England has more to worry about then just Green

Soccer Betting Lines

06/12/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - It's safe to say that the English tabloids will come up with all kinds of clever headlines to describe the horrendous goal that Robert Green conceded in the Three Lion's 1-1 draw with the United States on Saturday to open the team's 2010 World Cup.

And while the enduring image of this match will be of a horrified Green desperately scrambling in vain to keep out Clint Dempsey's low shot, which slipped between his hands and trickled over the goal line, English fans have more to worry about than just their goalkeeping situation.

It's safe to say that Green will probably not take up the same position between the posts when England faces Algeria on June 18 in its next match, with either David James or Joe Hart manning that post.

James is the most experienced of the three, but at 39-years-of-age its fair to question if he still has it, while Hart had the best season of the three for Birmingham but is short on experience at just 23.

The goalkeeping situation was one of the big questions prior to the tournament, but there were a few other unsettling things that England manager Fabio Capello must work out.

The Italian is the highest-paid manager in the tournament and he will have to earn every penny if he is to take England as far as expected in this summer's competition.

Rio Ferdinand was given the captain's armband prior to the tournament before he suffered a knee injury that ruled him out. This left the injury-prone Ledley King to fill in for the Manchester United man, but he not-so- surprisingly lasted just one half before being replaced by Jamie Carragher, seemingly because of another injury.

Not only is Capello operating with a thin back line, but one that is also fairly slow.

American striker Jozy Altidore exploited this midway through the second half when he ran right by Carragher on the left wing and nearly bagged the winning goal, with Green tipping Altidore's shot onto the post.

If King is again battling injury problems it leaves only Carragher, Matthew Upson and the uncapped Michael Dawson as options in central defense to pair with John Terry.

There were a few bright spots in the England midfield as Steven Gerrard scored the team's lone goal and provided a number of dangerous crosses from the wings, while Aaron Lennon's pace proved troublesome on the right side.

But once again Frank Lampard struggled to make an impact, which has become a consistent theme for the talented Chelsea man.

It was hard to determine whether or not Wayne Rooney was on the field until the final 20 minutes, and he only made an impact when he began to drop further into the midfield to gain possession after failing to get decent service.

Gerrard's goal came just four minutes into the match and it looked like England would coast to victory from there, but instead the Americans worked their way back into the game and came within inches of taking the lead in the second half.

England put together good spells of play when they moved the ball along the ground and got it wide in space, but toward the end of the game they lacked creativity and got caught up in knocking long balls toward the head of substitute Peter Crouch instead of working it through the midfield.

The United States is no longer a lightweight in the world of soccer, but this was not a European heavyweight like Germany or Italy that gave England such a tough time.

We have heard so much about the famous 1950 meeting between these two teams when the USA stunned England, 1-0.

And while that result was an embarrassment for the British and they will now have to live with failing to beat the Yanks for a second time in the World Cup, there are clearly more important things to worry about.

A draw with the USA should be treated like losing to your little brother in a game of backyard basketball, its annoying but not the end of the world.

What will be treated like a tragedy, however, will be if England fails to advance beyond the quarterfinals for the fourth successive World Cup.

And based on what we saw on Saturday, there is a lot of work to be done in order to avoid another crisis.

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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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