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01/24/2012 - Oakville, ON (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Canadian Tour announced eight dates for the 2012 season on Tuesday.
The Canadian part of the schedule will kick off with the 30th playing of the Times Colonist Island Savings Open. That will be followed by the ATB Financial Classic and the Syncrude Boreal Open.
Those three events will all be contested in June. As the calendar turns to July, there are three more events, including the Canadian Open.
The Canadian Tour Championship will be contested at Scarboro Golf and Country Club in Toronto, which is celebrating its centennial in 2012.
"Traditionally we have released the full schedule in December, which has not given all of our events time to finalize their plans for the coming year. This year we have decided to delay the full release of the schedule until it is fully confirmed," stated Rick Janes, Canadian Tour Commissioner and CEO.
"Our recent agreement with the PGA Tour has also provided us with some new horsepower and we are confident that we can get those events in question over the hump when the full schedule is released in a month from now."
<< Former NFL player and Fresno State coach Boone dies
Fresno, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Former NFL player and Fresno State head coach
JR Boone passed away in his sleep on Sunday at his home in Selma. He was 86.
In six seasons as a running back and safety with the Bears, Packers and 49ers,
Boone
<< Dolphins' Soliai added to AFC Pro Bowl roster
Davie, FL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Miami Dolphins defensive tackle Paul Soliai has
replaced Baltimore Ravens defensive tackle Haloti Ngata on the AFC Pro Bowl
roster.
Soliai had 27 tackles in 16 games (12 starts) this season. He will be play
<< Rays bring back Pena
St. Petersburg, FL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Tampa Bay Rays signed first baseman
Carlos Pena to a one-year, $7.25 million contract on Tuesday.
Pena, 33, played for the Rays from 2007-10 before joining the Chicago Cubs
last season. He bat
<< Bobcats' Augustin to miss 4 games
Charlotte, NC (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Charlotte Bobcats guard D.J. Augustin will
miss four games due to an inflammatory condition of the sesmoid bones that lie
in the flexor tendons on his right big toe.
Augustin was seen by Charlotte orthoped
McSurdy, 17 other FCS players selected to all-star game >>
Little Rock, AR (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - All-America linebacker Caleb McSurdy is one
of three University of Montana football players selected to participated in
the Players All-Star Classic on Feb. 4.
Eighteen FCS players have been invited to the
Bulls' Deng has torn ligament in left wrist >>
Chicago, IL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Chicago Bulls forward Luol Deng will miss
time with a torn ligament in his left wrist.
Deng suffered the injury late in Saturday's game against the Bobcats. Team
officials confirmed the injury on Tues
Yankees bring back Martin >>
Bronx, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Hours after officially saying goodbye to Jorge
Posada, the New York Yankees announced on Tuesday that they agreed to
terms with catcher Russell Martin on a one-year contract, thereby avoiding
arbitra
Nets' Damion James has season-ending surgery >>
East Rutherford, NJ (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - New Jersey Nets forward Damion James
underwent successful right foot surgery on Tuesday. He will miss the remainder
of the season.
The procedure, which was performed by Dr. David Porter at Indiana
Kurt Warner to start, Matt Leinart to watch
Despite the debate that's swirling , Kurt Warner will remain the starting quarterback for the Arizona Cardinals, coach Dennis Green said today. The Arizona Cardinals are the +7 point underdog at online sportsbook MySportsbook.com for this Sunday's game.
Green's comment came in a statement released by the team following an ESPN report that Green decided that rookie Matt Leinart would replace Warner as starter for Sunday's game at Atlanta.
"Generally talking about the starting lineup is not something we do," Green told the AP. "However, given the speculation that was out there we want to make it clear. We're disappointed after last week, but we still expect to be a playoff football team and we fully expect Kurt Warner to be the quarterback that leads us. That has not changed."
To visit this online sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your bet on football needs.
Ten years ago, at just about this time, I called Alan Boston in Vegas and left him a voicemail that went something like this (abridged version): "Hey Alan, Chad Millman from ESPN The Magazine calling. I want to do a book about wise guys, you in?"
A couple weeks later I got a message back (abridged version): "I don't know, maybe," Boston said. "Call me and we'll talk about it. But not later today. I got $1,000 on Andre Agassi to win the French Open at 40-1, and he's in the finals."
Here's what happened next (abridged version): Agassi won his tourney. Boston won his $40,000. I wrote sportsbook.
In the ten years since, how much has been wagered on the big-time tennis events? Put it this way: The Nevada Gaming Commission doesn't even track the number year by year because it's so small.
"Tennis makes up about one-tenth of one percent of our take," says Lucky's bookmaking boss Jimmy Vaccaro. "The last big golf major we probably had $100,000 worth of bets. In tennis, we might have written two big tickets."
Tennis' lack of popularity amongst the American bettoratti is no surprise, really. For starters, the biggest sports betting holidays -- the Super Bowl, the NCAA tourney -- are must see TV. People, at least the degenerates I know, plan vacations around watching those events in Vegas sports books.
But Wimbledon? Doesn't exactly reel in the whales. "Seriously, it's the nuts as an event," says Boston. "But who even knows when it's on?"
Here's another reason that helps explain why golf gets traction, something I call "The Bubbe Theory." My Bubbe is pushing 95 and has cataracts so bad that, to her, even the most crystalline Chicago day is mostly cloudy. But she still listens to the Cubs games, and she still calls me in a fit if she disagrees with something Rick Telander writes in the Chicago Sun Times. She's a sports fan. If she doesn't know you, you're just filling a niche. And niche players, even historically good ones like Roger and Raf, don't drive betting volume. Only the highest profile names attract square money, which inflates wagering totals like a shot of saline to the lips. Bubbe, and the public, loved Agassi, tennis' last cross-the-rubicon, mainstream draw. She also has a crush on Tiger. She's given me standing orders to put a sawbuck on the big cat whenever I walk through a sports book (or mistakenly tap into one via my Internet machine.) That explains why the Masters is getting $100K in action at some books while the four tennis majors might not get that combined this year.
This isn't a case of tennis being a difficult sport to bet. In fact, in Europe, it's probably the second most popular sport for gambling after soccer. Granted, as the WSJ football betting last week and The Mag's Shaun Assael examined in even greater depth last year, that might be because gamblers across the pond see it as an easy game to fix. But it could also be because, over there it holds the kind of sway the big two do over here.
Street corners in Spain are peppered with public courts and kids doing their best Raffy impressions. In some war torn parts of Eastern Europe poverty-stricken kids view tennis as an escape route, like football or basketball here. A couple years ago The Mag's Lindsay Berra wrote a great piece about Belgrade's Jelena Jankovic, Ana Ivanovic and Novak Djokovic. They learned the game as kids while bombs were raining down on their homeland. They practiced in drained swimming pools. Not exactly Nick Bolletierri conditions.
In the United States, casual fans think tennis is played four times a year. But on the tightly packed European continent, national interest in homegrown talent runs deep every weekend. Of the ATP's current top 20 players, only two, tennis betting and James Blake, are American. Fourteen are from Europe, representing six different countries.
No wonder fans from Lisbon to Bhudapest get jacked up for the net game, whether it's Wimbledon or a low-level tourney like the Estoril Open in Portugal (congrats to Spain's Albert Montanes for winning that one, btw). Chances are good that someone representing their flag will not only be playing, but have a shot at winning.
And that's all any bettor can ask for.
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