Redskins/Ravens moves to Sunday night for Week 14

Football Betting Lines

11/24/2008 - New York, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The NFL announced its final schedule for Week 14 and moved the game between the Washington Redskins and Baltimore Ravens to the Sunday night slot.

The original schedule had New England facing Seattle in the coveted NBC prime time game, but the Seahawks are a woeful 2-9 this season. The league moved that contest back to 4:05 p.m. (et).

Washington and Baltimore currently are each 7-4 and in serious playoff contention.

The league utilizes its "flexible scheduling" on Sundays from Week 11 through Week 17, trying to ensure quality matchups in all time slots for NBC, FOX and CBS.

With the exception of Week 17, the league will announce its final schedule for a particular week no later than 12 days prior to that weekend. The flexible schedule for Week 17 may be made on six days notice.

Bestfootballchance Football Betting News

<< Snyder comes out of retirement to rejoin K-State
Manhattan, KS (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Kansas State has brought back the winningest football coach in school history, as Bill Snyder has decided to come out of retirement to take the reins once again. The Wildcats had announced earlier this

<< Stingy Wild host high-scoring Caps
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Minnesota has had success this season thanks to strong play by its goaltenders, while Washington has one of the best offensive players in the game on its roster. Something will likely give tonight, when Niklas Backstrom and t

<< Islanders aim to stay hot in road test against Habs
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The New York Islanders will shoot for their fifth victory in six games when they visit the Montreal Canadiens for this evening's contest at the Bell Centre. New York will have to reverse its recent history against the Cana

<< Report: Wizards fire Eddie Jordan
Washington, DC (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Washington Wizards have reportedly fired head coach Eddie Jordan and replaced him with Ed Tapscott. According to the Washington Post, Jordan was informed of the decision Monday morning. The Wizards

<< Slumping Coyotes set to visit Rangers
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Phoenix Coyotes will try to put the brakes on a five-game losing streak when they face the New York Rangers tonight at Madison Square Garden. The Coyotes are 0-3-2 in their last five outings and have begun a four-game

Steelers bring back Berger to punt >>
Pittsburgh, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Pittsburgh Steelers changed punters for the second time this month on Monday, re-signing Mitch Berger and releasing Paul Ernster. Ernster was signed to replace Berger on November 5, but he averaged

Anderson, Boudreau, Cunningham, Pieri earn AHL HOF bids >>
Springfield, MA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Jimmy Anderson, Bruce Boudreau, Les Cunningham and Louis Pieri have been selected for induction into the American Hockey League Hall of Fame as the Class of 2009, it was announced on Monday. "The

Genyk out at Eastern Michigan >>
Ypsilanti, MI (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Eastern Michigan has fired head football coach Jeff Genyk, although he will remain with the team through its season finale on Friday against Central Michigan. "Earlier this morning, after consulti

Robinson Award candidates announced >>
Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Twenty candidates, including five former winners, were named Monday to The Sportsbook Betting Lines's Eddie Robinson Award ballot. That ballot, along with ballots for the Walter Payton and Buck Buchanan awards, wi

Fabregas named Arsenal captain >>
London, England (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Cesc Fabregas has been named as the new captain of Arsenal, while former skipper William Gallas has been included in Arsene Wenger's squad for Tuesday's Champions League clash with Dynamo Kyiv. Wenger

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.