Football Betting

Padres end skid at 10, nip Dodgers to stay alone in first

Baseball Betting Lines

09/07/2010 - San Diego, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Nick Hundley homered and drove in two runs, and the Padres snapped a 10-game skid with a 4-2 win over the Dodgers to barely maintain first place in the NL West.

The San Francisco Giants threatened to put the division in a virtual tie after beating Arizona, 2-0, in 11 innings earlier Monday, but the Padres ended their longest losing streak since a franchise-record 13-game string in 1994 to keep a one-game edge.

David Eckstein added an insurance sacrifice fly in the seventh inning for San Diego, which used seven pitchers in the opener of this three-game series. Tim Stauffer lasted four frames in the emergency start for Mat Latos, who was scratched due to the stomach flu. Mike Adams (3-1) pitched 1 2/3 frames for the win and Heath Bell threw the ninth inning for 38th save of the season. He's converted 25 straight save chances, but didn't have an opportunity for one since August 19 at Wrigley Field when the Padres beat the Cubs.

Vicente Padilla (6-5) was charged with five hits and three runs over four innings, as the Dodgers lost for the fifth time in six contests.

The Dodgers had their chances in the sixth and seventh, but didn't capitalize in big situations and finished the night by going 1-for-8 with men in scoring position. They left two men on base in each inning between the fourth and seventh.

Trailing 3-1 in the sixth, the Dodgers put men on first and second with no outs, but Ryan Webb fanned Matt Kemp. Ryan Theriot grounded out, and Brad Ausmus left two men in scoring position when he grounded back to the mound.

Scott Podsednik hit his first homer in a Dodger uniform in the seventh off Luke Gregerson, but Adams escaped a jam later in the frame. With men on first and second, he fanned Andre Ethier to end the inning.

Aaron Cunningham doubled off Jonathan Broxton in the seventh and scored on Eckstein's fly ball to center.

The Dodgers didn't have a man on base in the final two innings.

Hundley hit the first pitch of the bottom of the third over the wall in left, but Ethier's single scored James Loney in the fourth. Theriot lined out to keep runners on first and second to end the inning.

The Padres loaded the bases with one out in the bottom of the fourth, and a fielder's choice grounder from Will Venable scored Adrian Gonzalez. It became 3-1 when Hundley singled in Miguel Tejada.

Loney popped out to leave two runners on base in the fifth.

Game Notes

The Dodgers hold a 7-6 edge in the season series...Earlier Monday, the Padres selected the contract of infielder/outfielder Mike Baxter from Triple-A Portland and designated pitcher Steve Garrison for assignment...The Dodgers recalled pitchers John Ely and Jon Link as well as infielder Chin-lung Hu. The club also purchased the contracts of 33-year-old first baseman John Lindsey and 25-year-old third baseman Russ Mitchell from Triple-A Albuquerque. Lindsey will make his major league debut sometime this month after a 15-year minor league career with four organizations.


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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.”

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