Dungy to return for 2007 season

Football Betting Lines

02/20/2007 - Indianapolis, IN (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Indianapolis Colts head coach Tony Dungy announced Monday he will return for the 2007 season.

Dungy kept his options open after leading the Colts to the Super Bowl title over the Chicago Bears, but made his decision definite, speaking Monday in advance of this weekends NFL Scouting Combine,

"Every year is different," Dungy said Monday. "Certainly, there was a lot of emotion (after the Super Bowl). You never really know until it's all over. I try to sit back at the end of the year and look at everything, where we're going to the future."

There was speculation that Dungy might decide to retire if the Colts won Super Bowl XLI, but the morning after Indy's 29-17 victory over Chicago, Dungy gave all indications that he would return to the sideline for the 2007 season. Less than a month later, he made it official.

"Obviously, you want to come back," Dungy said. "You want to defend the title. We've got such a great group of guys, that that's eventually what draws you back every year."

Dungy just completed his fifth season as Colts head coach. He has a record of 60-20 in the regular season and a playoff mark of 7-4.

Gemcasino Football Betting News

<< Malisse retires from Memphis opener
Memphis, TN (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Fifth-seeded Belgian Xavier Malisse was leading his first-round match Monday when he retired at the $665,000 Regions Morgan Keegan Championships. Malisse was ahead of Russian qualifier Teimuraz Gabashvili

<< Austin Peay head coach McCray resigns
Clarksville, TN (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Austin Peay State head football coach Carroll McCray announced his resignation on Monday. McCray's Governors posted just a 3-8 mark as an NCAA Football Championship Subdivision Independent last

<< Chivas USA (MLS)
Signed forward Maykel Galindo as a Senior International player.

<< No. 6 Jayhawks top Wildcats, extend Little Apple dominance
Manhattan, KS (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Sherron Collins netted 20 points on 8-of-11 shooting as No. 6 Kansas continued its domination over rival Kansas State with a 71-62 victory. Mario Chalmers added 17 points while Darrell Arthur posted 13

<< Panthers hold off Pirates
East Rutherford, NJ (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Levance Fields scored 15 points and Jamar Nutter's last-second three rimmed out as the short-handed No. 10 Pittsburgh Panthers survived a scare, edging the Seton Hall Pirates, 71-68. Levon K

NBA Finals: Detroit vs. Dallas? >>
Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - When was the last time that a team held the eighth and final playoff spot at the All-Star break and was the second choice to win its conference? Miami is currently a .500 club at 26-26 but yet is 2-1 to win t

Chargers add Rivera to coaching staff >>
San Diego, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - New San Diego Chargers head coach Norv Turner named former Chicago Bears defensive coordinator Ron Rivera the team's linebackers coach. With his contract set to expire next week, the Bears announc

Lakers' Radmanovic out at least eight weeks >>
Los Angeles, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Los Angeles Lakers forward Vladimir Radmanovic will be sidelined at least eight weeks after separating his right shoulder. The Los Angeles Times reported that the 26-year-old Radmanovic sustaine

Toronto Argonauts (CFL) >>
Signed quarterbacks Mike McMahon and Tom Arth.

Falcons soar into Sin City >>
Las Vegas, NV (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - No longer the only member of the Mountain West Conference among the nationally-ranked, the Air Force Falcons put their three-game win streak on the line tonight as they visit the UNLV Runnin' Rebels

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.