08/19/2008 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Worst visits first tonight at Wrigley Field when a pair of National League Central rivals get together for the first of a three-game series.
The front-running Chicago Cubs - holders of a 5 1/2-game bulge in the six-team loop - look to extend that lead at home against the Cincinnati Reds, who've tumbled from the fringes of contention to the back of the pack since the All- Star break.
Taking the mound for the Cubs will be recent acquisition Rich Harden, who's made six starts since coming over from the American League's Oakland Athletics. He's 2-1 with a 1.80 earned run average in 35 innings with Chicago, allowing 24 hits and seven earned runs with 14 walks and 49 strikeouts.
In his last start, on Wednesday at Atlanta, he allowed two hits over five scoreless innings of an 8-0 Cubs win.
He was 5-1 in 13 starts with a 2.34 ERA for the Athletics before the trade.
Harden won his lone career start against the Reds after giving up six hits and four earned runs in 5 1/3 innings.
For the Reds, rookie right-hander Johnny Cueto can make it two wins in a row.
The 22-year-old Dominican had gone six starts without a win between July 9 and Aug. 8 before rebounding with a 3-1 defeat of the Pittsburgh Pirates on Thursday.
The first start of the winless string came against the Cubs, when Cueto dropped a 5-1 decision after allowing four earned runs and eight hits in 6 2/3 innings.
He's faced the Cubs twice in 2008, splitting two decisions and giving up a combined 14 hits and seven earned runs in 12 2/3 innings.
On Sunday in Cincinnati, Edinson Volquez hurled seven innings of shutout ball and the Reds salvaged the final contest of a three-game series with a 7-3 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals.
Volquez (15-5) put together his second consecutive strong start, allowing just three hits and four walks with four strikeouts.
Brandon Phillips hit a three- run homer while Chris Dickerson and Edwin Encarnacion had three-hit games with a run scored each. Jay Bruce added two hits and an RBI for Cincinnati, which won for just the fourth time in their last 16 games.
In Miami, Reed Johnson's three-run double highlighted an eight-run seventh inning, as the Cubs pounded the Florida Marlins, 9-2, in the rubber match of a three-game set from Dolphin Stadium.
Johnson finished 4-for-5 and scored a run for the Cubs, who have won nine of their last 11 games. Aramis Ramirez and Alfonso Soriano each drove in two runs.
Ryan Dempster (14-5) gave up two runs on five hits and struck out 10 batters over six innings to pick up the win. The 31-year-old is one victory shy of tying his career-high set in 2001 with Florida.
Chicago has won five of its nine meetings with the Reds this season.
<< LA tries to beef up division mark vs. Rox
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - If the Los Angeles Dodgers have designs on winning the
National League West, they'll probably have to fare better in games within the
division.
Los Angeles will attempt to improve upon its mediocre record against We
<< Royals, Indians start three-game series in Cleveland
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Right-handed reclamation project Anthony Reyes makes his
third start in an American League uniform tonight when the Cleveland Indians
host the Kansas City Royals in the opener of a three-game series at
Progressive Field.
<< Bronx Bombers head north to face Jays
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The New York Yankees are focused on catching the Tampa Bay
Rays and Boston Red Sox in the American League East race. They might want to
turn their attention to the Toronto Blue Jays as well.
Toronto takes aim at a thi
<< Rays, Angels hope to resume key set in wake of storm
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Tropical Storm Fay could be the only thing that slows down
the upstart Tampa Bay Rays at this point. Weather permitting, the Rays will
play the second of three matchups with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
tonight
Bengals take another chance on Henry >>
Cincinnati, OH (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Cincinnati Bengals signed troubled wide
receiver Chris Henry on Tuesday.
The Bengals released Henry on April 3 after his fifth arrest since the club
made him their third-round pick in the 2005 NFL Dr
Craft to start at QB for UCLA >>
Los Angeles, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - UCLA head coach Rick Neuheisel has decided
to start redshirt junior Kevin Craft at quarterback for the season-opener on
September 1 against Tennessee.
Craft spent two years -- one as a redshirt -- at Sa
D.C. to test improving defense against New England >>
Foxborough, MA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - D.C. United has been impressive in its last
10 matches in Major League Soccer, and will try to build on its recent success
Wednesday against the New England Revolution at Gillette Stadium.
United is 7-2-1
Nadal, Ivanovic are top seeds for U.S. Open >>
New York, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - World No. 1s Rafael Nadal of Spain and Ana
Ivanovic of Serbia have been installed as the top seeds at the U.S. Open,
which will commence Monday at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis
Center.
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.
Sports Betting News: NFL Team History | Football Betting | Baseball Betting | Basketball Betting | Hockey Betting | Golf Betting | Tennis Betting | Auto Racing Betting | Horse Racing Betting | Soccer Betting