Aloha should mean goodbye
Golf Betting Lines
01/16/2012 -
Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Aloha is Hawaiian for either hello, or
goodbye.
The PGA Tour should bid a permanent goodbye aloha to opening the season in
Hawaii.
The tour heads to the mainland of the United States this week after a
fortnight in the 50th state. The Hyundai Tournament of Champions and Sony Open
in Hawaii are things of the past; hopefully, the permanent past.
Hawaii seems lovely. Never been myself, but "The Descendants" sure looked nice
in the background. This is nothing against Hawaii itself. I've never been on a
honeymoon, and I'm not "Forgetting Sarah Marshall," but the time for
professional golf in the Aloha State has passed.
The season has opened in Hawaii since 1999 and with each passing year, the
tour's top stars have skipped it more frequently than an 8:30 Friday morning
class.
The tournament is reserved for the previous year's winners. It's an exclusive
event and the intention is to reward golfers with a week in paradise and an
enormous paycheck. (Jhonattan Vegas finished dead-last this year and pocketed
$64,000.)
This year, Phil Mickelson, Masters champion Charl Schwartzel, world No. 1 Luke
Donald, U.S. Open winner Rory McIlroy, Open champion Darren Clarke, Martin
Kaymer, Adam Scott and Dustin Johnson all passed.
The biggest star in the field was Steve Stricker. Granted, he won the
tournament, but that's not exactly what you should be looking for from the
"Tournament of Champions."
Tiger Woods, back when he won official PGA Tour events, made it acceptable to
withdraw before the tournament. He hasn't played in Hawaii since the 2005
season-opener.
Hawaii is beautiful, but who wants to travel that far? Players could make a
two-week stay of it in Hawaii and play the Sony, but most of them don't want
to make such a commitment that early in the season.
Do I think more stars would play if they didn't have to take a five-hour
flight from California? Yes, that is my contention.
Few golfers speak out publicly why they don't want to play in this event,
and there's zero evidence to suggest that a change to Los Angeles or even Las
Vegas would enhance the star power.
The only thing backing up this theory is the years-long absence of golf's
biggest names. We'll never know until the plug is pulled on the Hawaii
experiment.
Aside from the fact the Hawaii swing is getting dimmer, there are other
logistic problems.
The five-hour time difference on the east coast puts the championships
squarely in prime-time. It's on against the NFL playoffs. You don't need to
waste your time checking the ratings. Brady v. Tebow did better than Maggert
v. Every.
Why try and compete against that? If the tour played in the western time zone,
the rounds could still be over before 8:00 p.m. (et) and thus not have to
fight for sports viewers.
Is this an east-coast bias? You bet it is, but remember, this is the media
capital of the world. We don't owe Hawaii a blessed thing, other than a hearty
thank you for Don Ho and embarrassing shirts for middle-aged men.
The LPGA Tour is headed to Hawaii in April with the LPGA LOTTE Championship.
It's been wildly heralded as a huge move for the tour, although Dottie Pepper
in last week's "Sports Illustrated" illustrated some unmentioned problems with
this event.
"Three months before the event there's still no plan to get it on TV," wrote
Pepper. "The equipment that brings us golf and football from Hawaii in January
and February is back on the mainland by April. Those trucks may have to float
west after the Kraft Nabisco, which will cost a lot but be well worth it. Last
year Golf Channel aired more hours of live coverage and showed features about
many of the players, and the LPGA's ratings grew 30 percent. Will it last?"
Events in Hawaii aren't bringing much more to the pig roast than some gnarly
surfing opportunities for those involved. What was once a great perk has
become a chore and it's not working.
Send everybody to Vegas or L.A. and it will work out better for all involved.
RANDOM THOUGHTS
- PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem got a four-year extension and will be on
the job through 2016. He gets a lot of credit for keeping the tour thriving
through choppy economic times. Finchem will be close to 70 when that extension
runs out. There is no clear successor for the gig, so the tour has four years
to find one.
- I'm available for aforementioned position.
- If Hawaiian events are outdated, so were five-round tournaments, so good
news this week's Humana Challenge was trimmed to four. Pres. Clinton is
heavily involved, thus the appearance of Greg Norman, a good buddy of the
former President.
- According to ESPN, a poorly-kept secret may be reality. ESPN is reporting
that Tiger Woods will team with Tony Romo at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am. Doesn't
make pro-ams any more interesting.
- Movie moment - Normally I try to catch Oscar nominated films before the
awards and nominations are around the corner. Which would I like to see less -
a French silent film, or a movie about a horse? In its defense, it is a "War
Horse."
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Luke Do
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.
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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