Brian Giles hangs up his cleats

Baseball Betting Lines

03/11/2010 - Surprise, AZ (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Brian Giles, who recently signed a minor league contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers, announced his retirement on Thursday.

The 39-year-old outfielder battled an arthritic right knee last season while with San Diego and was limited to 61 games. He went on the disabled list in June with the injury and never returned to action, having batted a career-low .191 with just 23 RBI to that point.

A two-time All-Star while a member of the Pirates, Giles appeared in 1,847 games over 15 seasons of major-league service with Cleveland, Pittsburgh and San Diego.

He had a .291 career average with an on-base percentage of .400, while hitting 287 home runs and totaling 1,078 RBI.

Waskjeeves Baseball Betting News

<< Kansas topples Texas Tech for milestone win
Kansas City, MO (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Sherron Collins scored 19 points and Cole Aldrich chipped in 12 with 18 rebounds, leading top-ranked Kansas to an 80-68 victory over Texas Tech in the quarterfinals of the Big 12 Tournament. Xavier Henr

<< Blue Bombers ink CB Glover
Winnipeg, MB (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Winnipeg Blue Bombers signed four players on Thursday, including defensive back LaVar Glover. Glover has spent the past four years with Winnipeg and in that time has accumulated 116 tackles along

<< Hoyas knock off top-seeded Orange in Big East
New York, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Chris Wright scored 27 points and Greg Monroe contributed 17 with 10 rebounds and seven assists, as 22nd-ranked Georgetown pulled off a 91-84 victory over No. 3 Syracuse in the quarterfinals of the Big East To

<< Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament Recaps
Greensboro, NC (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Sammy Zeglinski scored a season-high 21 points to lead Virginia to a 68-62 victory over Boston College in the first round of the ACC Tournament at the Greensboro Coliseum. Virginia (15-15), seeded ni

<< Hoyas knocked top-seeded Orange in Big East
New York, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Chris Wright scored 27 points and Greg Monroe contributed 17 with 10 rebounds and seven assists, as 22nd-ranked Georgetown pulled off a 91-84 victory over No. 3 Syracuse in the quarterfinals of the Big East To

Despite scoring slump, Tavares building foundation >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Rookie forwards usually take at least a season to develop into consistent performers at the NHL level. Even in the case of No. 1 overall picks, who are expected to be stars, it usually takes a year of adjustment t

New York officially adds midfielder Robinson >>
Secaucus, NJ (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Red Bull New York acquired midfielder Carl Robinson from Toronto FC in exchange for a fourth-round selection in the 2011 draft, the Major League Soccer club announced on Thursday. "Carl is a very consis

Report: MLS players set to strike if CBA isn't reached >>
Washington, D.C. (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Major League Soccer players overwhelmingly voted to strike if a new collective bargaining agreement isn't reached with the league by the season opener on March 25, according to a report in The Washing

Onuaku injures knee in Syracuse loss >>
New York, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Syracuse forward Arinze Onuaku injured his right knee in Thursday's loss to Georgetown in the Big East Tournament. Onuaku was hurt with just over five minutes to play in the 91-84 loss when he tried to

Colts bring in G Alleman >>
Indianapolis, IN (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Indianapolis Colts signed guard Andy Alleman on Thursday. Alleman played in nine games with Kansas City in 2009, with three starts. He appeared in 15 games two years ago with the Miami Dolphins.

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.