Real Madrid crashes out of Champions League

Soccer Betting Lines

03/10/2010 - Madrid, Spain (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Real Madrid failed to advance to the quarterfinals of the Champions League for the sixth successive season as they were held to a 1-1 draw by Lyon at the Santiago Bernabeu on Wednesday, leaving them on the short end of a 2-1 aggregate score.

Cristiano Ronaldo scored in the opening six minutes of the game to put Real in front, but a goal from Miralem Pjanic 15 minutes from time sends the French side through, while Real's hopes of hosting the final at the Bernabeu in May have been dashed.

The hosts couldn't have asked for a better start as they entered the return leg down 1-0 but scored inside of six minutes.

Guti lofted a ball over the top of the defense from his own half to Ronaldo, who got down the left wing and managed to squeeze a shot through the legs of goalkeeper Hugo Lloris from a tight angle to even things up on aggregate.

The visitors them came under attack over the rest of the first half with Gonzalo Higuain missing a number of good chances to extend the lead.

The Argentine should have scored in the 25th minute when he got behind the Lyon defense and rounded Lloris before smacking his shot off the post with an empty net staring him in the face.

Lloris then produced a good save on Higuain two minutes later to keep his team within a goal, but things began to turn around for Lyon in the second half.

The French club tightened things up in defense and began to find a few openings of their own as both Sidney Govou and Lisandro Lopez went close with long-range efforts.

However, with the aggregate score still level at 1-1, Pjanic found himself on the other end of a lay-off from Lopez and he smashed a half-volley past goalkeeper Iker Casillas.

The hosts now needed two goals in the final 15 minutes to advance, but instead it was Lyon that had the better chances with both Lopez and Cesar Delgado squandering scoring opportunities after getting past the Real defense.

Wednesday's other match saw Manchester United easily move on with a 4-0 win over AC Milan at Old Trafford.

Wayne Rooney scored a goal in each half while Ji-Sung Park and Darren Fletcher also found the net in the final 30 minutes, handing United a 7-2 win on aggregate.

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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.

Betting Football

NFL Football Betting Online

Is there such a thing as a trap game in the NFL?

I once asked that question to Pete Korner, who at the time was office manager and a senior linesmaker for Las Vegas Sports Consultants.

Korner almost ripped my head off. There is no such thing as a trap game, he loudly berated me. It’s a myth. The numbers are made using power ratings, he said.

There are trap games, though. They just might not be what you think. The perception is of a good team, say Philadelphia, laying a small number against New Orleans.

Using the highly-respected power ranking from The Gold Sheet, you’d find the Eagles with a power rating of 4 and the Saints at 8. When you factor the game being played in New Orleans, you could see why the line opened so short at less than a field goal.

For some, this makes it enticing to take the Eagles. That’s not a real trap game, though.

A real trap game, says professional gambler Dave Malinsky, is thinking you’re getting value betting a bad team, which brings us to the Oakland Raiders-Denver Broncos matchup.

The Raiders are +15 in this long-standing division rivalry. Denver is on a short week having dispatched Baltimore Monday. However, the Raiders haven’t covered the spread their last 10 games.

Many bettors don’t trust the Raiders to give a full effort. Few think much of Art Shell and his Oakland’s coaching staff.

So oddsmakers have to do something to make Oakland attractive if they hope to get equal action.

Now Malinsky is a value shopper. But he won’t touch the Raiders even getting more than two touchdowns.

“I try to eliminate the undisciplined, unfocused teams because they’re the ones most likely to suffer the bad beats,” he said.

Near the top of Malinsky’s list of stay-away teams is the Miami Dolphins, who have yet to cover a spread this season.

“Whatever you think of Nick Saban, you have to look at the penalties and turnovers,” Malinsky said.

It’s easy to point out the Dolphins failed to get the money this past week against New England because Olindo Mare missed a field goal and had another field goal blocked. But even though the Dolphins outgained the Patriots, 283-213, they committed eight penalties.

Bad teams not only cost themselves victories, but pointspread covers as well. The Arizona Cardinals and Green Bay Packers are two more examples.

The Cardinals couldn’t have been in a better position this past Sunday, up 14-0 at home against a mediocre Kansas City Chiefs squad. But they couldn’t hold it. The Packers got a push against St. Louis, but also could have won losing by three when Brett Favre fumbled at the St. Louis 11-yard line with 44 seconds left.

“The Packers were in a position to beat Philadelphia, too,” Malinsky said. “But they couldn’t even cover double digits.

“These teams just make mistakes and it costs you … they always will look good from a value standpoint. They really will. But that’s the trap.”

Houston and Tennessee rank among the six-worst teams. Malinsky wouldn’t be afraid to take either of these teams, however, if the price were high enough.

The Texans are bad, Malinsky said, but they have some discipline. The Titans showed they could not only come up with an outstanding game plan, but execute it as well, losing by one to the Colts on the road as an 18 ?-point underdog this past Sunday.

“Jeff Fisher is a worker,” Malinsky said of the Titans coach. “I’m not sure how hard Art Shell wants to work when he gets out of bed.”

Fisher, though, could be out as Tennessee coach after this season. Is he still worth backing in the right spot, with the right price, as a lame duck coach?

“It’s in his nature to keep working hard and not worry about any possible lame duck status,” Malinsky said. “He’s coaching for his resume.”

Note: Monday night game will be picked Monday. Lines used are from football betting lines.