Steelers sign WR Battle, S Allen

Football Betting Lines

03/08/2010 - Pittsburgh, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Pittsburgh Steelers on Monday signed wide receiver Arnaz Battle and safety Will Allen to three-year contracts.

Battle spent seven seasons with San Francisco, which selected the Notre Dame product in the sixth round of the 2003 draft. He played in 88 career as a wideout, kick returner and punt returner. The 6-foot-1, 208-pound Battle has 178 receptions for 2,150 yards and 11 touchdowns.

Allen has played all six seasons with Tampa Bay after being selected in the fourth round of the 2004 draft. He started two of the eight games he played last season before being placed on injured reserve after Week 9.

He has 174 career tackles and four interceptions for his career.

Hallnark Football Betting News

<< Rachel Alexandra debuts in New Orleans Ladies
New Orleans, LA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Rachel Alexandra, 2009 Horse of the Year, is set make her 2010 debut this Saturday at the Fair Grounds in the $200,000 New Orleans Ladies. The 1 1/16-mile test has attracted four females to take on the

<< PGA Tour set to ban clubs after Ping waives rights
Ponte Vedra Beach, FL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The grandfathered wedges and irons used by Phil Mickelson and others this season will no longer be allowed on the PGA Tour after the company that makes them agreed to waive its rights from a decades

<< Report: FCD signs former Wizards 'keeper Hartman
Frisco, TX (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - According to a report on the soccer blog 3rd Degree, FC Dallas has agreed to terms with former Kansas City Wizards goalkeeper Kevin Hartman. Hartman, a 13-year Major League Soccer veteran, was un

<< Pitt, Texas, Maryland and Illinois to play in Coaches vs. Cancer
Princeton, NJ (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Pittsburgh, Texas, Maryland and Illinois will open the 2010-11 basketball season by participating in the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic. Those teams will serve as the four regional round hosts for the event.

<< Spurs' Parker won't need surgery for broken hand
San Antonio, TX (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - San Antonio Spurs guard Tony Parker won't need surgery for the broken bone in his right hand. Parker was examined Monday by Dr. David Green and the initial diagnosis of a non-displaced stable fracture o

Union sign Colombian midfielder Torres >>
Chester, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Philadelphia Union signed Colombian midfielder Roger Torres on loan from America de Cali of the Columbian First Division, the Major League Soccer club announced on Monday. "We're very excited t

Rams add DT Robbins >>
St. Louis, MO (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The St. Louis Rams on Monday bolstered their defense with the signing of tackle Fred Robbins. Per club policy, terms of the deal were not disclosed. Robbins, 32, spent the last six years of his career with

Lions re-sign TE Heller >>
Allen Park, MI (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Detroit Lions on Monday re-signed tight end Will Heller to a three-year contract. Heller played in all 16 games (nine starts) last season, his first with the Lions after spending the three previous y

Texans retain WR Walter, P Turk >>
Houston, TX (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Houston Texans made it official on Monday by re-signing wide receiver Kevin Walter and punter Matt Turk after both become unrestricted free agents on Friday. Terms of the contracts were not disclos

Roethlisberger investigation continues >>
Milledgeville, GA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Milledgeville police chief Woodrow Blue said Monday at a brief press conference that arrangements are being made to interview Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, who was recently accused of sex

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.