A's come to terms with P Bailey, 28 others

Baseball Betting Lines

03/08/2010 - Phoenix, AZ (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Oakland Athletics closer Andrew Bailey was one of 29 pre-arbitration players to agree to contracts for the 2010 season.

Bailey made 68 appearances for Oakland last season, posting a 6-3 record with 26 saves and a 1.84 earned run average to earn American League Rookie of the Year honors.

The A's also worked out deals for most of last year's starting rotation Monday, agreeing to terms with righty Trevor Cahill and a trio of left-handers in Brett Anderson, Dallas Braden and Gio Gonzalez.

Cahill made a team-leading 32 starts as a rookie last season for Oakland. He finished 10-13 with a 4.63 ERA.

Anderson, another rookie in 2009, went 11-11 with a 4.06 ERA in 30 starts. Braden made 22 starts last season, going 8-9 with a 3.89 ERA, while Gonzalez had a 6-7 record with a 5.75 ERA in 20 games, 17 of which were starts.

Catcher Kurt Suzuki and outfielder Ryan Sweeney also signed one-year deals. Suzuki, entering his fourth major league season, batted .274 with 15 home runs and 88 RBI in 147 games last year. Sweeney hit .293 with six homers and 53 RBI over 134 games in 2009.

Other notable signees included first baseman Daric Barton, infielder Adam Rosales, shortstop Cliff Pennington, outfielder Travis Buck and pitchers Brad Ziegler and Jerry Blevins.

Sportsbookonlinegambling Baseball Betting News

<< Two tours, two wins for Villegas
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Before Camilo Villegas arrived at the first tee Sunday, he called his mother in Colombia. "Tell the little bro congratulations and keep it up," he told her. More than 1,500 miles away, Manuel Villegas was signing his score

<< UMass to seek new women's hoops coach
Amherst, MA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The University of Massachusetts is in the market for a new women's basketball coach after the school decided not to retain Marnie Dacko for next season. Dacko's contract is set to expire April 10.

<< 2010 Big East Conference Tournament Preview
Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - While there are several teams projected to make it to the NCAA Tournament, there's only one guaranteed bid that comes out of the massive 16-team beast that is the 31st annual Big East Conference Tournament.

<< Gonzalez sends Chile into Davis Cup QFs
Coquimbo, Chile (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Fernando Gonzalez straight-setted Dudi Sela on Monday, sending Chile into the 2010 Davis Cup quarterfinals. The Chileans have an insurmountable 3-1 lead over Israel in the best-of-five first-round affair.

<< Ribery close to decision on future
Munich, Germany (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Bayern Munich's French ace Franck Ribery has stated that he will make a decision about his future in the next few weeks. The 26-year-old forward is a target for most of Europe's top clubs, with h

Stewart leads NHL's Three Stars >>
New York, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Colorado Avalanche right wing Chris Stewart, Tampa Bay Lightning center Steven Stamkos and Florida Panthers defenseman Bryan McCabe have been named the NHL's 'Three Stars' for the week ending March 7.

Kansas returns to top spot in hoops poll >>
New York, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Kansas is back atop the men's basketball world, taking the top spot in the Associated Press poll for the third time this season. The Jayhawks (29-2) were the preseason No. 1 and spent the first eig

Spurs' Parker won't need surgery for broken hand >>
San Antonio, TX (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - San Antonio Spurs guard Tony Parker won't need surgery for the broken bone in his right hand. Parker was examined Monday by Dr. David Green and the initial diagnosis of a non-displaced stable fracture o

Pitt, Texas, Maryland and Illinois to play in Coaches vs. Cancer >>
Princeton, NJ (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Pittsburgh, Texas, Maryland and Illinois will open the 2010-11 basketball season by participating in the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic. Those teams will serve as the four regional round hosts for the event.

Report: FCD signs former Wizards 'keeper Hartman >>
Frisco, TX (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - According to a report on the soccer blog 3rd Degree, FC Dallas has agreed to terms with former Kansas City Wizards goalkeeper Kevin Hartman. Hartman, a 13-year Major League Soccer veteran, was un

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.