IndyCar gears up for Fourth of July affair at Watkins Glen

Autoracing Betting Lines

06/30/2010 - Watkins Glen, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Series: IZOD IndyCar. Date: Sunday, July 4. Race: Camping World Grand Prix at The Glen. Site: Watkins Glen International. Track: 3.4-mile, 11-turn road course. Start Time: 3:30 p.m. (et). Laps: 60. Miles: 204. 2009 winner: Justin Wilson. Television: ABC. Radio: IMS Radio Network/SIRIUS XM Satellite.

Watkins Glen International kicks off five consecutive street/road course races for the IZOD IndyCar Series. The series will run in the Canadian cities of Toronto and Edmonton before returning to the United States for Mid-Ohio and Sonoma, CA. The next IndyCar oval event is scheduled for August 28 at Chicagoland.

After a fourth-place finish two weeks ago at Iowa, Will Power from Penske Racing reclaimed the championship points lead. Power holds an 11-point advantage over Target Chip Ganassi Racing's Scott Dixon, while Dixon's teammate, Dario Franchitti, dropped to third in points (-14) after his disappointing 18th-place finish at Iowa. Franchitti led the most laps with 69, but suffered a gear-box issue late in the race, which put the defending series champion 36 laps behind.

Power won two of the first four street/road course races this year. He kicked off the season with back-to-back victories at Sao Paulo, Brazil and St. Petersburg, FL.

Ryan Hunter-Reay from Andretti Autosport won the most recent street/road course event held in April at Long Beach, CA. Hunter-Reay's first win in the series came two years ago at Watkins Glen. He drove for the now-defunct Rahal Letterman Racing team at the time.

Last year at Watkins Glen, Justin Wilson put on a dominating performance and easily held off Ryan Briscoe and Dixon in the final laps for the win. Wilson not only scored his second career IndyCar victory, but also gave Dale Coyne Racing its first win in open-wheel competition.

"I think it's one of the best tracks in the world," Wilson said. "Having won there last year I'm going to say that, but it's just a great, fun track. There are a lot of fast corners, and it hasn't lost any of its character with the safety improvements. That's key. When you come out of those fifth-and-fourth gear corners, you know when you've got it right."

One year ago, Wilson became the first non-Ganassi or Penske driver to win an IndyCar race since his victory at Detroit in August 2008 when he drove for Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing. He is now behind the wheel of the No.22 car for Dreyer and Reinbold Racing.

"I'm focused on this year, hoping we can go back there and be as competitive," said Wilson, who currently sits eighth in points. "It's a different team, but I want to get back that same level of competition. Hopefully we can work it all out and repeat."

Wilson had three top-10 finishes, including two second-place runs, in the four early season street/road course races. He also has started on the outside pole in the last two Watkins Glen races.

Canadian Paul Tracy will be Wilson's teammate at Watkins Glen. Tracy is substituting for the injured Mike Conway in the No.24 Dreyer and Reinbold car. Conway continues to recover from injuries he sustained in a horrifying crash during the final lap of the May 30 Indianapolis 500.

Tracy previously announced that he would drive in the two upcoming Canadian races.

"It's obviously a good feeling to get more races, especially being able to race at The Glen and building up momentum before going into the Canadian events," Tracy said.

Twenty-five teams are on the preliminary entry list for the Camping World Grand Prix at The Glen.

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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.