Debuchy returns Lille to the win column

Soccer Betting Lines

02/18/2012 - Lorient, France (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Lille brought an end to its poor run of results on Saturday as Mathieu Debuchy's goal in the 76th minute gave the club a 1-0 win at Lorient.

A 5-4 defeat to Bordeaux last time out left Lille with just one win from its last five games and saw the defending champions slip further off the pace at the top of the league.

But Saturday's win moves the club to within eight points of leaders PSG, which will face second-place Montpellier on Sunday.

Both goalkeepers were sharp in the first half and needed to be to keep the match scoreless.

However, Lille began to take control after the break and netted the only goal of the contest inside the final 15 minutes when Benoit Pedretti played Debuchy in on goal and he finished off the play by smashing his shot off the right post and into the net.

Lorient's attack never got going after halftime and the club's winless streak has now reached eight games.

Marseille 1, Valenciennes 1

Marseille, France - Marseille extended its unbeaten streak to nine games on Saturday, but failed to significantly close the gap on the top two teams as the club was held to a 1-1 draw by Valenciennes.

Alou Diarra put Marseille in front after 15 minutes with a headed goal from Rod Fanni's cross, but Gil canceled out the opener early in the second half when he pounced on a loose ball near the six-yard box following a corner kick to fire home his first goal of the season.

Marseille moves into fourth with the result but is 11 points back of leaders PSG, while Valenciennes has claimed seven points from its last three games to sit six points above the drop zone.

Ajaccio 0, Brest 0

Ajaccio, France - Ajaccio failed to pull away from the relegation zone on Saturday as Eduaro's failed penalty kick in the 84th minute forced the team to settle for a 0-0 home draw with Brest.

The game entered the final 10 minutes without a goal, but Ajaccio appeared poised to take the lead when Brest's Benoit Lesoimier was whistled for handling the ball inside his own penalty area.

However, Eduardo sent his spot kick straight at goalkeeper Steeve Elana, keeping Ajaccio just two points above the relegation zone.

Caen 2, Evian 2

Caen, France - Sidney Govou's stoppage-time equalizer helped Evian salvage a 2-2 draw at Caen on Saturday in a battle of bottom-half teams.

A penalty kick from Pierre-Alain Frau just before the break put Caen into the lead, only for Cedric Barbosa to equalize five minutes after halftime for Evian.

Livio Nabab restored the home side's lead with a low shot that slipped underneath goalkeeper Stephan Andersen, but just when Caen thought it had claimed a second successive win, a corner kick found its way onto the right foot of Govou, who fired a volley into the net to grab his team a point.

Dijon 3, Nice 0

Dijon, France - Dijon put some distance between itself and the relegation places on Saturday after securing a 3-0 home win over second-from-the-bottom Nice.

The visitors entered the match on a five-game winless streak and went behind shortly before the break when Gael Kakuta played a one-two with Brice Jovial and slotted the return pass home.

Kakuta played provider on the second goal, which arrived in the 53rd minute when he picked out Jovial, who lobbed goalkeeper David Ospina to double the lead.

Koro Issa Kone put the finishing touches on the win in the final five minutes with another lobbed shot that sailed over the head of Ospina.

Toulouse 3, Nancy 0

Nancy, France - Toulouse moved into seventh place after claiming a comfortable 3-0 victory at Nancy on Saturday.

The visitors took charge from the start by scoring twice inside the opening 20 minutes with Francois Sirieix scoring his first goal of the season in the ninth minute before helping set up a goal for Adrien Regattin 10 minutes later.

Toulouse had lost three of its last four games but put the result out of reach in the 72nd minute when Regattin's volley was saved by goalkeeper Guy Ndy Assembe, only for Emmanuel Riviere to score on the rebound.

Sochaux 0, Auxerre 0

Montbeliard, France - The bottom two sides in Ligue 1 played to a 0-0 draw at the Stade Bonal on Saturday as Sochaux and Auxerre each claimed a point.

Auxerre goalkeeper Olivier Sorin was the busier of the two netminders and he did well, especially in the second half, to help his team to a point.

Cedric Bakambu tested Sorin with a shot in the 50th minute before the 'keeper made stops on Ryad Boudebouz and finally Marvin Martin, whose volley needed a nice stop from Sorin to preserve the point.

The result helps the survival chances of both sides just a bit, but it also extends winless skids for both with Sochaux's reaching 10 games while Auxerre hasn't won in six contests.

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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.”

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MySportsbook.com: New College Football Clock Rules Examined

Coaches and bettors alike are desperate to make sense of the new time-keeping rules on the NCAA gridiron. One of the big stories to come out of the Ohio State-Texas clash last weekend was Texas coach Mack Brown's criticism of the NCAA's new clock rules that are intended to shorten the duration of college football games, therefore affecting college football betting.

"They scored with six minutes left and the game was over before we had a chance to do anything," Brown told ESPN.com. "I really hope whoever made these changes will go back and look them over."

Sure, it might be sour grapes; the Buckeyes thoroughly trounced the defending national champion Longhorns 24-7. However, Brown isn't alone in giving the changes their due thought. Bettors are also wondering about them, albeit for a completely different reason. Most experts agree that the changes will result in games being shortened by anywhere from 10 to 20 plays. The obvious consequence is lower scores, with more time rolling off the clock during changes of possession. (The Ohio State-Texas game flew well under the total of 52.)

According to research at the online sportsbook MySportsbook.com, more than 18 plays a game disappeared last weekend into thin air. That's a 10-percent reduction. In 2005, a typical game had 168.58 plays. For 2007 already, it's down to 150.26.

As a result, teams combined to gain an average of about 100 fewer yards a game last weekend versus the 2005 openers. Scoring was also down by about 4.5 points (attention Las Vegas sports lines).

Of course, oddsmakers were able to adjust to the changes before the season started. Proof of that came as the over went a balanced 8-9 at My Sportsbook on Saturday.

Other angles to consider:A shorter game should theoretically result in shorter lines. Whereas Team A might have been a 14-point favorite in a 168-play game (last year), if there are 10 percent less snaps in 2007, the line should also be reduced by 10 percent (to 13 or 12.5). Of course, this is an over-simplification of the matter, but something to keep in mind.
Less possessions means a better chance the game will be decided by three or seven points. For example, what might have been a 20-10 final score in 2005 may end at

17-10 in 2007. Granted, a 24-17 game last year might end at 21-17 these days, but the former - a three- or seven-point advantage being preserved as opposed to created - is the most likely scenario.

*UPDATE* - Sept. 25, 2007

New Clock Rules Boon for online bookmakers

By adjusting the time-keeping rules to shorten the duration of college football games, the NCAA hoped to make its product more enjoyable for the fans. While the NCAA's success in this regard is still up for debate, bookmakers couldn't be happier with the results.

"We are seeing a massive jump in college football betting," noted the MySportsbook.com management team. "With all the early Saturday games (12 a.m. ET) ending before the second wave begins (3:30 p.m. ET) - something that didn't always happen before the changes - bettors are now able to re-invest their winnings from the morning session in the afternoon games."

While not all bettors will choose to roll over their winnings, it doesn't take much for an impact to be seen on the bottom line. "Not all of the millions of dollars in morning payouts get re-bet. In fact, it's probably only 10 to 20 percent," noted the sportsbook management team. "Still, the increased football betting lines window will create a ton of growth for us over the course of the season."

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