Basketball Betting








 

Basketball Betting


NFL Football
NCAA Football
NCAA Basketball
MLB Baseball
NHL Hockey
Soccer
Auto
Horse Racing
Golf
Tennis
 

NBA Basketball Betting

Safina, Dementieva win Pilot Pen openers

Tennis Betting Lines

08/23/2010 - New Haven, CT (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Former world No. 1 Dinara Safina and two- time Grand Slam runner-up Elena Dementieva were among Monday's opening-round winners at the $600,000 Pilot Pen Tennis event, a final hardcourt U.S. Open tune-up.

Safina of Russia battled back to defeat third-seeded Italian Francesca Schiavone 1-6, 6-3, 6-1 at the Connecticut Tennis Center at Yale. Schiavone is the reigning French Open champ.

The fourth-seeded Dementieva flew past Spaniard Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez 6-1, 6-2.

Rain washed away Sunday's schedule here and interrupted the start of play Monday.

Slovakian lucky-loser Dominika Cibulkova drove out last year's American U.S. Open darling Melanie Oudin 6-2, 5-7, 6-4 on Monday. Cibulkova is scheduled to meet two-time defending Pilot Pen champion Caroline Wozniacki in the second round.

Eighth-seeded Russian Nadia Petrova overcame American qualifier Varvara Lepchenko 1-6, 7-5, 6-1, while another American qualifier, Bethanie Mattek- Sands, stifled Romanian Alexandra Dulgheru 6-2, 6-1.

Additional first-round wins came for Italian Sara Errani and Ukrainian Kateryna Bondarenko. Errani will meet second-seeded French Open runner-up Samantha Stosur in the round of 16.

Slovak Daniela Hantuchova beat Estonian Kaia Kanepi 7-5, 6-3 to advance to the second round.

The Danish Wozniacki handled Russian Elena Vesnina in last year's New Haven finale to capture her second straight title here. Wozniacki, who titled in Montreal on Monday, is the top seed here.

The 2010 Pilot Pen champion will collect $98,500

The U.S. Open will commence next Monday in New York.


<< Chris Johnson, Gado rush Titans past Cardinals
Nashville, TN (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Samkon Gado, signed last week after an injury to Stafon Johnson, rushed for a pair of touchdowns, as Tennessee toppled Arizona, 24-10, in preseason play. Gado, who spent parts of the last two seasons w

<< So close to perfection: Rangers miss no-hitter, still blank Twins
Arlington, TX (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Minnesota catcher Joe Mauer broke up a combined no-hitter with a one-out single off Neftali Feliz in the ninth inning, but the Texas Rangers used sensational pitching to defeat the Twins, 4-0, in

<< DeWitt, Coleman help Cubs win in Quade's debut
Washington, DC (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Blake DeWitt went 3-for-5 with a home run and two RBI, and Casey Coleman picked up his first major league win in Mike Quade's debut as interim manager for the Cubs, as Chicago thumped Washington, 9-1.

<< Pujols, Cardinals cruise past Pirates
Pittsburgh, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Albert Pujols' three-run home run in the first frame off Sean Gallagher -- who was called in emergency duty -- was a sign of a long night for the home-standing Pirates, as St. Louis ripped Pittsbu

<< Astros' Myers beats former club, ties team record
Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Carlos Lee's two-run single off Ryan Madson in the eighth inning lifted Houston to a 3-2 win over Philadelphia and gave Brett Myers a win against his former club in a wet evening at Citizens Bank Pa

Giants place Mota on DL >>
San Francisco, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The San Francisco Giants placed reliever Guillermo Mota on the 15-day disabled list on Monday with IT band syndrome in his left leg. Mota has given up at least two runs in four of his last six appear

Helton lifts Rockies over Braves >>
Denver, CO (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Todd Helton recorded his first four-hit game since the summer of 2009, and his final hit back through the middle scored Carlos Gonzalez with the eventual winning run, as the Colorado Rockies edged the Atl

Wilson scorches Home Course in Round 1 of U.S. Amateur >>
University Place, WA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Chambers Bay's showcase for the 2015 United States Open featured stunning vistas, rolling hills and difficult scoring conditions in the first round of stroke play at the United States Amateur

Police: OSU lineman found naked in stranger's home >>
CORVALLIS, Ore. (AP) -A redshirt Oregon State University football player has been dismissed from the team after police say they found him naked and intoxicated in a stranger's home and had to use stun guns to take him into custody.Corvallis police s

Giants blast Reds >>
San Francisco, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Matt Cain pitched eight solid innings, while Aubrey Huff and Pablo Sandoval each registered three runs batted in, as San Francisco blasted Cincinnati, 11-2, in the first of three games from AT&T Par

Sportsbook Betting Lines

Who 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 Made

The 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 Change

Once 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.