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07/24/2010 - Bad Gastein, Austria (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Timea Bacsinszky of Switzerland beat Austrian crowd favorite Yvonne Meusburger in the semifinals of the Gastein Ladies tennis tournament on Saturday.
The second-seeded Bacsinszky rallied for a 1-6, 6-4, 6-3 victory to advance to Sunday's final, but she'll have to wait a day for her opponent as rain washed out the second scheduled semifinal between France's Alize Cornet and Julia Goerges of Germany.
Cornet and Goerges will play their semifinal on Sunday morning prior to the title match.
Bacsinszky is in position to claim her second career WTA title and first since last year in Luxembourg.
Meusburger still has never won a WTA singles crown and reached her only title match at this event in 2007.
Bacsinszky appeared to be in major trouble from the outset on Saturday, as she dropped each of her four service games in the opening set. She regrouped in the second and won the set after saving a pair of break points while serving at 5-4.
Rain started to fall in the third and Bacsinszky briefly left the court after complaining to the chair umpire about the conditions. She returned soon after and held serve for a 5-3 lead before breaking Meusburger in the following game to win the match.
Bacsinszky improved to 3-1 lifetime against Meusburger, although the Austrian had won this year's lone previous matchup in the first round of the Australian Open.
Cornet and Goerges may each have needed an extra day of rest after both went three sets to win their respective quarterfinal matches on Friday.
The 20-year-old Cornet has just one WTA Tour title, taking the Budapest crown in 2008. She will appear in her second semifinal of 2010, having lost to Iveta Benesova in Morocco this spring.
Goerges, trying for her first WTA crown, also reached the semifinals last week in Palermo. She has never played Cornet.
<< Johnson joins Choi in first at Scandinavian Masters
Stockholm, Sweden (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Sweden's own Richard S. Johnson posted a
two-under 70 on Saturday to join second-round leader K.J. Choi in first place
after the 54 holes of the Scandinavian Masters.
Johnson and Choi, who had a one-u
<< Parra tries to get on track against Nats
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Lefty Manny Parra can end a personal two-start losing
streak while giving Milwaukee a second straight win tonight when the Brewers
host the Washington Nationals in the middle game of a three-game series at
Miller Park.
On
<< Red Sox shoot for third straight win against battling M's
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Boston Red Sox try to make it three straight wins this
evening when they continue their four-game set against the Seattle Mariners at
Safeco Field.
The Red Sox will turn to Jon Lester to keep them in the win column, as
<< Twins send Baker to hill in Baltimore
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Struggling to keep pace with the White Sox and Tigers in
the AL Central, the Twins will try to solve their road woes when Minnesota
battles the Baltimore Orioles in the third installment of a four-game set this
evening at Cam
Yankees activate Mitre; Gardner hospitalized >>
Bronx, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The New York Yankees have activated pitcher
Sergio Mitre off the 15-day disabled list to start Saturday's game against the
Kansas City Royals.
Mitre had been sidelined since early June with a strained
Melzer to face Golubev for Hamburg crown >>
Hamburg, Germany (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Jurgen Melzer of Austria and Kazakhstan's
Andrey Golubev will square off for the title at the German Open after both won
semifinal matches on Saturday.
The third-seeded Melzer blitzed Italy's Andreas Se
Montoya grabs pole for Brickyard 400 >>
Indianapolis, IN (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Juan Pablo Montoya captured the pole for
the Brickyard 400 after posting the quickest lap in Saturday's qualifying at
Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Montoya edged defending race winner Jimmie Johnson fo
Langer builds 3-shot lead at Senior British >>
Carnoustie, Scotland (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Bernhard Langer built a three-shot
lead at the Senior British Open on Saturday after carding a two-under 69 in
the third round.
Chasing his first major on the Champions Tour, Langer finished
“You play to win the game!”
Those are the words of notoriously intense head coach Herman Edwards. Unfortunately, from a bettors’ perspective, most coaches don’t feel that way about the NFL preseason. August is a time to evaluate young players, finalize the depth chart and pray your star players stay healthy.
The trick to making money during the exhibition schedule is identifying coaches – like Edwards – who can’t stand losing even when there's nothing on the line.
The New York Jets betting won 15 of 21 preseason games and went 14-7 against the spread (ATS) during Edwards’s five-year tenure with the club. In his first season as the Kansas City Chiefs field boss, the team improved from 0-4 to 2-2.
Identifying win-a-holics like Edwards is a good start if you plan betting the preseason – even though most say you shouldn’t ... but what the hell do they know anyway?
Here’s a brief rundown of two teams that have a habit of winning during the second-stringers’ season, and another club that has a good chance of exceeding this year.
Playing in the media hub of North America can be stressful but the press can’t write anything negative about the way Tom Coughlin’s boys play in the preseason. The Giants won and covered all four games last summer, improving their record to 7-1 both straight up (SU) and against the spread over the last two years.
Coughlin has shown he’s not afraid to give his starters more time in the second preseason game than most of his colleagues, no doubt one of the reasons his team has been so dominant.
Bettors can count on America’s team early on. The Cowboys are 14-6 both SU and ATS since 2002 in warm-up contests. Former coach Bill Parcells, the coach of the team the last four years, has an intimidating, in-your-face presence – surely a reason Dallas has had so much early success.
The Big Tuna won’t be strolling the sidelines with looks of disgust, but new coach Wade Phillips will be anxious to make a good first impression for owner Jerry Jones.
Dallas plays the Indianapolis Colts and the Denver Broncos before things get serious. They then face the Houston Texans in their third contest (the game starters see most game time) and finish off with the Minnesota Vikings.
Expect a Dallas team able to walk away with another 3-1 preseason record.
This team scored a league-worst 12 offensive touchdowns last season, so the rookies and veterans each have something to prove. There’s a bounty of first-unit jobs up for grabs and plenty of bodies competing for those slots.
First-time head coach Lane Kiffin will be eager to impress an owner who employs the philosophy, “Just win, baby!”
The 32-year-old Kiffin has to command respect from a locker room full of players older than him. All of these factors should lead to purpose in preseason.
Don’t forget: before playing like a team that belonged in NFL Europe, Oakland went 4-1 (both SU and ATS) in exhibition games.
To visit this online sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your football wagering needs. Mysportsbook.com online sportsbook accepts Visa and Mastercard credit cards.
Recently I had an email debate with an angry reader who said I did not understand "the science of oddsmaking", as he called it.
He said I was wrong for suggesting oddsmakers care about who wins or loses games.
"Oddsmakers only care about splitting the betting public 50/50 on both sides of the line and keeping the commission (a.k.a. juice)," he wrote.
He might have been right about not understanding "the science of oddsmaking". After all, I'm not an oddsmaker. That said, I stick to my assertion that oddsmakers (a.k.a. sportbooks) often do care about who wins games.
Granted, as a general rule, sportsbooks try to balance their action so that they're not exposed to big losses. However, there are times when this is difficult to pull off, regardless of how much a line has moved. There are also times when that general rule is ignored and a book pursues risk.
Generally speaking, it's safe to say the books in Vegas are risk-adverse. Unlike in the past when the wise guys ruled the town, Vegas is now corporate and the goal of most casinos is to make as much money as possible with as little risk as possible.
Thus, Vegas sportsbooks try everything in their power to balance the action. They're satisfied simply collecting the juice. But these profits are small, especially compared to the take from other casino games, namely slot machines.
Because the profits at Vegas sportsbooks are so small, you could argue that many casinos operate sportsbooks simply as a novelty to keep the tourists happy.
With a growing aversion to risk, it should come as no surprise that Vegas bookmakers have been panicking this NFL season.
Despite huge pointspreads, a disproportionate percentage of bettors are still laying their money on favorites like the Eagles, Colts, Pats and Vikings rather than the dogs (a common trend for the largely recreational bettors that visit Vegas).
And much to the dismay of the books, those favorites are finding ways to cover the thick chalk. In fact, prior to Week 7, the four teams listed above are a combined 16-2-2 (88 percent) against the spread. (The tables turned dramatically in Week 7, but more on that later.)
The result has been an early-season beating for the books, and a bonanza for bettors.
While Vegas increasingly hates risk, it's no longer a major player in the sports betting world. Most of the betting action now takes place offshore where sportsbooks are not as obsessed about balance. In fact, some books encourage exposure to risk because the rewards can be so much bigger.
Consider MySportsbook.com. On its website, the book has odds pages which actually display the amount of action it's getting on games. In other words, you can see how much action the book is taking on both sides of a pointspread, moneyline or over/under.
One look at these numbers and it's obvious MySportsbook.com does not balance every game. In fact, far from it.
Take last weekend's matchup between St. Louis and Miami. By game time on Sunday, 83 percent of the betting action at MySportsbook.com was on the Rams; only 17 percent was on Miami.
What's interesting is that MySportsbook.com opened the pointspread with Miami at +6 1/2. By game time, the spread had lowered to +5.
That goes contrary to the balancing theory. If MySportsbook.com had wanted to balance the action, it would have given Miami more points; instead, it took away 1 1/2. World Series odds are now up as well.
MySportsbook.com exposed itself to even more to risk, and rolled the dice on the underdog Dolphins. Why? I contacted a representative with the book to find out. His answer was simple.
"The line moved early based on 'smart money' from sharp players," said Jeff Gilroy, a spokesperson for the book. "We also knew from early in the week that we would need Miami, therefore (we dropped) the spread to encourage Rams money.
"At the end of the day, we liked the home team."
So the conclusion is this: MySportsbook.com respected the sharp action, and gambled that the sharp bettors had a better take on the game than the recreational bettors, who were hammering the visiting Rams.
In the end, the gamble paid off. Miami, desperate for a win in front of its home fans, pounded the overrated Rams, who are terrible on the road and even worse on grass. Final score: 31-14 Fish.
MySportsbook.com was also heavily exposed on numerous favorites in Week 7, including Philadelphia, Seattle and Denver. All three failed to cover.
The fact that sportsbooks are exposed to risk on certain games is really nothing new. The fact, that Sportsbook.com is willing to show the public where it's exposed is intriguing.
Armed with this type of information, bettors can make more educated wagers. They can get an idea where the sharp money is going and conversely where the public money is headed.
MySportsbook.com is opening up its cashbox, letting bettors look inside and challenging them to take their best shot at grabbing the cash.
To visit this online football betting got to MySportsbook.com for all your football betting odds needs. Mysportsbook.com online sportsbook accepts Visa and Mastercard credit cards.
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