Japan catches Dominguez' fancy
Horseracing Betting Lines
12/09/2011 -
Ozone Park, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - It wasn't his first time in the Land of the
Rising Sun and it probably won't be the last time jockey Ramon Dominguez makes
the trek across the Pacific. Dominguez and fellow rider John Velazquez are
both back in America after participating in the World Super Jockeys Series
last Saturday and Sunday at Hanshin Racecourse in Japan.
"I had a great time. Unfortunately, my horses didn't perform that well, but
I'm always impressed with the way races are run (in Japan)," said Dominguez.
"Everything is very meticulously done. I'm impressed with the whole culture.
It's very clean on the streets. It's different in so many ways. You leave very
impressed with how everything is so well laid out."
Dominguez, whose mounts in the World Super Jockeys Series races finished
ninth, seventh, ninth, and fourth, ended in eighth-place in the 15 jockey
competition. Velazquez finished fourth behind winning rider John Murtagh.
"For me, it was a totally different experience," noted Dominguez. "For one
thing, they run (clockwise at Hanshin Racecourse). The horses don't have
ponies or anybody to handle them in the starting gate. It's a very long post
parade. You go through a gazebo or a type of run-in shed. You walk for a good
five minutes or more before you go in the starting gate. (Velazquez) was very
pleased, too. He liked it. It wasn't his first trip either, but it just was a
very good experience."
Dominguez, last year's Eclipse Award winning jockey, had previously ridden
Better Talk Now to a 12th-place finish in the Japan Cup. He apparently
acquired a taste for Japanese food during that first trip.
"(The Japan Racing Association) had a big spread for us a couple of nights
before the races," said Dominguez. "You can try something authentic that
(natives) love, but it may not be appealing to you. It's just a different
taste, but I'm always game to try different things. I really liked that. They
had a ceviche-type dish. It's usually from Peru, but they had their own
version and it was very, very good."
This year the veteran reinsman has won 327 times in 1,348 mounts for a leading
$19,443,008. He rode Hansen to victory in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile last
month and is the regular jockey for leading female Havre de Grace.
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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.
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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