King, Shvedova reach Open doubles final

Tennis Betting Lines

09/09/2010 - Flushing Meadows, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - American Vania King and Kazakhstan's Yaroslava Shvedova reached Sunday's women's doubles final at the 2010 U.S. Open.

The sixth-seeded duo of King-Shvedova topped a ninth-seeded pairing of Zimbabwe's Cara Black and Australian Anastasia Rodionova 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 in a Thursday semifinal at the National Tennis Center. King and Shvedova captured the women's doubles title at Wimbledon in July.

The other finalists will be determined here on Friday when a second-seeded tandem of American Liezel Huber and Russian Nadia Petrova meets a seventh- seeded team of Taipei's Yung-Jan Chan and Chinese Jie Zheng.

Sunday's winning team will split $420,000.

Wwworlandosentinel Tennis Betting News

<< Blue Jackets sign top pick Johansen
Columbus, OH (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Columbus Blue Jackets signed center Ryan Johansen, the fourth overall pick in the 2010 draft, to a three-year entry level contract on Thursday. The 18-year-old Johansen scored 25 goals to go with

<< Fla St visit stirs memories of Sooners' 2000 title
NORMAN, Okla. (AP) -As No. 17 Florida State travels to face No. 10 Oklahoma this week, the Sooners are firmly entrenched as a national powerhouse.It wasn't that way a decade ago when the programs last met.The Sooners had averaged only six wins per s

<< Coaches bring different styles to Iowa, Iowa St
IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) -Iowa State's Paul Rhoads is loud, charismatic and upfront about his passion for the Cyclones.Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz likes to keep as much as he can in-house.The two coaches have different ways of doing business but they are wi

<< Durant carries U.S. into semis at Worlds
Istanbul, Turkey (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Kevin Durant poured in 33 points, helping the United Stated grind out an 89-79 victory over Russia in the quarterfinals of the 2010 FIBA World Championship. Russell Westbrook was a spark off the bench

<< Report: Toronto police help in Clemens case
Toronto, ON (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Toronto police have reportedly helped the FBI and United States prosecutors in the case against Roger Clemens. According to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Toronto police obtained medical informati

Colsaerts leads KLM Open >>
Hilversum, Netherlands (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Belgium's Nicolas Colsaerts birdied his last three holes on Thursday en route to an eight-under 62 and the first- round lead of the KLM Open. Kenneth Ferrie and Shiv Kapur both posted rounds of si

Big win doesn't alter Moore's '1 game' focus >>
BOISE, Idaho (AP) -If the impact of Boise State's big victory over Virginia Tech ever sinks in to Kellen Moore's brain, don't expect the soft-spoken quarterback to veer from the team's modesty mantra.Like his coach and teammates, Moore simply refuse

Modano skates for 1st time with Red Wings >>
DETROIT (AP) - Mike Modano grew up dreaming of skating at Joe Louis Arena as a member of the Detroit Red Wings. He actually did it Thursday morning.The 40-year-old center, who signed a one-year, free agent deal with the Red Wings worth $1.25 million

Bills' Mitchell considered doubtful for opener >>
Orchard Park, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Buffalo Bills linebacker Kawika Mitchell missed practice Thursday and appears unlikely to play in Sunday's opener against the Miami Dolphins. Bills head coach Chan Gailey said Mitchell hurt hi

Women's Open semis on tap for Friday >>
Flushing Meadows, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The combatants for the 2010 women's final at the U.S. Open will be decided on Friday, when top-seeded Caroline Wozniacki meets No. 7 seed Vera Zvonareva and second-seeded Kim Clijste

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.