Dementieva wins Pilot Pen opener

Tennis Betting Lines

08/23/2010 - New Haven, CT (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Two-time Grand Slam runner-up Elena Dementieva was among Monday's opening-round winners at the $600,000 Pilot Pen Tennis event, a final hardcourt U.S. Open tune-up.

The fourth-seeded Dementieva flew past Spaniard Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez 6-1, 6-2 at the Connecticut Tennis Center at Yale.

Rain washed away Sunday's schedule here and interrupted the start of play Monday.

Slovakian lucky-loser Dominika Cibulkova drove out last year's American U.S. Open darling Melanie Oudin 6-2, 5-7, 6-4 on Monday. Cibulkova is scheduled to meet two-time defending Pilot Pen champion Caroline Wozniacki in the second round.

Eighth-seeded Russian Nadia Petrova overcame American qualifier Varvara Lepchenko 1-6, 7-5, 6-1 on Day 2, while another American qualifier, Bethanie Mattek-Sands, stifled Romanian Alexandra Dulgheru 6-2, 6-1.

Additional first-round wins came for Italian Sara Errani and Ukrainian Kateryna Bondarenko. Errani will meet second-seeded French Open runner-up Samantha Stosur in the round of 16.

The Danish Wozniacki handled Russian Elena Vesnina in last year's New Haven finale to capture her second straight title here. Wozniacki, who titled in Montreal on Monday, is the top seed here.

The 2010 Pilot Pen champion will collect $98,500

The U.S. Open will commence next Monday in New York.

Todaysplays Tennis Betting News

<< Astros extend partnership with Double-A Corpus Christi
Houston, TX (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Houston Astros announced a four-year extension of the player development contract with the Corpus Christi Hooks, the team's Double-A affiliate. The new agreement runs through the 2016 season. "

<< Braves' Infante earns NL weekly honors
New York, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Atlanta Braves infielder Omar Infante was named the National League Player of the Week for the period ending August 22. Over seven games during the week, the 28-year-old batted .433, which was good for

<< Longoria, Cano share AL weekly honors
New York, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Tampa Bay Rays third baseman Evan Longoria and New York Yankees second baseman Robinson Cano were named the Co-Players of the Week for the American League for the period ending August 22. Longoria hit 11-for-

<< Collins signs with Bears at QB
LAKE FOREST, Ill. (AP) -The Chicago Bears have added a lot of experience at quarterback with one moveThe Bears have signed 38-year-old Todd Collins, who's played for Washington, Kansas City and Buffalo. He is expected to battle the injured Caleb Han

<< Cubs activate C Soto from DL among several moves
Washington, DC (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Chicago Cubs activated catcher Geovany Soto from the 15-day disabled list among several roster moves on Monday. The 27-year-old backstop was put on the DL on August 10 with a sprained right shoulder

Rangers activate Harden for Monday start >>
Arlington, TX (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Texas Rangers activated pitcher Rich Harden off the 15-day disabled list to start Monday's game against the Twins. Harden has been sidelined since a 2 1/3-inning start against the Athletics on Augus

City dispatches Liverpool >>
Manchester, England (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Carlos Tevez scored two second-half goals as Manchester City recorded a comfortable 3-0 win over Liverpool at Eastlands on Monday. Gareth Barry put City in front in the 13th minute, and Teve

Power conquered the courses, but can he survive the ovals? >>
Sonoma, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Will Power has undoubtedly established himself as the king of the road/street courses in the IZOD IndyCar Series this year, but can the Team Penske driver hang on to win the series championship with the last four r

This Week in Golf - August 23rd through August 29th >>
Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - THE BARCLAYS, Ridgewood Country Club, Paramus, New Jersey - It's playoff golf. The PGA Tour playoffs begin on Thursday with the first round of The Barclays. The top 125 on the FedEx Cup regular-s

Nats' Strasburg headed to DL >>
Washington, DC (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Washington Nationals rookie phenom Stephen Strasburg will be placed on the 15-day disabled list with a strained flexor tendon in his right forearm. According to the Mid-Atlantic Sportsbook Betting Lines, Strasbur

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.