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02/20/2007 - Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Petr Tenkrat scored a pair of goals to guide the Boston Bruins past the Philadelphia Flyers, 6-3, at the Wachovia Center.
Marc Savard finished with a goal and two assists and P.J. Axelsson tallied a goal and an assist for the Bruins, who have won four of their last five. Tim Thomas turned away 30 shots in an impressive outing for Boston.
Scottie Upshall, one of the main components in a trade that sent Peter Forsberg to Nashville last week, registered his second goal in as many games for Philadelphia, which had won three of four coming in. Upshall added an assist while Jeff Carter and Kyle Calder had a goal and two helpers each in defeat. Antero Niittymaki finished with 12 saves in net.
The contest started out slowly, as a Marco Sturm deflection goal at the 13:38 mark constituted the only scoring of the first period.
The flood gates, though, sprang wide open in the second period.
Upshall evened the game just 43 ticks into the stanza, and Carter's shot from the high slot beat Thomas at the 7:08 mark to put the Flyers in front.
Just 34 seconds later, though, Axelsson took a pass from Savard in the left circle and fired the disc past Niittymaki to even the score at 2-2.
Philadelphia nearly went ahead again at the midway point of the period when Carter broke in behind the defense, but his backhand try rang off the post. On the ensuing sequence, Tenkrat beat Niittymaki from the left circle to complete the momentum shift.
Tenkrat then made it a two-goal Boston advantage with a rebound putback with 4:24 left in the middle frame. Calder capped the wild action with his ninth goal of the year moments later to make it 4-3 heading into the final period.
Brandon Bochenski gave the road team a cushion 3:10 into the third, as he charged into the zone on a rush before firing a shot from the right circle that slipped just inside the far post.
Savard added an empty-net goal with 31.4 seconds left to cap the scoring.
Game Notes
Flyers forward Ben Eager sustained a lower-body injury midway through the second period and did not return...This was the third installment of a six- game road trip for Boston, which owns a 12-14-2 record away from home...The Flyers are a dismal 5-17-7 at the Wachovia Center this season.
<< Hayward, No. 16 Golden Eagles down Wildcats
Milwaukee, WI (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Lazar Hayward scored a career-high 18 points,
and the 16th-ranked Marquette Golden Eagles topped the Villanova Wildcats,
80-67.
Dominic James also scored 18 points for Marquette (22-7, 9-5 Big East
<< Hartnell helps Predators top Coyotes
Nashville, TN (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Scott Hartnell scored a pair of early second-
period goals in a 23-second span for the fastest two goals ever scored by any
Predator, as Nashville regained possession of first place in the Central
Divisio
<< Teuflesberg posts upset victory in Southwest Stakes
Hot Springs, AR (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Five weeks after finishing a distant third
to Hard Spun at the Fair Grounds, 23-1 longshot Teuflesberg registered a major
upset on Presidents' Day over the Kentucky Derby hopeful. Teuflesberg went
wire to
<< Kotalik out 4-to-6 weeks
Buffalo, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Buffalo Sabres forward Ales Kotalik is expected
to be sidelined the next 4-to-6 weeks due to a right knee injury.
Kotalik suffered the injury in Saturday night's shootout loss to Boston. He
has 14 goals an
Roitman tops fellow countryman Acasuso >>
Buenos Aires, Argentina (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Sergio Roitman defeated eighth seed
and fellow Argentine Jose Acasuso, 7-6 (7-4), 6-1 at the round-robin $445,000
Copa Telmex tennis event on Monday.
Acasuso was the runner-up at this event in 2001
Venus wins in return to court >>
Memphis, TN (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - American Venus Williams returned to the court
after a four month layoff with a three-set victory over Japan's Akiko Morigami
in the opening-round of the $175,000 Regions Morgan Keegan Championships
and the
Panthers hold off Pirates >>
East Rutherford, NJ (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Levance Fields scored 15 points and
Jamar Nutter's last-second three rimmed out as the short-handed No. 10
Pittsburgh Panthers survived a scare, edging the Seton Hall Pirates, 71-68.
Levon K
No. 6 Jayhawks top Wildcats, extend Little Apple dominance >>
Manhattan, KS (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Sherron Collins netted 20 points on 8-of-11
shooting as No. 6 Kansas continued its domination over rival Kansas State with
a 71-62 victory.
Mario Chalmers added 17 points while Darrell Arthur posted 13
Michael Vick is back, Brett Favre isn't and the NFC East remains the best division in the NFC, maybe in all of football.
As players start to gather for the start of another season, some things change and some stay the same in the world of the NFL.
The NFC East has been the dominant division in the National Conference for a while, despite limited playoff success, save for the New York Giants surprise Super Bowl win two seasons ago.
Hell, there's a generation of kids in Texas who have never seen the Cowboys win a playoff game (last win was in 1996).
But collectively, the Giants, Eagles, Cowboys and Redskins (well, maybe not so much the Redskins) are as good as a division gets in an NFC conference that has struggled to stay competitive with the AFC side.
Sports bettors have both acknowledged the NFC East's dominance, as one glance at the NFL future odds menu will show.
Looking over the NFL betting odds at online sports book MySportsbook.com we see the top three teams listed to win the NFC Championship are all from the NFC East:
Dallas Cowboys - 7 - 1
Philadelphia Eagles - 13 - 2
New York Giants - 9 - 2
Slotting in behind these three are two teams from the NFC North: the Minnesota Vikings (15-2) and the Chicago Bears (10-1).
Again, despite the lack of recent playoff success, the Dallas Cowboys are popular with the sports betting community, as they hold 14% of all the money wagered on who will win the NFC Championship.
So far, the New York Giants are the bettors' favorite to represent their conference in the Super Bowl, as they have 24% of the overall NFC Championship betting volume.
And what about the Philadelphia Eagles? For the most part, the Eagles had a very productive offseason, the kind that could bring them back to the top.
They had a good draft adding the likes of WR Jeremy Maclin and RB LeSean McCoy.
Unfortunately, the team received a blow when long-time defensive coordinator Jim Johnson passed away on Tuesday.
But this team will make a real run at the division title this year. Going into the regular season, Philly is listed at +240 to win the division.
Last season the Eagles were 9-6-1 SU and 10-6 ATS.
Teams from the NFC East will play teams from the AFC West in the regular season and the Eagles haven't really been a good bet in the last 20 games against the likes of San Diego, Oakland, K.C. and Denver, only going 8-12 ATS.
Two seasons removed from that Super Bowl title, the New York Giants see themselves listed as the odds-on favorite in NFC East championship futures at +162.
Plaxico Burress is gone and with him all the bad publicity surrounding the gun in the sweatpants incident, but can they replace him in the offense?
Last season the Giants were a very reliable bet going 12-4 ATS.
In the Giants' last 20 games against fellow teams from the NFC East; they are 13-7 ATS.
Dallas is listed at +240 to win the division.
Dallas went 9-7 SU and 7-9 ATS last season and with the amount of talent the Cowboys have, a similar performance won't do.
The Cowboys have been atrocious against divisional rivals, going 6-14 ATS in their last 20.
The Washington Redskins are longshots to win the division at +550.
Visit MySportsbook.com for free sportsbook odds RSS feeds go to MySportsbook.com for all your betting football needs.
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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