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01/07/2012 - Kapalua, HI (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Steve Stricker is playing his second straight event as the highest-ranked player in the field.
And it showed on Saturday.
Stricker fired a 10-under 63 in the second round to grab a five-stroke lead after two rounds of the season-opening Hyundai Tournament of Champions.
"It was a good round, a good start. You know, we're halfway through. We've got a long ways to go yet," Stricker said in a televised interview.
The Wisconsin native completed 36 holes at 15-under-par 131.
Stricker, the sixth-ranked player in the world, was also the highest ranked player at the Chevron World Challenge in December. He struggled that week finishing 16th in an 18-player field.
However, Stricker has burst out of the gates in 2012. He missed the Kapalua course record by a single stroke and was two off the tournament's 36-hole scoring mark thanks to a round with an eagle and eight birdies.
Webb Simpson, a two-time winner last year, posted his second straight 68 and is alone in second place at minus-10.
Kevin Na was even-par through 26 holes, but played the next 10 holes in nine- under par, including back-to-back eagles on 17 and 18. His nine-under 64 moved Na into third place at nine-under-par 137.
First-round leader and defending champion Jonathan Byrd (71) and Martin Laird (70) share fourth at minus-eight.
Stricker got his bogey-free round going with a five-foot birdie putt at the third. He two-putted for birdie on the par-five fifth to grab a share of the lead at seven-under.
After Simpson birdied the seventh to move ahead, Stricker matched him with a birdie of his own at No. 7. Simpson slipped one back with a bogey at the eighth, then Stricker took control.
Stricker, who has seven wins over the last three years, tapped in a three- footer for birdie at nine and made it two in a row with a seven-footer at 10.
Armed with a three-stroke lead, Stricker parred the next three holes. After Laird moved within two, Stricker drained a seven-foot birdie try on the 14th. He followed with a 10-foot eagle effort on No. 15 to push his lead to four over Na, who had a stellar finish.
Stricker wasn't finished either. Despite a long delay on No. 17 as Laird, his playing partner, lost his tee shot and had to go back to the tee, Stricker played the hole perfectly.
He found the short grass off the tee, then dropped his second shot within 13 feet of the cup. Stricker ran that putt in for birdie, and closed with a three-foot birdie effort at the last to push his lead to five.
"Golf is never easy, but I had it going today," Stricker said on television. "It's always fun when you get rounds like this going. I felt like I was going to make every putt I looked at for a while. And I gave myself a lot of opportunities, which is key."
Simpson did all of his scoring in bunches. He drained back-to-back birdie tries at two and three. He traded a birdie for a bogey from the seventh.
The 26-year-old Simpson birdied three of the last four holes to jump into second place.
Before Stricker grabbed his big lead, Na was the story with his stellar finish. He bogeyed the fourth, but came right back with a birdie on No. 5. From the ninth to the 15th, he had five birdies in that seven-hole span.
Na, who won in Las Vegas last year, holed out for eagle from over 200 yards on the 17th. He found the green at the long, par-five 18th and poured in a 10- footer for eagle to become the first player to finish eagle-eagle at Kapalua.
"That was exciting. That was a lot of fun," Na said in a TV interview. "I was getting off to a slow start today. I birdied nine to get it under par, and then all of a sudden, the back nine I started getting it together."
NOTES: Byrd is the only previous winner of this event in the field this week...Just three players in 27-man field shot over par in round two...PGA Champion Keegan Bradley, the lone reigning major champ in the field, managed a one-under 72 and is tied for seventh at minus-five, while reigning FedExCup champ Bill Haas is alone in 24th after a pair of even-par rounds...Rory Sabbatini was assessed a two-stroke penalty for being late for his tee time, but rallied for a three-under 70 Saturday.
<< Dominant second half powers Sixers over Raptors
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James (ankle) and Dwyane Wade (
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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.”
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In the wake of the news that the 49ers have signed receiver Michael Crabtree after an extended holdout, there has been not a hint of the dollars to be paid to Crabtree.
And since this means that his agent hasn't leaked the numbers, it means that his agent feels no specific motivation to do so.
Possibly because his agent isn't all that thrilled to have his name on the deal.
So the numbers will come from sources other than Crabtree's agent. And we've gotten our mitts into them.
Per a league source, Crabtree has signed a six-year, $32 million contract. (The total includes guaranteed money, base salaries, and the one-time incentive based on achieving minimum playing time.)
The deal also includes $17 million in guaranteed money.
As reported elsewhere, the deal can void to five years based on performance triggers, wiping out a final year base salary of $4 million. But they won't be easily reached.
The source tells us that, in his first four seasons (including 2009), Crabtree must either qualify for two Pro Bowls, or he must qualify for one Pro Bowl in one year and he must participate in 80 percent of the offensive snaps in a separate year in which the team makes the playoffs.
In other words, if in 2010 he qualifies for the Pro Bowl and the team makes the playoffs and he participates in 80 percent of the snaps, he'll still need to make it to the Pro Bowl or achieve the 80-percent/playoffs in another season.
Since the chances of Crabtree making the Pro Bowl or participating in 80 percent of the offensive snaps this year is roughly zero percent, he'll have three years to get it done.
And it won't be easy. Frankly, he'll be hard pressed to make it to one Pro Bowl in three years with the likes of Larry Fitzgerald, Calvin Johnson, Anquan Boldin, Steve Smith, the other Steve Smith, Hakeem Nicks, DeSean Jackson, Johnny Knox, Percy Harvin, Greg Jennings, Roddy White, T.J. Houshmandzadeh in the same conference for sportsbook betting.
So, by all appearances, it's a six-year deal. And at $17 million in guaranteed money, the per-year guarantee is a tepid $2.83 million per year.
There's another problem with the deal -- it has no mid-tier incentive package. Instead, the additional $8 million that Crabtree can earn (pushing the max value to six years, $40 million) requires the kind of unrealistic, mega-star performances that no rookie is likely to ever achieve.
So while the contract paid to Packers defensive tackle B.J. Raji covers five years and pays $22.5 million, he has the ability (if he's a solid player) to make up the difference between his base deal and Crabtree's five-year, $28 million haul via the mid-tier incentive package in Raji's deal.
And unless Crabtree meets the performance thresholds necessary to void the sixth year, he'll be stuck under contract for another year at a base salary of only $4 million.
There's one other area of concern with the deal. Crabtree, per the source, received no option bonus. Instead, he has significant money tied to a fairly new device known as a "discretionary salary advance," which unlike an opition bonus is subject to forfeiture if Crabtree decides in a year or two that he wants to hold out for a better deal. (We're also told that the 49ers have included language that would make certain escalators subject to forfeiture, too.)
Meanwhile, the deal falls well short of the mark for which Crabtree and agent Eugene Parker were aiming -- the five-year, $38.25 million contract paid by the Raiders to receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey, the seventh overall pick in the draft.
Even if Crabtree successfully voids the final year, he'll make more than $2 million per year less on average than Heyward-Bey.
Thus, as we explained earlier in the day, this is a deal that Crabtree could have done in July, which would have given him a much better chance of making a contribution to the 49ers during his rookie year.
So while the final outcome can be described as win-win, the broader view suggests that it's really a lose-lose situation.
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