Stenhouse Jr. ready to get Nationwide title defense underway

Autoracing Betting Lines

02/22/2012 - Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Series: NASCAR Nationwide. Date: Saturday, February 25. Race: DRIVE4COPD 300. Site: Daytona International Speedway. Track: 2.5-mile tri-oval. Start time: 1:15 p.m. (et). Laps: 120. Miles: 300. 2011 Winner: Tony Stewart. Television: ESPN. Radio: Motor Racing Network (MRN)/SIRIUS NASCAR Satellite.

The 2012 Nationwide Series season gets underway on Saturday with the 300-miler at Daytona International Speedway.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. also begins his campaign for a second straight championship. If Stenhouse can defend his title this year, he would join Sam Ard (1983-84), Larry Pearson (1986-87), Randy LaJoie (1996-97), Dale Earnhardt Jr. (1998-99) and Martin Truex Jr. (2004-05) with back-to-back Nationwide titles.

In a NASCAR media poll released last week, Stenhouse was selected as the preseason favorite to win the Nationwide title.

"We're ready for another championship," he said. "Our Nationwide Series season starts this week, and I think we have worked on a few things that we needed to work on during the offseason and want to start out strong this year."

Stenhouse has made four Nationwide starts at Daytona, posting two top-10 finishes.

While Stenhouse remains in the No. 6 car, his Roush Fenway Racing teammate, Trevor Bayne, moves over to the No. 60 this season. Carl Edwards had been the driver of the 60, but Edwards has no plans to compete in Nationwide this year, as he focuses more on his Sprint Cup Series efforts.

Coming off his championship season in the Camping World Truck Series, Austin Dillon has graduated to Nationwide, driving the No. 3 car for Richard Childress Racing. Danny Stockman will serve as Dillon's crew chief after guiding him to the truck title last year.

"Everybody is looking forward to getting to Daytona and to get the first race behind us," Dillon said. "Once we get the first race behind us, we have three races in a row, so that's something new for me. In the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, you get a month off, but in the Nationwide Series, we are going racing. It will be fun. We're prepared and ready to go."

Dillon has already made 11 Nationwide starts, with his best finish of third coming last July at Nashville.

Danica Patrick is set to compete in the full 33-race Nationwide schedule this year. Patrick, driving the No. 7 car for JR Motorsports, has three Nationwide starts at Daytona. Her finishes there are 10th, 14th and 35th.

"I've raced (at Daytona) more than any other track, and I did that on purpose, because I want to do well in the big races, and Daytona is a big race," she said. "The more experience I have at a place like this, the better off I am."

Patrick's boss in Sprint Cup, Tony Stewart, will attempt to win the Nationwide season opener at Daytona for the fifth consecutive year. Stewart also won the February race at this track in 2005 and '06. If he takes the checkered flag for this event, he will tie Dale Earnhardt Sr.'s record for most Nationwide wins at Daytona with seven.

"That's a pretty cool feeling to know we've closed in on something (Earnhardt's) done at Daytona," Stewart said. "To me, that was his playground. You just watched him play with the guys here. He was the best at that place. To even be remotely close to him in the record books, in anything at Daytona, is very humbling."

Stewart is one of nine Sprint Cup regulars competing in this race. Dale Earnhardt Jr. also is entered. Earnhardt Jr. has six wins at Daytona as well, most recently in July 2010.

Fifty teams are on the preliminary entry list for the DRIVE4COPD 300.

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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.”

To visit this internet sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your sports betting needs and World Series odds.