a team's power rating are key player injuries and player trades. Once a game’s power rating based pointspread is determined, the oddsmaker will make adjustments to that line after considering each team's most recent games played and previous games played against that opponent. Also, adjustments are made after reading each team’s local newspapers to get a sense of what the coaches & players are thinking going into the game.Since the oddsmaker’s ultimate goal is equally dividing the sports betting action, public perception and sportsbook betting patterns must be taken into account. For example, the public might have heavy betting interest week after week on a popular college football betting team such as USC. If an oddsmaker comes up with a preliminary line of USC -7, then an adjustment up to -7.5 or -8 would be made in response to the public’s expected USC bias. The last step in the line-making process for each oddsmaker is taking one final look to determine whether or not the line "feels right." This is where common sense and past experience with how games are bet enters into the picture.A round-table discussion among the 4-5 oddsmakers involved in making the line for each sport is then conducted and a consensus line is decided upon by the Odds Director before it is released to the sportsbooks. Of the 4-5 oddsmakers, generally the 2 most respected opinions are weighed more heavily by the Odds Director before he decides on the final line. Why Sports Betting Lines ChangeOnce the opening line is released by LVSC, the individual sportsbooks decide if they want to make any adjustments before offering it to the public. Reasons for such adjustments include:Experts working for the individual books having a strong opinion on the game Individual books having players who consistently bet with certain tendencies (such as an extreme bias toward favorites or toward a certain popular team like USC)The purpose of these adjustments, like all line adjustments, is to more equally divide the betting action. Once betting begins, sportsbooks can adjust the line at any time. In doing so they attempt to make more attractive the team that is getting less action. By moving the line, sportsbooks can influence how the public bets on a particular game.For example, if the pointspread on a game is 7 and most of the money is coming in on the underdog (taking the +7), sportsbooks will then move the number down to 6 ½ to try and attract money on the favorite. Moving the line is the oddsmaker's effort to balance betting action, and often times such moves can have a major impact on a bettor’s decision. Oddsmakers can also change the line depending on various event-related factors such as player injuries or weather. Obviously, if the line comes out a week ahead of the event (which is the case in football), there is much that could happen during the week leading up to the event that could affect the line. Oddsmakers have to determine if any changes are necessary and send out an "adjusted line."“The main objective is that our clients get equal action on both sides,” Seba said. “We’re not trying to pick the team that covers the spread, we’re trying to make it a coin flip, a tough decision (for the bettor). If we’ve done that, we’ve done our job.” To visit this internet sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your sports betting needs and World Series odds. |
|
