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08/27/2010 - Foxborough, MA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Two teams coming off of disappointing losses last time out hook up at Gillette Stadium on Saturday as the New England Revolution play host to the Philadelphia Union.
Both sides enter the weekend on the outside of the playoff picture in Major League Soccer, meaning that the three points on offer will be vitally important.
The Union suffered a 2-0 defeat at Eastern Conference cellar-dwellers D.C. United last Sunday, and the loss drew particularly harsh criticism from Union coach Peter Nowak.
"I told the guys in the locker room, I'm extremely disappointed, not only with the result, but with the way we played," Nowak told mlssoccer.com following the game. "There was no substance in the whole game today. From the back, with the simple mistake we could have cleaned up, and in the overall game, even offensively."
"I think that was the worst performance I've seen in the eight months with this team," he said. "We have to be real about the situation that this stuff is not going to fly with me."
The coach has not had a lot to be happy about lately with his team extending its winless streak to six games with the loss, and with his team sitting in seventh place in the East, a playoff spot is highly unlikely barring a major turnaround.
Revolution coach Steve Nicol was not quite as upset after his team's 4-1 defeat to the Kansas City Wizards, but he also knows that an immediate response is needed if his team is to improve its own playoff hopes.
"We need to get rested and get after it again," Nicol said. "The only thing I can tell you is that we will have to do that. I'm confident of that - it'll never be in question. We just need to do things better moving forward when we have it and when we don't have it."
The Revs clearly didn't have it last Saturday as they entered the game having given up three goals in their previous five games, but then yielded four goals to the Wizards.
New England will also have an eye toward the SuperLiga final on Wednesday as they will host Mexican side Morelia.
<< NBA suspends Pacers' Rush, Heat's Hasbrouck, Kings' Evans
New York, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The NBA announced Friday it has suspended
the Indiana Pacers' Brandon Rush, Miami Heat's Kenny Hasbrouck and the
Sacramento Kings' Tyreke Evans for separate incidents.
Rush received a five-game
<< Nuggets name Ujiri to front office position
Denver, CO (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Denver Nuggets on Friday named Masai Ujiri
as the team's executive vice president of baseball operations.
Ujiri has a lot of history in the Nuggets' and Magic's scouting departments,
having worked for f
<< Tottenham tries to regain focus for Wigan
London, England (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Tottenham enjoyed one of its biggest
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deficit from the first leg to win 4-0 against Young Boys, booking themselves a
place i
<< Middle Tennessee St. QB Dasher suspended; reinstatement sought
Murfreesboro, TN (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Middle Tennessee State has declared
quarterback Dwight Dasher ineligible for competition because of a violation of
the NCAA amateurism legislation, but is seeking his reinstatement.
Athletics direc
OF Hawpe agrees to minor league deal with the Rays >>
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) -The Tampa Bay Rays have agreed to terms on a minor league deal with veteran outfielder Brad Hawpe.Hawpe was released earlier this month by Colorado. He'll report to Class-A Charlotte of the Florida State League.Hawpe was o
Brewers P Gallardo robbed at gunpoint >>
Milwaukee, WI (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Yovani Gallardo
and a clubhouse attendant were robbed at gunpoint early Friday morning.
According to a story on the team's website, a Brewers spokesperson said
Gallardo w
Petrova reaches Pilot Pen final >>
New Haven, CT (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Nadia Petrova prevailed in an all-Russian
semifinal Friday to reach the championship match at the $600,000 Pilot Pen
Tennis event, a final hardcourt U.S. Open tune-up.
The eighth-seeded Petrova snuck past
Pujols eyes unprecedented record, but is it meaningful? >>
Toronto, Canada (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The greatness of Albert Pujols has been well
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Valuable Playe
The most popular sports to bet on are NFL and college football along with NBA and NCAA basketball. There are multiple betting opportunities within those sports, beginning with the basic wager on a game’s outcome (also called betting the side). College Football Point spreads are used in both football and basketball in an attempt to even the attractiveness of each team in a match-up. ( See our article detailing how and why point spreads are made)
But you could also simply bet on the money line, or straight-up winner of the game. Oddsmakers use the money line so that more money must be risked on the favorite or expected winner and less money on the underdog to balance the action on both sides. While money line gambling is an attractive option for football and basketball bettors who only care about picking a winner, it is the primary option for those bettors who enjoy wagering on MLB baseball and individual sports like boxing, tennis, golf and racing events such as NASCAR. ( More details on playing the Money Line)
Another bet across all major team sports including football, basketball, baseball, and hockey involves wagering on the amount of scoring in a game, called an Over/Under total. For example, the Over/Under total on Super Bowl XXXIX was 48, which means a bettor could wager whether there would be more or less than 48 points scored by both teams combined in the game.
The final score of Super Bowl XXXIX was 24-21; the scoring of both teams added up to 45, which means the game went Under . So Under bettors won, and Over bettors lost.
Sports gambling doesn’t end there. Betting sides and totals are the most common wagers available everywhere, but many sportsbooks also offer future bets on big upcoming events like who will win next year’s Super Bowl and what movie will win Best Picture at the Academy Awards.
The main advantage of futures is that you can get appealing odds by betting far in advance. For example, with NFL futures you often can get much higher odds on a team by betting before the season even starts. A NFL future bet on a team to win the Super Bowl odds might be 20/1 in the preseason; but by midseason, their odds might decrease to 10/1 if they turn out to be legitimate championship contenders.
Involves one individual wager, whether it be on your team to cover the point spread, to win the game straight-up on the money line, or to go over/under the total.
To visit this online sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your football betting needs.
Ten years ago, at just about this time, I called Alan Boston in Vegas and left him a voicemail that went something like this (abridged version): "Hey Alan, Chad Millman from ESPN The Magazine calling. I want to do a book about wise guys, you in?"
A couple weeks later I got a message back (abridged version): "I don't know, maybe," Boston said. "Call me and we'll talk about it. But not later today. I got $1,000 on Andre Agassi to win the French Open at 40-1, and he's in the finals."
Here's what happened next (abridged version): Agassi won his tourney. Boston won his $40,000. I wrote sportsbook.
In the ten years since, how much has been wagered on the big-time tennis events? Put it this way: The Nevada Gaming Commission doesn't even track the number year by year because it's so small.
"Tennis makes up about one-tenth of one percent of our take," says Lucky's bookmaking boss Jimmy Vaccaro. "The last big golf major we probably had $100,000 worth of bets. In tennis, we might have written two big tickets."
Tennis' lack of popularity amongst the American bettoratti is no surprise, really. For starters, the biggest sports betting holidays -- the Super Bowl, the NCAA tourney -- are must see TV. People, at least the degenerates I know, plan vacations around watching those events in Vegas sports books.
But Wimbledon? Doesn't exactly reel in the whales. "Seriously, it's the nuts as an event," says Boston. "But who even knows when it's on?"
Here's another reason that helps explain why golf gets traction, something I call "The Bubbe Theory." My Bubbe is pushing 95 and has cataracts so bad that, to her, even the most crystalline Chicago day is mostly cloudy. But she still listens to the Cubs games, and she still calls me in a fit if she disagrees with something Rick Telander writes in the Chicago Sun Times. She's a sports fan. If she doesn't know you, you're just filling a niche. And niche players, even historically good ones like Roger and Raf, don't drive betting volume. Only the highest profile names attract square money, which inflates wagering totals like a shot of saline to the lips. Bubbe, and the public, loved Agassi, tennis' last cross-the-rubicon, mainstream draw. She also has a crush on Tiger. She's given me standing orders to put a sawbuck on the big cat whenever I walk through a sports book (or mistakenly tap into one via my Internet machine.) That explains why the Masters is getting $100K in action at some books while the four tennis majors might not get that combined this year.
This isn't a case of tennis being a difficult sport to bet. In fact, in Europe, it's probably the second most popular sport for gambling after soccer. Granted, as the WSJ football betting last week and The Mag's Shaun Assael examined in even greater depth last year, that might be because gamblers across the pond see it as an easy game to fix. But it could also be because, over there it holds the kind of sway the big two do over here.
Street corners in Spain are peppered with public courts and kids doing their best Raffy impressions. In some war torn parts of Eastern Europe poverty-stricken kids view tennis as an escape route, like football or basketball here. A couple years ago The Mag's Lindsay Berra wrote a great piece about Belgrade's Jelena Jankovic, Ana Ivanovic and Novak Djokovic. They learned the game as kids while bombs were raining down on their homeland. They practiced in drained swimming pools. Not exactly Nick Bolletierri conditions.
In the United States, casual fans think tennis is played four times a year. But on the tightly packed European continent, national interest in homegrown talent runs deep every weekend. Of the ATP's current top 20 players, only two, tennis betting and James Blake, are American. Fourteen are from Europe, representing six different countries.
No wonder fans from Lisbon to Bhudapest get jacked up for the net game, whether it's Wimbledon or a low-level tourney like the Estoril Open in Portugal (congrats to Spain's Albert Montanes for winning that one, btw). Chances are good that someone representing their flag will not only be playing, but have a shot at winning.
And that's all any bettor can ask for.
To visit this sports book go to MySportsbook.com for all your football betting needs.
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