Hamlin captures first Truck Series win at Martinsville

Autoracing Betting Lines

10/29/2011 - Martinsville, VA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Virginia-native Denny Hamlin became a first-time race winner in the Camping World Truck Series by taking Saturday's Kroger 200 at Martinsville Speedway.

Hamlin, a Sprint Cup Series regular, dove underneath points leader Austin Dillon and Ron Hornaday Jr. during a three-wide pass for the lead just after a restart with 14 laps remaining. His first win came in his 12th truck start.

He drove the No.18 Toyota for Kyle Busch Motorsports. Hamlin and Busch are teammates at Joe Gibbs Racing.

"I can't say enough for everyone here at KBM and for Kyle letting me drive this truck," Hamlin said. "It really means a lot to me to get my first truck victory."

Hamlin became the 23rd different driver to win a race in each of NASCAR's three national touring series. He has four Sprint Cup victories at this 0.526- mile track.

"I just gave it everything I had during the last 50 laps; it was the hardest 50 laps I've ever driven at Martinsville," he said.

Hornaday finished second, while Dillon took the third spot. Johnny Sauter and rookie Joey Coulter rounded out the top-five.

Kevin Harvick, Cale Gale, Timothy Peters, Brendan Gaughan and James Buescher finished sixth through 10th, respectively.

With two races remaining, Dillon holds an 11-point lead over Buescher. Hornaday and Sauter are both 15 points behind.

"It was wild," Dillon said. "There were a lot of wrecks, and there weren't that many cautions thrown...I really had fun today. We finished third, and it was good for us in points."

Hornaday has finished either first or second in the last four races, as he continues his surge towards a record-extending fifth championship in the series.

"It was a great day," he said. "Stupid me, I started the race and forgot to turn the blowers on for about 30 laps, and I lost my pedal. Luckily, the yellow came out, and it came back a little bit."

The 200-lap race at Martinsville featured nine cautions for 50 laps. One of the cautions involved Germain Racing teammates Todd Bodine and Max Papis. Bodine got into the back of Papis and turned him around. Both drivers tangled again on pit road shortly after their incident.

"I can deal with things on the racetrack, but when you put a pit crew in danger on pit road for absolutely no reason, especially with a teammate, I just can't stand that," Bodine said. "I used to be that guy out there changing the tires. I did that for many years. That's a dangerous place enough without having a driver doing dumb things like that."

Bodine finished 11th, while Papis settled for 18th. There was no altercation between the two after the race had concluded.

The series will run at Texas on Friday and then conclude its season on November 19 at Homestead.

Ww5dimes Autoracing Betting News


<< Havre de Grace to start in Classic
Louisville, KY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Leading thoroughbred Havre de Grace will start in the $5 million Breeders' Cup Classic. This will be the third straight year that a female will start in the 1 1/4-mile race. The filly's owner Rick

<< Oilers D Sutton suspended, hearing scheduled for Monday
New York, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Edmonton Oilers defenseman Andy Sutton has been suspended by the National Hockey League for at least one game, with an in-person hearing scheduled for Monday. The NHL made the announcement on Saturd

<< Oregon stars Thomas, James return
Eugene, OR (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Oregon quarterback Darron Thomas and running back LaMichael James, who had been dealing with injuries in recent weeks, returned to the field Saturday against Washington State. Neither played last Satu

<< Kokrak survives for Nationwide Tour Championship lead
Charleston, SC (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Jason Kokrak posted a three-over 75 in windy difficult conditions Saturday, but it was enough to stay atop the leaderboard after the third round of the season-ending Nationwide Tour Championship. Kokrak, a

<< Juve downs Inter at the San Siro
Milan, Italy (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Claudio Marchisio's fourth goal of the season lifted Juventus to a 2-1 win over Inter Milan at the San Siro on Saturday, as the Turin side remained unbeaten and atop the Serie A standings. Mirko Vucinic also

Dempster staying with Cubs in 2012 >>
Chicago, IL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Chicago Cubs starting pitcher Ryan Dempster has exercised his $14 million player option for the 2012 season. Dempster led the team in starts (34) and innings pitched (202 1/3) last season, but posted a m

Riders dominate Hamilton >>
Regina, SK (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Chris Milo connected on three field goals and Neal Hughes scored the lone touchdown of the game as Saskatchewan downed Hamilton, 19-3, at Mosaic Stadium. Brandon West totaled 96 yards on 19 carries and

PSG downs Caen to run unbeaten streak to 11 >>
Paris, France (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Nene scored his fifth and six goals of the season, while Javier Pastore also bagged his sixth, as PSG moved its unbeaten run in Ligue 1 to 11 matches with a 4-2 win over Caen on Saturday at the Parc des Pri

Sens win 5th straight with shootout win over Rangers >>
New York, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Milan Michalek scored the game-winning goal in the first round of the shootout, lifitng the Ottawa Senators to a 5-4 win over the New York Rangers from Madison Square Garden. Michalek drifted in on goal s

In the FCS Huddle: App State trips No. 1 Georgia Southern >>
Boone, NC (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - No. 1 no more. Again. For the second straight year on Saturday, the FCS' No. 1-ranked team lost on the road in the bitter Appalachian State-Georgia Southern rivalry, and this time it was the Mountaineers who e

Sportsbook betting odds favor Europe in Ryder Cup

September 19, – Despite holding a decided edge in the all-time series, with 24 wins, 2 ties and 10 losses, Team USA is the underdog again heading into the Ryder Cup in Kidare, Ireland this weekend, according to MySportsbook.com.  The Europeans have captured four of the past five editions, including their largest victory ever, an 18 ½ to 9 ½ thumping in Michigan in 2004. Current Ryder Cup betting odds favor the Europeans to continue their winning ways; they are a 4-5 bet to take the title, compared to 6-5 for the Americans. 

Despite being knocked out in the first round of World Match play by Shaun Micheel, Tiger Woods is predicted to lead the US charge and be their highest point scorer for the week, with odds listed at 9-4 that he outpoints all other American players, including Jim Furyk, Phil Mickelson and Chris DiMarco to  name a  few.  Team USA has four relatively unknown players on the roster but all four are 2007 tournament winners and have posted some of season’s best performances, each earning over $1.5 million on the PGA TOUR.  They include Zach Johnson, Vaughan Taylor, JJ Henry and Brett Wetterich.

The experienced European squad includes the likes of Luke Donald, Sergio Garcia, Padraig Harrington, Jose Maria Olazabal and Darren Clarke, who’s emotions will be tested after the passing of his wife to a battle with cancer.  Donald and Garcia are in particularly good form and each is a 5-1 bet to lead the European squad in the points race. Donald has proven he can go head to head with Woods at a major event after a run for the $1.2 million purse at the PGA Championship. Garcia’s Ryder Cup credentials prove he’s ready for battle too.

To visit this online sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your golf sportsbook needs.

Ryder Cup Odds

Europe
Tie
USA
4-5
10-1
6-5


Ryder Cup Top US point scorer
Tiger Woods
Jim Furyk
Phil Mickelson
Chris DiMarco
David Toms
Stewart Cink
Chad Campbell
Scott Verplank
Zach Johnson
Vaughan Taylor
JJ Henry
Brett Wetterich
9-4
4-1
5-1
7-1
8-1
12-1
15-1
15-1
25-1
30-1
30-1
50-1


Ryder Cup Top European scorer
Sergio Garcia
Luke Donald
Padraig Harrington
Colin Montgomerie
Darren Clarke
David Howell
Lee Westwood
Paul Casey
Henrik Stenson
Jose Maria Olazabal
Paul McGinley
Robert Karlsson
5-1
5-1
6-1
13-2
8-1
9-1
9-1
11-1
12-1
12-1
20-1
25-1

To visit this online sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com

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.