Wood hopes for some support in Reds' clash with Astros

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07/23/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - In a perfect world, Cincinnati Reds starter Travis Wood would be trying for his third straight winning start. However, no offensive support in a pair of 1-0 setbacks has the 23-year-old still in search of his first major league win.

Wood will try for that elusive victory this evening, and will also be looking to help Cincinnati to its sixth win in seven meetings with the Houston Astros this year in the opener of a three-game set at Minute Maid Park.

The left-handed Wood has pitched to a 2.02 earned run average over his first four MLB starts, but only has a 0-1 mark to show for it due to some bad luck.

Wood carried a perfect game into the ninth inning of a start versus the Phillies on July 10, but got a no-decision in his team's 1-0 extra-inning loss despite allowing just one hit with eight strikeouts and no walks.

The 2005 second-round pick was nearly as sharp on Saturday versus the Rockies, but he was stuck with a 1-0 loss even though Wood gave up just a run on three hits and four walks over six innings.

"It's baseball, it's going to happen," said Wood, who has never faced the Astros, on the Reds' website. "We're a great hitting team, we're going to have our slumps where we have to scratch and claw to get a run."

Wood will be looking to extend the Reds' recent run of success over their division rivals. Cincinnati swept a three-game set in Houston from April 27-29 and has won seven of the last eight meetings between the teams at Minute Maid Park. The Reds are also 17-5 versus the Astros since the start of last season.

Cincinnati took the first two games of its recent four-game series with the Nationals, but went on to drop the final two meetings. That includes Thursday's 7-1 loss, in which Edinson Volquez allowed six runs over 2 1/3 innings of his second start since returning from Tommy John surgery.

"He was down too low with his changeup, and up too high with his fastball. So just trying to find a consistent release point," said Reds manager Dusty Baker. "He had that last time out, and this time he just couldn't find it."

Cincinnati, which still trails first-place St. Louis by 1 1/2 games in the National League Central, should have Joey Votto back in the lineup tonight after resting the first baseman yesterday. Less certain is fellow All-Star Scott Rolen, who has missed the last six games because of a sore right hamstring.

Houston's Bud Norris will try to take advantage of Rolen's absence as he looks for his first win since May 13. The 25-year-old is 0-3 with a 6.15 ERA in six starts since and has dropped back-to-back outings.

Norris' last loss came on Saturday versus the Pirates. He gave up seven runs -- four earned -- on nine hits and two walks over just 4 2/3 innings, falling to 2-7 on the season with a 6.09 ERA.

The right-hander is also 0-4 with a 7.36 ERA in six home starts this season and faced the Reds for the first time in his career on April 27. Norris lost that one, getting charged with five runs on six hits and four walks over five innings.

Houston returns home tonight after a 3-3 road trip that was capped with Wednesday's 4-3 win over the Cubs in 12 innings. Jason Michaels broke a 1-1 game with a two-run, pinch-hit double in the frame and also scored on Angel Sanchez's subsequent single.

That last run was big, as Gustavo Chacin gave up a two-run homer in the bottom of the frame but still earned his fifth career save.

"We kept battling," Astros manager Brad Mills said on his team's website. "In a game like this, our bullpen was on fumes, and to see those guys come out and do what they needed to do, thank goodness for the off day [Thursday]."

Sanchez ended with three hits, while Houston's 3-4-5 hitters -- Lance Berkman, Hunter Pence and Carlos Lee -- combined to go 0-for-16 with five strikeouts.

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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.

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Michael Vick is back, Brett Favre isn't and the NFC East remains the best division in the NFC, maybe in all of football.

As players start to gather for the start of another season, some things change and some stay the same in the world of the NFL.

Bet 2010 Super Bowl Odds

The NFC East has been the dominant division in the National Conference for a while, despite limited playoff success, save for the New York Giants surprise Super Bowl win two seasons ago.

Hell, there's a generation of kids in Texas who have never seen the Cowboys win a playoff game (last win was in 1996).

But collectively, the Giants, Eagles, Cowboys and Redskins (well, maybe not so much the Redskins) are as good as a division gets in an NFC conference that has struggled to stay competitive with the AFC side.

Sports bettors have both acknowledged the NFC East's dominance, as one glance at the NFL future odds menu will show.

Looking over the NFL betting odds at online sports book MySportsbook.com we see the top three teams listed to win the NFC Championship are all from the NFC East:

Dallas Cowboys - 7 - 1

Philadelphia Eagles - 13 - 2

New York Giants - 9 - 2

Slotting in behind these three are two teams from the NFC North: the Minnesota Vikings (15-2) and the Chicago Bears (10-1).

Again, despite the lack of recent playoff success, the Dallas Cowboys are popular with the sports betting community, as they hold 14% of all the money wagered on who will win the NFC Championship.

So far, the New York Giants are the bettors' favorite to represent their conference in the Super Bowl, as they have 24% of the overall NFC Championship betting volume.

And what about the Philadelphia Eagles? For the most part, the Eagles had a very productive offseason, the kind that could bring them back to the top.

They had a good draft adding the likes of WR Jeremy Maclin and RB LeSean McCoy.

Unfortunately, the team received a blow when long-time defensive coordinator Jim Johnson passed away on Tuesday.

But this team will make a real run at the division title this year. Going into the regular season, Philly is listed at +240 to win the division.

Last season the Eagles were 9-6-1 SU and 10-6 ATS.

Teams from the NFC East will play teams from the AFC West in the regular season and the Eagles haven't really been a good bet in the last 20 games against the likes of San Diego, Oakland, K.C. and Denver, only going 8-12 ATS.

Two seasons removed from that Super Bowl title, the New York Giants see themselves listed as the odds-on favorite in NFC East championship futures at +162.

Plaxico Burress is gone and with him all the bad publicity surrounding the gun in the sweatpants incident, but can they replace him in the offense?

Last season the Giants were a very reliable bet going 12-4 ATS.

In the Giants' last 20 games against fellow teams from the NFC East; they are 13-7 ATS.

Dallas is listed at +240 to win the division.

Dallas went 9-7 SU and 7-9 ATS last season and with the amount of talent the Cowboys have, a similar performance won't do.

The Cowboys have been atrocious against divisional rivals, going 6-14 ATS in their last 20.

The Washington Redskins are longshots to win the division at +550.

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