Bobcats halt Thunder's winning streak

Basketball Betting Lines

03/17/2010 - Charlotte, NC (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Stephen Jackson came up with 20 points, five assists and added five rebounds, as Charlotte put a stop to Oklahoma City's five-game win streak with a 100-92 triumph.

Stephen Graham tied a career-high with 19 points -- set on Tuesday -- and Raymond Felton scored 17 with seven assists for the Bobcats, who had a season- high six-game winning streak cut short Tuesday in Indiana.

Boris Diaw chipped in 13 points and Tyrus Thomas 11 with nine boards. Bobcats star forward Gerald Wallace missed a third straight game with an ankle injury.

Kevin Durant recorded 26 points and 10 boards for Oklahoma City, which experienced just its fourth loss in the last 21 games overall.

Jeff Green put in 17 points, while Russell Westbrook and Nick Collison each added 15 points. Westbrook handed out 10 assists as well.

The Thunder were ahead 26-15 after 12 minutes of play and stretched their lead to 16 early in the second and held a 51-32 advantage with 2 1/2 minutes left following a Westbrook jumper. The Bobcats closed on an 11-0 run to make it a 51-43 affair at halftime.

The Bobcats clawed all the way back to a 61-61 tie on Graham's layup halfway through the third and finished the period on a 10-5 run to grab a 73-70 edge going to the fourth.

The hosts continued to hold down a slight edge, but Durant put in a pair of baskets and Westbrook a layup to make it a one-point game, 84-83, with 5 1/2 minutes to play.

Jackson drained a three-ball moments later, and Thomas threw down an alley-oop slam off a Diaw feed with 3:14 left for a six-point difference. The Thunder failed to execute down the stretch and got just two more field goals the rest of the way, as Charlotte built its lead back to double digits.

Game Notes

The NBA Board of Governors unanimously approved Michael Jordan's acquisition of a controlling interest in the Charlotte Bobcats on Wednesday. Jordan and MJ Basketball Holdings, LLC reached an agreement to purchase the majority of the team from Bobcats owner Bob Johnson in late February but was awaiting official approval by the league...The Bobcats have won five in a row at home and are 25-8 at Time Warner Cable Arena this season...The Thunder will also visit Toronto and Indiana on a three-game road trip and are 19-14 away from the Ford Center this year.

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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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