Manny Ramirez to get MRI on hamstring

Baseball Betting Lines

06/30/2010 - San Francisco, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Los Angeles Dodgers star outfielder Manny Ramirez will undergo an MRI on his injured right hamstring during Thursday's day off.

Ramirez will have the MRI done in Arizona, where the Dodgers are set to open a three-game set against the Diamondbacks on Friday.

The 38-year-old sustained the injury during Tuesday's game against San Francisco. Ramirez singled in the first inning and appeared to suffer the injury while running the bases. He was replaced by Matt Kemp, who was not in the starting lineup for a third consecutive game.

Garret Anderson started for the Dodgers in left field Wednesday.

Ramirez is batting .322 with 39 RBI and eight homers in 59 games this year.

Jazzspots Baseball Betting News

<< Wilson transfers to Marquette
Milwaukee, WI (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Forward Jamil Wilson has transfered to Marquette after spending his freshman season at Oregon. He will have to sit out the 2010-11 season due to NCAA transfer rules, but will have three years of el

<< Dodgers complete sweep of Giants
San Francisco, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Rafael Furcal and Matt Kemp each homered to back Vicente Padilla's solid pitching performance, as the Los Angeles Dodgers dominated the San Francisco Giants, 8-2, to complete a three-game series

<< Red Wings, city of Detroit agree to extend arena lease talks
Detroit, MI (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Detroit Red Wings and Detroit mayor Dave Bing agreed to extend talks aimed at a lease renewal that will keep the hockey club at Joe Louis Arena. The Detroit Free Press revealed that both sides have

<< Gay gets qualifying offer from Grizzlies
Memphis, TN (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Memphis Grizzlies extended a qualifying offer to Rudy Gay on Wednesday, making the forward a restricted free agent. Gay, the eighth overall pick in the 2006 draft, ranked second on the Grizzli

<< Scott Hairston, Padres crush Rockies to avoid sweep
San Diego, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Scott Hairston went 2-for-5 with four RBI as the San Diego Padres dominated the Colorado Rockies, 13-3, in the finale of a three-game set. Jerry Hairston Jr. and Everth Cabrera each drove in two runs

UTSA inks Thompson to contract extension >>
San Antonio, TX (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The University of Texas-San Antonio has signed head men's basketball coach Brooks Thompson to a contract extension through the 2014-15 season. Thompson has led the Roadrunners to back-to-back 19-win

Lions sign third-round pick Spievey >>
Allen Park, MI (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Detroit Lions on Wednesday signed rookie cornerback Amari Spievey to a three-year contract. Spievey was selected by the Lions in the third round (66th overall) of this year's draft. The 5-foot

Tigers send reliever Ni to Toledo >>
Minneapolis, MN (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Detroit Tigers optioned relief pitcher Fu-Te Ni to Triple-A Toledo. The move was made following Detroit's 5-1 setback in the finale of a three- game set against the Twins. In his second major-l

Rockets extend qualifying offers to Scola, Lowry >>
Houston, TX (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Houston Rockets extended qualifying offers to forward Luis Scola and guard Kyle Lowry prior to a Wednesday night deadline. The team also exercised a team option to extend the contract of center/fo

Spurs' Jefferson to become a free agent >>
San Antonio, TX (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - San Antonio Spurs forward Richard Jefferson has opted out of the final year of his contract, forgoing the $15 million he is due next season to test the free agent market. The Spurs acquired Jefferson in a

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.