Mauer leads AL All-Star voting, Morneau moves past Teixeira

Baseball Betting Lines

06/07/2010 - New York, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Minnesota Twins catcher Joe Mauer continues to be the top vote-getter after the third set of American League All-Star balloting results, while his teammate, first baseman Justin Morneau, moved into first place at his position.

Mauer, the reigning American League Most Valuable Player, has drawn 1,886,188 votes during a season in which he is hitting .311 with a .385 on-base percentage, two home runs and 24 runs batted in.

Mauer has been selected for three Midsummer Classics and has been the starter behind the plate for the last two.

Morneau, the 2006 AL MVP, jumped past the Yankees' Mark Teixeira and holds the lead at first base with 973,563 votes. Teixeira is in second place with 931,405 votes.

While Teixeira fell, Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter (1,554,781) and second baseman Robinson Cano (1,293,724) remained the top vote-getters at their positions.

Tampa Bay third baseman Evan Longoria is the other infield leader with 1,403,566 votes.

There was no change in the outfield, as Seattle's Ichiro Suzuki (918,730), the Texas Rangers' Nelson Cruz (809,902) and Tampa Bay's Carl Crawford (806,202) are still the top three in that category. The Rangers' Vladimir Guerrero continues to lead the pack in designated hitter voting with 1,210,521.

The third National League All-Star balloting results will be released Tuesday.

After fan balloting determines the nine starting players for the American League, the combination of Yankees manager Joe Girardi and a "Player Ballot" will then select 24 pitchers and reserves to round out the 33-man squad.

Fan balloting for the 81st All-Star Game will continue through June 23 at all Major League stadiums and on all 30 club sites and at MLB.com through July 1.

All-Star teams will be announced July 4, after which time fans will select the 34th player for each league's roster in Final Vote balloting.

The 2010 All-Star game will take place July 13 at Angel Stadium of Anaheim. As has been the case since 2003, the winning league will gain homefield advantage in the World Series.

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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.