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08/11/2010 - Brooklyn, MI (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Series: NASCAR Sprint Cup. Date: Sunday, August 15. Race: CARFAX 400. Site: Michigan International Speedway. Track: two-mile oval. Start time: 1:00 p.m. (et). Laps: 200. Miles: 400. 2009 winner: Brian Vickers. Television: ESPN. Radio: Motor Racing Network (MRN)/SIRIUS NASCAR Radio.
With four races remaining before the Chase begins, tension is building among several drivers who hope to secure a spot in the playoffs. Just 205 points separate 12th-place Mark Martin from 19th-place Juan Pablo Montoya, who won his second career Sprint Cup race last weekend at Watkins Glen International.
Montoya made the Chase for the first time last year, finishing eighth in points. He is a long-shot in making the playoffs for the second year in a row, but anything can happen between this weekend's race at Michigan and next month's regular-season finale at Richmond.
"I think it's been for a while realistic that to make it you need a miracle," Montoya said. "Win one week, lose another. I made a lot of mistakes this year. I hurt the team a lot from that point."
Montoya snapped a 113-race winless streak in NASCAR's top-tier series at Watkins Glen. His first win came in June 2007 at the road course in Sonoma, CA. Montoya's win at Watkins Glen allowed him to gain two position in the standings.
"I think last year we didn't have the pace we have this year, and we made the Chase pretty easy, I thought," Montoya added. "This year, we had two cars capable, easily making the Chase, and both cars are out. That's what it is, I guess."
The closest battle in the "Race to the Chase" right now is between Martin and 13th-place Clint Bowyer.
After finishing 32nd at Watkins Glen, Bowyer dropped out of the top-12, as he trails Martin by a slim 10 points. Martin moved up one spot in the standings after his 19th-place run.
"This team is improving every week, and we just have to keep that going in Michigan," Martin said. "It's a good feeling to be back in there (top-12), but it's not at all a relief. We have four races to go. Anything can happen."
Martin won at Michigan in June 2009.
Bowyer's Richard Childress Racing teammates Kevin Harvick and Jeff Burton are first and third in points, respectively. Harvick could become the first driver to clinch a spot in the Chase this year, as he currently is 569 points ahead of Martin.
Ryan Newman, Kasey Kahne and Montoya are those drivers who made last year's Chase, but presently sit outside of the top-12. Newman is 83 points behind Martin in the 14th spot.
"It's still a great race for that 12th spot," Newman said. "I think it's easy to see that with all the shifting in the points each week. While we would much rather be inside the top-12 already, we've put ourselves in a good position to make the Chase, thanks to a lot of hard work by everyone at Stewart-Haas Racing."
Jamie McMurray, winner of the Daytona 500 and the Brickyard 400 this year, is 94 points in back of the 12th position. McMurray jumped from 17th to 15th after an impressive sixth-place run at Watkins Glen.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. sat in 11th place after last month's race at Daytona, but has fallen to 16th with finishes of 23rd of worse in the last four races. Earnhardt Jr.'s last win in the series came in June 2008 at Michigan (79 races ago).
Could Sunday be the day Earnhardt Jr. finally snaps his winless streak?
"[Crew chief] Lance [McGrew] and the guys unloaded a great car last time at Michigan," said Earnhardt Jr., who finished seventh at Michigan two months ago. "We've had some good runs with this car. I enjoy going to Michigan because it's so wide. It has a lot of different grooves, and we can move around and find places to run on the track. We like coming here because it's in the backyard of the manufacturers. Hopefully, we'll get a win for Chevrolet."
Kasey Kahne heads to Michigan 133 points behind Martin, while David Reutimann trails by 166 markers.
Earlier this week, Red Bull Racing announced that Kahne will drive one of their Sprint Cup cars next year. Kahne will then move over to Hendrick Motorsports in 2012 to drive Martin's No.5 car.
Up until the 2009 season, Roush Fenway Racing had been dominant at Michigan, winning a Cup race there for seven consecutive years. Team owner Jack Roush, who resides 60 miles away from the two-mile track in Northville, MI, recorded his 11th victory there with driver Carl Edwards in August 2008. Roush moved into a tie with the Wood Brothers for most car owner wins at the track.
Roush remains at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN after suffering facial injuries during a plane crash two weeks ago in Oshkosh, WI. His condition was upgraded to fair last week, but his release date from the hospital remains undetermined.
Last week at Pocono, Greg Biffle gave Roush and manufacturer Ford its first Cup victory of the 2010 season. Biffle presently occupies the 11th position, but holds a comfortable 112-point advantage over Martin.
"We know we are in the fight of our life to get in the Chase right now," Biffle said. "We have Michigan, Atlanta and Bristol all coming up, and those are some great racetracks for us that are right down our alley."
Biffle won back-to-back races at Michigan from August 2004 to June 2005.
Forty-seven teams are on the preliminary entry list for the CARFAX 400.
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Is there such a thing as a trap game in the NFL?
I once asked that question to Pete Korner, who at the time was office manager and a senior linesmaker for Las Vegas Sports Consultants.
Korner almost ripped my head off. There is no such thing as a trap game, he loudly berated me. It’s a myth. The numbers are made using power ratings, he said.
There are trap games, though. They just might not be what you think. The perception is of a good team, say Philadelphia, laying a small number against New Orleans.
Using the highly-respected power ranking from The Gold Sheet, you’d find the Eagles with a power rating of 4 and the Saints at 8. When you factor the game being played in New Orleans, you could see why the line opened so short at less than a field goal.
For some, this makes it enticing to take the Eagles. That’s not a real trap game, though.
A real trap game, says professional gambler Dave Malinsky, is thinking you’re getting value betting a bad team, which brings us to the Oakland Raiders-Denver Broncos matchup.
The Raiders are +15 in this long-standing division rivalry. Denver is on a short week having dispatched Baltimore Monday. However, the Raiders haven’t covered the spread their last 10 games.
Many bettors don’t trust the Raiders to give a full effort. Few think much of Art Shell and his Oakland’s coaching staff.
So oddsmakers have to do something to make Oakland attractive if they hope to get equal action.
Now Malinsky is a value shopper. But he won’t touch the Raiders even getting more than two touchdowns.
“I try to eliminate the undisciplined, unfocused teams because they’re the ones most likely to suffer the bad beats,” he said.
Near the top of Malinsky’s list of stay-away teams is the Miami Dolphins, who have yet to cover a spread this season.
“Whatever you think of Nick Saban, you have to look at the penalties and turnovers,” Malinsky said.
It’s easy to point out the Dolphins failed to get the money this past week against New England because Olindo Mare missed a field goal and had another field goal blocked. But even though the Dolphins outgained the Patriots, 283-213, they committed eight penalties.
Bad teams not only cost themselves victories, but pointspread covers as well. The Arizona Cardinals and Green Bay Packers are two more examples.
The Cardinals couldn’t have been in a better position this past Sunday, up 14-0 at home against a mediocre Kansas City Chiefs squad. But they couldn’t hold it. The Packers got a push against St. Louis, but also could have won losing by three when Brett Favre fumbled at the St. Louis 11-yard line with 44 seconds left.
“The Packers were in a position to beat Philadelphia, too,” Malinsky said. “But they couldn’t even cover double digits.
“These teams just make mistakes and it costs you … they always will look good from a value standpoint. They really will. But that’s the trap.”
Houston and Tennessee rank among the six-worst teams. Malinsky wouldn’t be afraid to take either of these teams, however, if the price were high enough.
The Texans are bad, Malinsky said, but they have some discipline. The Titans showed they could not only come up with an outstanding game plan, but execute it as well, losing by one to the Colts on the road as an 18 ?-point underdog this past Sunday.
“Jeff Fisher is a worker,” Malinsky said of the Titans coach. “I’m not sure how hard Art Shell wants to work when he gets out of bed.”
Fisher, though, could be out as Tennessee coach after this season. Is he still worth backing in the right spot, with the right price, as a lame duck coach?
“It’s in his nature to keep working hard and not worry about any possible lame duck status,” Malinsky said. “He’s coaching for his resume.”
Note: Monday night game will be picked Monday. Lines used are from football 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. “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).
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.
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.
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