Groin injury to sideline Sunderland's Jones

Soccer Betting Lines

03/15/2010 - Sunderland, England (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Sunderland striker Kenwyne Jones is facing a month on the sidelines after picking up a groin injury against Manchester City on Sunday.

Jones headed his side into an early lead at the Stadium of Light but was substituted at halftime.

City snatched a stoppage-time equalizer through Sunderland-born Adam Johnson to further rub salt into Black Cats boss Steve Bruce's wounds.

"We were just getting up a head of steam and getting a settled team and another one of our big players looks as if he is going to be out for at least a month," he said.

Speaking about the late disappointment, Bruce added: "I think we've got to say it's a fair result overall, but when you get so close, obviously it's disappointing.

"The injury to Kenwyne disrupted us. We lost him through injury, that's the story of our season so far. We've lost too many through injury.

"We are a threat with (Darren) Bent and Jones up front and he has been playing some of the best football I have seen since I've been here."

(Courtesy of sportbox.tv)

Wwwfllottery Soccer Betting News

<< Iowa to discuss future of men's hoops program
Iowa City, IA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The University of Iowa has scheduled a Monday news conference to discuss the future of the men's basketball program amid speculation about the job security of head coach Todd Lickliter. KCRG-TV has report

<< Berbatov: United will win the title
Manchester, England (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Striker Dimitar Berbatov has confidently declared that Manchester United will retain their Premier League crown this season. The Bulgaria international scored United's final goal in Sunday

<< Beckham's England career cut too short
Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Some people may describe David Beckham as overrated, others might call him spoiled or pampered, but one thing that is very evident when it comes to Beckham is that he is persistent. How else to explain

<< Brown gets the ax at Hull City
Hull, England (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Phil Brown has been relieved of his managerial duties with immediate effect. The Tigers have confirmed that Brown's three-and-a-half year reign has been ended and that assistants Brian Horton

<< Huddlestone inks new Spurs deal
London, England (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Tom Huddlestone has put pen to paper on a new long-term contract with Tottenham. The 23-year-old midfielder has agreed to terms on a new deal which will keep him at White Hart Lane until the summer of 2

Bougherra suffers injury setback >>
Glasgow, Scotland (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Rangers central defender Madjid Bougherra is set to be sidelined for several more weeks as he continues to be troubled by a hamstring injury. The 27-year-old Algeria international missed the Scottish

Samuelsson leads NHL's Three Stars >>
New York, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Vancouver Canucks right wing Mikael Samuelsson, Phoenix Coyotes right wing Lee Stempniak and Nashville Predators goaltender Pekka Rinne have been named the NHL's 'Three Stars' for the week ending

UConn unanimous in final poll >>
New York, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Connecticut finished as a unanimous selection as the top women's college basketball team in the final Associated Press poll. The Huskies (33-0), winners of an NCAA Division I women's record 72 straight game

Tottenham expecting Keane to return >>
London, England (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Celtic have been told that they have no chance of keeping loan striker Robbie Keane on a permanent basis. The 29-year-old has scored eight goals in eight games since joining the Bhoys from Tottenham, b

Nesta set to miss remainder of season >>
Milan, Italy (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - AC Milan's veteran defender Alessandro Nesta is set to miss the rest of the season after being forced to undergo surgery on his injured right knee. The 33-year-old was injured in last weekend's goalless

What Is the Point Spread?

What are Sports Betting Point Spreads?

In any football or basketball game (the main sports that use point spreads) there are two teams playing against each other.

Those teams, though, are rarely exactly evenly matched – meaning that typically one team has a better chance than the other to win the game. If bettors were allowed to bet on who was simply going to win the game, smart ones would obviously bet on the better team (likely winning more than 50% of the time in the process).

If winning were that easy the Las Vegas and online sportsbooks would stop taking any bets! This is where the point spread comes in: the basic function of the point spread is to balance the likelihood of each team “winning” by adjusting the final score by the point spread. After this adjustment is made you get the Against The Spread result (ATS result for short).

Let’s look at Super Bowl XXXIX, New England Patriots vs. Philadelphia Eagles. Most people believed the defending champ Patriots to be the better team – so if betting were simply based upon which team would win the game, an uneven majority of people would have wagered on New England. But, by using the point spread, the bookmakers adjusted the terms of the bet, evening the proposition so about half the people believed the Pats to be the smart bet, while the other half considered Philly to be the smart bet.

How to Read Point Spreads

New England Patriots -7 vs. Philadelphia Eagles

The better team, called the Favorite, is expected to win the game and must “give” or “lay” points to the weaker team. The favorite is listed with a minus sign and the number of points they are favored by (e.g., New England -7)

In the case of our example, New England must not only win the game, but they must win by more than 7 points for Pats bettors to have a winning ATS result. An Eagles bettor wins his bet either if:

To visit this internet sportsbook go to MySportsbook.com for all your football betting and World Series odds.

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.