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08/02/2010 - New York, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Champion colt Lookin At Lucky made a double move in this week's NTRA National Thoroughbred Poll off his victory Sunday in the Haskell Invitational. The three-year-old colt jumped from fifth to third following the impressive victory at Monmouth Park.
Lookin At Lucky, the 2009 champion two-year-old male, ran to a four-length win over six rivals in the 1 1/8-mile Haskell. The commanding victory enabled him to receive 128 points, third most in the voting. The colt is expected to start in the Travers at Saratoga on August 28.
Champion mare Zenyatta remains atop the poll with 14 first-place votes and 173 points, nine fewer points than last week. The undefeated six-year-old will have her next start on Saturday, August 7 at Del Mar in the Clement L. Hirsch, a race she has won the last two years.
Four-year-old colt Quality Road retains the second spot with four first-place votes and 161 points, 10 less than the previous week. Trained by Todd Pletcher, Quality Road is set to start in the Whitney Handicap at Saratoga Race Course also on August 7.
Defending Horse of the Year Rachel Alexandra falls one spot to fourth with 118 points. Last week she received 125 points after winning the Lady's Secret at Monmouth. She will next race at Saratoga on August 29 in the Personal Ensign.
Four-year-old colt Blame suffered another drop in the rankings. He is now fifth with 98 points. Last week he was fourth after being third in the poll. He is also slated for the Whitney Handicap.
Moving up from seventh to sixth with 49 points is five-year-old mare Tuscan Evening.
Three-year-old filly Blind Luck received 43 points to move into seventh from eighth. She will make her next start in the Alabama at Saratoga on August 21.
Eclipse Award winner Gio Ponti fell from sixth to eighth with 42 points. The 2009 champion turf and older male will defend his title in this month's Arlington Million.
Devil May Care, winner of the Coaching Club American Oaks, is ninth with 31 points. She is scheduled to face Blind Luck in the Alabama.
The 10th spot in the poll is now held by Proviso with 26 points. The five- year-old mare won Saturday's Diana Stakes at Saratoga over two-time defending winner Forever Together.
Kentucky Derby winner Super Saver fell out of the top 10 after finishing fourth in the Haskell.
<< MVFC power Northern Iowa in unfamiliar underdog role
Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The other Missouri Valley Football
Conference teams might want to give Northern Iowa a round of applause for their
era of achievement. With UNI's installation in fourth place in the conference's
preseason pol
<< New York's Angel win MLS Player of the Week
New York, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Red Bull New York striker Juan Pablo Angel was
voted Major League Soccer's Player of the Week for Week 18, it was announced
on Monday.
Angel teamed up with New York's newest designated player - French s
<< This Week in Golf - August 5th through August 8th
Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - WORLD GOLF CHAMPIONSHIPS - BRIDGESTONE
INVITATIONAL, Firestone Country Club, Akron, Ohio - The third official World
Golf Championship event is on tap this week and several of the top players in
the wor
<< Eriksson walks away from Ivory Coast job
Abidjan, Ivory Coast (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Sven-Goran Eriksson has decided not to
continue as manager of Ivory Coast after he failed to come to terms on a
financial agreement with the country's soccer federation.
Eriksson took over for V
Indy making contingency plan for Super Bowl >>
ANDERSON, Ind. (AP) -Indianapolis is making contingency plans for the 2012 Super Bowl in case of a labor stoppage next season.The game is scheduled for Feb. 5, 2012, but host committee president and CEO Allison Melangton told The Associated Press le
Jaguars, Alualu agree on five-year deal >>
Jacksonville, FL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Jacksonville Jaguars and first-round
pick Tyson Alualu have reportedly agreed to a five-year contract.
Terms for the standout University of California defensive tackle are reported
to include $17.5
Red Bulls ink Mexican captain Marquez as 3rd DP >>
Secaucus, NJ (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Red Bull New York signed Mexican national team
captain Rafael Marquez to a multi-year contract as the club's third designated
player, the Major League Soccer club announced on Monday.
"I am excited to be join
Niemi becomes Chicago's latest cap casualty >>
Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - We already knew Stan Bowman was serious
about fixing the Blackhawks' salary cap situation, but that still wasn't
enough to prepare us for the recent decisions made by Chicago's general
manager.
On Sunday,
Trash talk has a place in every competitive endeavor (except baseball; those stirrup-wearers are too busy chewing on their sunflower seeds and their supplements to worry about what their opponents are doing).
Fantasy sports is no exception. Any intelligent discussion of the subject would probably start with a thesis statement or a definition of terms. Thankfully, this wont be an intelligent discussion.
Let me just say that I am happy to take a place in this space alongside my talented colleagues, even our commissioner. (You should see how she bleats like a demented paper boy about league fees on our fantasy site).
Trash talking, I would argue, is primarily about amusing your friends, their sheeplike demeanors and sloping foreheads notwithstanding. The best place I have found for football trash talking is at www.SportsAlarm.com.
Beyond the entertainment factor, though, I would recognize that the sophomoric ritual has one advantage, when properly applied. It magnifies your fantasy triumphs and mitigates your fantasy failures by transforming the eventual point total into an afterthought. Winning makes it seem like your opponent really is a truss-owning, lapel-pin-wearing nitwit. And in defeat, trash talk can be the air bag to break the fall from your hyperbolic heights. The plug-necked yahoos on your team, you can say, will be sacking groceries by the end of the season.
The best trash talk, in my view, is layered and nuanced. And it doesnt focus only on your opponents team. It picks apart your opponent. The idea is to create a shock-and-awe-scale blizzard of nonsense, and the goal is to make your opponent drop his hands from his keyboard in exasperation.
What team does your opponent root for? Accuse a Giants fan of having a Joe Namath pillowcase. Wheres your opponent from? Give a look of concern no matter his reply, then say, I'll try to type slower for you next time. Is your opponent into politics? Label everyone a tax-and-spend corporate shill.
Cap all that with a liberal application of irrelevance. For instance, dont just conclude by saying your opponent is a twerp who drafts like my grandmother. Say that your opponent is a sweater-wearing, eyebrow-plucking twerp who drafts his team about as well as Zsa Zsa Gabor gave acceptance speeches at the Oscars. By the time your foe makes sense of that, his starting running back will have had puppies.
But what about you? Hmm? Recall a memorable slam? Have a tried-and-true technique? Know someone who seems impervious to insult? Take a moment and tells us about it. Put together some (fit-for-publication) thoughts. You wont be too busy returning phone messages from your friends, Im sure, to reply.
In addition to the trash talking, the Sports Alarm has a huge gallery of high resolution pictures of beautiful women and models in bikinis. The most popular models are: Lindsay Lohan, Carrie Underwood, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Paris Hilton.
Recently I had an email debate with an angry reader who said I did not understand "the science of oddsmaking", as he called it.
He said I was wrong for suggesting oddsmakers care about who wins or loses games.
"Oddsmakers only care about splitting the betting public 50/50 on both sides of the line and keeping the commission (a.k.a. juice)," he wrote.
He might have been right about not understanding "the science of oddsmaking". After all, I'm not an oddsmaker. That said, I stick to my assertion that oddsmakers (a.k.a. sportbooks) often do care about who wins games.
Granted, as a general rule, sportsbooks try to balance their action so that they're not exposed to big losses. However, there are times when this is difficult to pull off, regardless of how much a line has moved. There are also times when that general rule is ignored and a book pursues risk.
Generally speaking, it's safe to say the books in Vegas are risk-adverse. Unlike in the past when the wise guys ruled the town, Vegas is now corporate and the goal of most casinos is to make as much money as possible with as little risk as possible.
Thus, Vegas sportsbooks try everything in their power to balance the action. They're satisfied simply collecting the juice. But these profits are small, especially compared to the take from other casino games, namely slot machines.
Because the profits at Vegas sportsbooks are so small, you could argue that many casinos operate sportsbooks simply as a novelty to keep the tourists happy.
With a growing aversion to risk, it should come as no surprise that Vegas bookmakers have been panicking this NFL season.
Despite huge pointspreads, a disproportionate percentage of bettors are still laying their money on favorites like the Eagles, Colts, Pats and Vikings rather than the dogs (a common trend for the largely recreational bettors that visit Vegas).
And much to the dismay of the books, those favorites are finding ways to cover the thick chalk. In fact, prior to Week 7, the four teams listed above are a combined 16-2-2 (88 percent) against the spread. (The tables turned dramatically in Week 7, but more on that later.)
The result has been an early-season beating for the books, and a bonanza for bettors.
While Vegas increasingly hates risk, it's no longer a major player in the sports betting world. Most of the betting action now takes place offshore where sportsbooks are not as obsessed about balance. In fact, some books encourage exposure to risk because the rewards can be so much bigger.
Consider MySportsbook.com. On its website, the book has odds pages which actually display the amount of action it's getting on games. In other words, you can see how much action the book is taking on both sides of a pointspread, moneyline or over/under.
One look at these numbers and it's obvious MySportsbook.com does not balance every game. In fact, far from it.
Take last weekend's matchup between St. Louis and Miami. By game time on Sunday, 83 percent of the betting action at MySportsbook.com was on the Rams; only 17 percent was on Miami.
What's interesting is that MySportsbook.com opened the pointspread with Miami at +6 1/2. By game time, the spread had lowered to +5.
That goes contrary to the balancing theory. If MySportsbook.com had wanted to balance the action, it would have given Miami more points; instead, it took away 1 1/2. World Series odds are now up as well.
MySportsbook.com exposed itself to even more to risk, and rolled the dice on the underdog Dolphins. Why? I contacted a representative with the book to find out. His answer was simple.
"The line moved early based on 'smart money' from sharp players," said Jeff Gilroy, a spokesperson for the book. "We also knew from early in the week that we would need Miami, therefore (we dropped) the spread to encourage Rams money.
"At the end of the day, we liked the home team."
So the conclusion is this: MySportsbook.com respected the sharp action, and gambled that the sharp bettors had a better take on the game than the recreational bettors, who were hammering the visiting Rams.
In the end, the gamble paid off. Miami, desperate for a win in front of its home fans, pounded the overrated Rams, who are terrible on the road and even worse on grass. Final score: 31-14 Fish.
MySportsbook.com was also heavily exposed on numerous favorites in Week 7, including Philadelphia, Seattle and Denver. All three failed to cover.
The fact that sportsbooks are exposed to risk on certain games is really nothing new. The fact, that Sportsbook.com is willing to show the public where it's exposed is intriguing.
Armed with this type of information, bettors can make more educated wagers. They can get an idea where the sharp money is going and conversely where the public money is headed.
MySportsbook.com is opening up its cashbox, letting bettors look inside and challenging them to take their best shot at grabbing the cash.
To visit this online football betting got to MySportsbook.com for all your football betting odds needs. Mysportsbook.com online sportsbook accepts Visa and Mastercard credit cards.
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