Blues shut out Sharks, extend home points streak

Hockey Betting Lines

02/12/2012 - St. Louis, MO (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Jaroslav Halak made 25 saves to record his sixth shutout of the season and 22nd of his career as the St. Louis Blues kept rolling at home with a 3-0 win over the San Jose Sharks at Scottrade Center.

Alex Pietrangelo finished with two goals and an assist and David Perron also scored for the Blues, who have won four straight and extended their franchise- record home points streak to 19 games (16-0-3)

Antti Niemi gave up a pair of goals on 27 shots in defeat for the Sharks, who have lost three of their last four contests.

Wwwallstarsportsbook Hockey Betting News

<< Prahalis helps Ohio State outlast Purdue
Columbus, OH (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Samantha Prahalis scored 26 points, including a clutch three-pointer in the final minute to help No. 10 Ohio State fend off No. 16 Purdue, 80-71, in a Big 10 clash. Amber Stokes and Ashley Adams chipped in

<< Perry's hat trick lifts Ducks over Blue Jackets
Columbus, OH (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Corey Perry recorded his second hat trick of the season and fifth of his career, leading the Anaheim Ducks to a 5-3 victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets at Nationwide Arena. Bobby Ryan scored and added a

<< Wizards use big second half run to top Pistons
Auburn Hills, MI (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - John Wall dished out a career-high 15 assists and scored all nine of his points during a game-changing run in the second half as the Wizards earned their second road win of the season with a 98-77 t

<< Nolan scores winner as Kings top Stars
Dallas, TX (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Jordan Nolan capped his first NHL game with his first career goal, the game-winning tally in the third period as Los Angeles doubled up Dallas, 4-2, at American Airlines Center. Justin Williams, Dwight King

<< Tsonga lifts France to win over Canada
Vancouver, BC (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - World No. 6 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga breezed past Frank Dancevic on Sunday and sent France to a Davis Cup quarterfinals meeting with the United States. Tsonga needed just around two hours to knock off Dancevi

Malkin scored twice as Pens double up Lightning >>
Pittsburgh, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Evgeni Malkin lit the lamp twice and the Pittsburgh Penguins scored four unanswered goals Sunday night to beat the Tampa Bay Lightning, 4-2. The Penguins bounced back from the two quickest goals b

Heat breeze past Hawks >>
Atlanta, GA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Dwyane Wade scored all 21 of his points in a lopsided first half, and the Miami Heat cruised past the Atlanta Hawks, 107-87, in a Southeast Division showdown at Philips Arena. LeBron James chipped i

20! Red Wings tie home winning streak mark >>
Detroit, MI (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Detroit Red Wings tied the NHL record with their 20th straight home win, beating the Philadelphia Flyers 4-3 on Sunday. The Red Wings tied the record set by Boston during the 1929-30 season and matched by P

Malkin scores twice, Pens double up Lightning >>
Pittsburgh, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Evgeni Malkin lit the lamp twice and the Pittsburgh Penguins scored four unanswered goals Sunday night to beat the Tampa Bay Lightning, 4-2. The Penguins bounced back from the two quickest goals b

San Pail named Harness Horse of the Year >>
Orlando, FL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Seven-year-old trotter San Pail has been named harness racing's 2011 Horse of the Year. The announcement came Sunday night by the U.S. Harness Writers Association at the annual Dan Patch Awards dinner. Trained

Sportsbook accepts U.S. credit cards

Sportsbooks That Take US Credit Cards for NFL football betting

Sportsbooks that take credit cards are not always easy to come by....Everything from credit card companies denying gambling transactions to the fear of chargebacks by customers has slowed down sportsbook credit card transactions by a high percentage.

There are however still sportsbooks that take credit cards.

When using your credit card it is highly recommended that you try either: MySportsbook.com or Sportsbooks.com. Both sportsbooks have a high rate of accepting credit cards and will save you the time and hassle of looking around the web to make a credit card transaction.

Furthermore, Sportsbooks.com is one of the oldest sportsbooks on the web and Sportsbook offers security in that they are the biggest online sportsbook in the world! Publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange, they are ROCK SOLID!

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.