Ragan wins, Busch wrecks at Bristol

Autoracing Betting Lines

08/21/2009 - Brooklyn, MI (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - David Ragan made a late-race pass on Carl Edwards for the lead and then held off his Roush Fenway Racing teammate in a two-lap overtime finish to win Friday's Food City 250 Nationwide Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Ragan grabbed the lead for the first time after shooting past Edwards when he had to check up on the slower car of Eric McClure.

A caution for debris in the closing laps set up the green-white-checkered finish. Ragan pulled away from Edwards just before the race ended under caution for separate incidents involving Justin Allgaier, Steve Wallace and Scott Wimmer.

"I'm glad I didn't pile it down there into turn one any harder and door slam him," Edwards said in regards to the final restart. "David's car was so much faster right through the center."

Ragan scored his second career Nationwide victory. His first win came in April at Talladega.

"We usually are mediocre here," Ragan said. "Carl and [Kevin] Harvick and some of the other guys are usually a little better than us."

Edwards finished second and trimmed 91 points off of Kyle Busch's lead after Busch was involved in an early-race crash with Chase Austin.

Austin ran into Busch just after Busch had taken the lead from Kevin Harvick on lap 51.

"I saw a slow car up high," Busch said. "He came right across the nose right in front of me. I didn't know where to go besides where I was [already] going. I had Harvick on my inside, but he was able to miss it."

Reed Sorenson also was involved in the accident, which halted the race for 15 minutes to clean up fluid on the track. Busch later returned, but finished 59 laps down in 28th place.

"Pretty unfortunate there that we got caught up in that mess," Busch added. "[The car] was coming right to the front, got all the way up there and was taking the lead, but you know, mistakes happen sometimes."

Austin claimed a cut tire caused the incident.

"I was on the radio telling [my spotter] that the tire blew, and we had problems anyway since I bumped the corner coming out of [turn] two and blew the tire coming out of four, and the car just started turning down the track," Austin said.

Busch's lead over Edwards is now 248 points.

Brad Keselowski, the pole sitter, overcame an incident with Allgaier in the opening laps to finish third. Both drivers made contact while battling for the lead. Keselowski suffered slight damage to his right-front fender and was forced by NASCAR to pit shortly after to make repairs, while Allgaier cut a tire and slammed into the wall.

"It was 100 percent my fault," Keselowski said after the race. "I guess I was racing a little too hard and slid up and just barely clipped him...I feel terrible about it. He had a really great car."

Keselowski became the center of attention in the NASCAR garage earlier in the day at Bristol. He is widely rumored to replace David Stremme in the No.12 Penske Racing Dodge in the 2010 Sprint Cup Series campaign. Keselowski did not comment on the possible move to Penske in NASCAR's premier circuit. He had been involved in exclusive negotiations with team owner Rick Hendrick, who wanted to keep the 25-year-old driver in his organization. Keselowski's JR Motorsports team is co-owned by Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Hendrick.

Kevin Harvick, who led the most laps with 90, finished fourth, while Matt Kenseth was fifth.

Jason Leffler, Clint Bowyer, Michael Annett, Paul Menard and Michael McDowell completed the top-10.

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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.