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05/07/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Milwaukee Brewers should feel more confident about the next opponent on their 10-game road trip, as they try and continue their recent success against the Arizona Diamondbacks tonight at Chase Field.
Milwaukee, which is 3-4 so far on the swing, has won four straight meetings against the D'Backs, including a three-game sweep in Phoenix from September 11-13 of last season. The Brewers are 15-6 in their last 21 encounters with Arizona, going 7-3 in The Valley of the Sun over that time.
The Brewers were aiming for a three-game sweep of the Los Angeles Dodgers Thursday at Chavez Ravine, but dropped a 7-3 decision after reliever LaTroy Hawkins surrendered a game-winning grand slam to Andre Ethier in the bottom of the ninth inning. Hawkins fell to 0-3 this season and starter Dave Bush gave up three runs -- one earned -- and four hits in five innings.
"[Hawkins] threw me a fastball right down the middle," Ethier said. "I just put an easy swing on it and it just kept going,"
Gregg Zaun had two hits and two RBI and Craig Counsell drove in a run for the Brewers, who hope that starter Yovani Gallardo can win his fourth straight start when he takes the hill Friday. Gallardo opened the season 0-2 with a 5.50 ERA in his first three starts, but is 3-0 with a 0.50 earned run average in his past three outings.
He got the streak going with five shutout innings in a win at Pittsburgh on April 21, then gave up just two unearned runs through six frames versus the Pirates five days later. Gallardo then won at San Diego on Saturday, when he held the Padres to a run over seven innings.
The right-hander will try to stay unbeaten against Arizona and is 2-0 in two starts versus the Diamondbacks, having thrown 12 shutout innings over that span.
Arizona is back at home after going 5-5 on a 10-game road trip. It just won three of four games at Houston and recorded a 6-3 victory last night behind Dan Haren's 10th career complete game. Haren went the distance for the first time this season and limited the Astros to three runs -- two earned -- and seven hits with nine strikeouts.
"The team needed it," Haren said on the Diamondbacks' site. "I needed it."
Tony Abreu finished with a career-best four hits and knocked in a run, while Kelly Johnson homered for the 10th time this season for the D'Backs, who will also welcome the Los Angeles Dodgers for three games on the homestand.
Edwin Jackson's first season in Arizona hasn't gone as planned, and he'll try to bounce back from two rough outings tonight. After throwing six shutout innings in a no-decision at San Diego on April 16, Jackson has gone 0-2 with a 13.82 earned run average in his last three outings.
Jackson has dropped two starts in a row and was reached for eight runs and 11 hits in four innings of a 10-5 loss at the Cubs on Sunday. The right-hander has given up 18 total runs and 22 hits in his last two trips to the hill.
Jackson has faced Milwaukee just once in his career, allowing one run in five innings of a 5-2 victory on June 2, 2004.
<< Rays try to stay perfect vs. AL West in opener at Oakland
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Not many teams have been able to beat the Rays this year.
That holds especially true for the teams out west.
The Oakland Athletics, winners of two straight, will try to become the first
American League West team to d
<< Baltimore's Millwood seeks first win against Twins
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Baltimore's Kevin Millwood has pitched well this season,
but doesn't have a win yet to show for it. That elusive first victory won't
come easy tonight given the opponent.
Millwood seeks the first victory of his caree
<< White Sox lefty Buehrle takes mound vs. Jays
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Toronto's Shaun Marcum picked up his first victory since
2008 in his last trip to the hill. The way Chicago's Mark Buehrle has pitched
as of late, it seems like that long since he last won.
Buehrle will try to halt a f
<< Giants aim to slay another NL East foe in Mets
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) -- Performing well against the National League East has
helped the San Francisco Giants to the one of the top records in baseball at
the moment. The current NL West leaders will attempt to maintain that level of
success when th
Angels, Mariners to square off in battle of reeling clubs >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - A pair of slumping American League West rivals get together
tonight in the Emerald City, where the Seattle Mariners and Los Angeles Angels
of Anaheim collide in the opener of a three-game series at Safeco Field.
The Marine
Dodgers to host Rockies in key divisional set >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Andre Ethier will bring his
Triple Crown numbers and late-game heroics into Friday's opener of a three-
game series versus the NL West-rival Colorado Rockies at Chavez Ravine.
Ethier was at i
Aussie great Newcombe has skin cancer surgery >>
Sydney, Australia (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Former world No. 1 John Newcombe
underwent surgery to have a cancerous growth removed from the right side of
his nose.
"It's a cancerous growth so he (the doctor) had to cut...and finish
UConn's Calhoun receives five-year extension >>
Storrs, CT (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The University of Connecticut handed longtime
men's head basketball coach Jim Calhoun a five-year contract extension running
through the 2014 season on Friday.
The deal is effective retroactively from July
There is little doubt that the NFL is where the sportsbooks see the most action and also make the most loot. The NFL possesses betting friendly attributes that are unlike any of the other major sports. First off, there are relatively few teams to keep track of in comparison to college football betting or college basketball. And second, these teams play only once a week which makes staying on top of the results much easier than it is in the daily leagues such as the NBA, NHL, and MLB.
These dynamics, along with the sheer excitement of watching and wagering on football, brings more square action to the table than any of the other sports. Almost every Tom, Dick and Harry in America is an NFL expert in their own mind and that is precisely what the oddsmakers prey upon.
Understanding who bets the games is just as important as understanding which teams are playing the games. The market at times will dictate price, which in the betting world means the oddsmakers cater to the public rather than reality.
Knowing the market inside and out is the basis of our NFL handicapping model. That is, our approach to NFL handicapping is of the contrarian or value seeking variety. We will at times place a higher premium on public sentiment than on the fundamentals. This strategy dictates playing dogs and/or lesser competent teams, or teams the public wants nothing to do with. Or better yet, fading the teams the oddsmakers want you to bet on.
Along these same lines, we carry a similar notion that the first week of the NFL season presents one of the ripest opportunities for the astute gambler. This conflicts with conventional wisdom and/or handicapping lore, as most would say it is better to watch a few games and assess each team before jumping in with both feet. That’s all fine and dandy, but there are some interesting trends to exploit in Week 1 and we’d be remiss to ignore them. Let us quickly explain.
Gone are the days of dynasties, where the same core players stay intact and dominate the league year after year. Free agency and player movements can completely transform teams from one season to the next. In today’s parity-driven NFL, poor teams typically don’t stay poor for all that long and excellent teams must constantly reinvent themselves to stay on top.
The temptation might be to assume prior year results are the best indicator of who is going to cover in Week 1. To Joe Public, playoff teams from the prior season, home teams, favorites, and so one, look even more enticing than usual since there is no current season performance to judge them against. But the question begs: are the oddsmakers setting a trap?
To find the answer, we culled five years worth of Week 1 NFL data. As always, all of our analysis is done from an ATS perspective. The purpose here is to share the most important angles we unearthed and try to explain the logic behind them. So strap on your helmet, throw on your shoulder pads, and follow our lead as we expose some rare holes in the oddsmakers’ line of defense.
Home vs. Away Teams
Over the past five seasons, NFL home teams in Week 1 are just 31-42-7 ATS (42 percent). This of course implies that roadies are a 58 percent winning proposition during this time. The public at large has a tendency to overvalue home teams and this is especially true in Week 1 when there is no current season data to make predictions from. Consequently, the oddsmakers almost surely shade the home teams, by and large making road teams the choice for the value player.
Conclusion: Look long and hard at road teams first when handicapping the opening week.
Price ranges
Favorites are just 31-42-7 ATS (42 percent) in the opening week over the past five NFL seasons (Coincidentally, home teams hold the same ATS record as noted above). This means that underdogs bark at a 58 percent clip. Mid-range favorites performed the worst among our specified price ranges. In particular, favorites priced between –3 1/2 and –6 1/2 are only 8-15 ATS (35 percent) during this time.
The same basic pattern holds true when looking at home favorites (road favorites gravitate towards a 50 percent mean). Home favorites indeed are just 21-32-3 ATS (40 percent) in the first week of NFL action since 1999. Again, mid-range favorites are similarly the poorest performers when we look at home teams. Consider that home teams priced between –3 1/2 and –6 1/2 have stumbled to a 6-13 ATS (32 percent) mark in Week 1 games the past five seasons.
Conclusion: Like home teams, favorites and particularly mid-range favorites are generally overvalued in Week 1.
Playoff teams
It might surprise you to learn that playoff teams from the prior year versus non-playoff teams from the prior year are a mere 16-23-3 (41 percent) ATS in NFL Week 1 games over the past five seasons. Home teams which made the playoffs versus teams which did not make the playoffs from the prior season drop to a meager 7-14-1 ATS (33 percent) during this time.
Why are playoff teams, and in particular those at home, such bad bets the past five openers? Just as the case with home teams and with favorites, oddsmakers intentionally overprice playoff teams in the opening week to compensate for the public’s propensity to over bet them.
This theory holds true just looking at straight-up records from the past season as well. That is, home teams with winning records from the prior season vs. road teams with losing records from the prior season are just 8-13 ATS in Week 1 NFL games since 1999.
Conclusion: Playoff teams from the prior year and in particular, home playoff teams, are overvalued in Week 1 NFL games.
Scoring defense and scoring offense
Do good defenses and for that matter good offenses from the prior season fare better against the number the following year in Week 1 games? Well, sort of. Generally speaking, teams with a solid offense or defense from the prior season tend to do well in the opening week so long as they are on the road. As a host, however, the best offenses and best defenses from the prior year tend to be overvalued in Week 1.
Consider that the top five scoring defenses (i.e. points allowed) from the prior season are a nice 8-4 ATS (66 percent) on the road in NFL openers the past five seasons. Meanwhile, the top five scoring defenses from the prior season are just 3-8-2 ATS (27 percent) as a host in Week 1 during the same time period.
There is no discernable advantage or disadvantage for teams with a top five scoring offense (i.e. points scored) in Week 1 games. However, when we look at scoring offenses from the bottom up (isolating the five worst offenses from the prior season), the results are rather interesting. In particular, teams ranked in the bottom five in scoring offense from the prior season are 9-4-1 ATS (69 percent) when on the road in Week 1.
The logic is simply that the public perception is a poor scoring offensive unit from the year prior will have little chance of winning on the road in Week 1. In turn, the oddsmakers compensate for this perception and these poor offensive teams from the year prior carry extra line value on the Week 1 trail.
Conclusion: Teams with top-ranked defenses from the previous season are good bets when playing on the road, but poor bets when playing at home. Also, teams ranked among the bottom five in scoring offense from the prior season are generally a good value in their Week 1 openers, provided they are playing on the road.
Scoring margin
An exceedingly straightforward way of measuring scoring offense and scoring defense together as a whole is to look at a team's “margin." Margin is simply scoring offense minus scoring defense, which is a fairly clear-cut measure of how a team does on both sides of the ball. Typically, the higher the margin, the better the team.
In this regard, it might seem counterintuitive that teams carrying the higher margin from the prior season in week one matchups are merely 31-42-7 ATS (42 percent). Furthermore, road teams with the higher margin are 14-20-6 ATS (41 percent), while home teams with the higher margin are 17-22-1 ATS (44 percent). Once again, these results line up with the theory that better teams from the prior year are overvalued come opening day of the following season.
Conclusion: “Better” teams, which often boast a higher margin than their opponent, are overvalued the following season in NFL openers.
In sum
Oddsmakers cater NFL betting lines to match public perception and also to bait the public into poor bets. The temptation to use the prior year’s success as a buy sign for how a team will perform against the spread in Week 1 of the following season is an enormous trap.
The fact is, isolating road teams, road dogs, non-playoff teams vs. playoff teams, teams with a losing record or low margin vs. playoff teams or ones with a high margin from the previous year is where the line value resides. Quite simply, taking the road less traveled is your surest path to NFL betting profits.
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Huskers' Lucky hospitalized for undisclosed reason
LINCOLN, Neb. -- Nebraska running back Marlon Lucky was hospitalized Monday for undisclosed reasons after Lincoln police responded to a call at his residence.
The Nebraska athletic department said in a release Monday that Lucky was admitted Sunday night.
MySportsbook.com has the Cornhuskers listed at +2500 to win the BCS National Championship odds.
A nursing supervisor at the hospital said all questions about Lucky were being referred to the athletic department. The athletic department said there would be no further comment from the department or Lucky's family.
A Lincoln Police spokesman said officers responded to a call at Lucky's residence 11:30 p.m. Sunday. The spokesman said he didn't know Lucky's condition at the time he was taken to the hospital.
Lucky, from North Hollywood, Calif., started six games last season as a sophomore and was the team's second-leading rusher, with 728 yards and six touchdowns. He also caught 32 passes for 383 yards. He averaged 19.1 yards on eight kickoff returns.
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