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06/13/2010 - Los Angeles, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Hideki Matsui finished 3-for-4 with two RBI as the Angels held on to top the Dodgers, 6-5, in the finale of a three-game interleague series from Dodger Stadium.
Bobby Abreu collected three hits, scored twice and drove in a run while Torii Hunter and Mike Napoli homered for the Angels, who swept the set and have won four of five overall.
Jered Weaver (6-3) yielded five hits and three runs with seven strikeouts over six innings for the win. Brian Fuentes turned in a scoreless ninth for his 10th save.
Manny Ramirez went 3-for-4 with two doubles and scored twice for the Dodgers, who had won four in a row prior to this weekend. James Loney added three hits and three RBI and Rafael Furcal homered in the setback.
Carlos Monasterios (3-1) suffered his first defeat of the season after allowing seven hits and four runs with three walks over just 2 2/3 frames.
Down 5-1, the Dodgers struck for a pair of runs in the home seventh to close the gap to two. Ramirez led off with a double and Loney doubled him in, signaling Weaver's exit for Kevin Jepsen. After two quick outs, Blake DeWitt plated Loney with a single.
Napoli's solo shot in the eighth gave the Halos a 6-3 cushion, but the home team responded with two more in the bottom half. Russell Martin drew a leadoff walk, advanced on a Ramirez single then both scored on Loney's double.
Fuentes walked pinch-hitter Casey Blake in the bottom of the ninth but Matt Kemp fanned swinging and Furcal grounded into a 6-4-3 double play to end the game.
The Angels picked up two in the first on RBI singles from Abreu and Matsui, and the Dodgers responded in the home half when Furcal led off with his second homer of the year.
Hunter's blast and Howie Kendrick's run-scoring double in the third pushed the visitors' edge to 4-1, then Matsui knocked in Abreu with a single in the fifth.
Game Notes
The Angels have won five of the last seven meetings with the Dodgers, and have won five of the last six at Chavez Ravine...It was the first time the Angels swept the Dodgers in LA since interleague play began in 1997...For Furcal, it was his 26th leadoff homer, and 14th as Dodger.
<< Westwood wins wild playoff
Memphis, TN (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Lee Westwood rolled in a five-foot birdie putt
on the fourth playoff hole Sunday to get his second PGA Tour title at the St.
Jude Classic.
England's Westwood sank a five-footer on the par-four 18th at
<< Giants sweep A's in latest "Bay Bridge" installment
San Francisco, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Aubrey Huff smacked a pair of two-run
homers as the San Francisco Giants completed a three-game sweep of the Oakland
Athletics with a 6-2 victory at AT&T Park.
Juan Uribe hit a solo home run for
<< Hernandez's solid outing helps Mariners down Padres
San Diego, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Jose Lopez and Ichiro Suzuki doubled home
runs in the final two innings and Felix Hernandez worked within one out of a
complete game, as Seattle salvaged the finale of a three-game interleague set
with Sa
<< Rockies complete sweep of Blue Jays
Denver, CO (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Carlos Gonzalez hit a two-run homer and drove in
three, as the Colorado Rockies completed a three-game interleague series sweep
of the Toronto Blue Jays with a 10-3 victory at Coors Field.
Ryan Spilborghs turne
Zenyatta makes history with Vanity win >>
Inglewood, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Two-time champion mare Zenyatta remained
undefeated with a third straight win in Sunday's $250,000 Vanity Handicap at
Hollywood Park. The undefeated mare ran her career record to 17 straight wins.
Owne
Monday finish looms for State Farm Classic >>
Springfield, IL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - More weather problems on Sunday forced the
State Farm Classic into a Monday finish at Panther Creek Country Club.
The third round had also been delayed by thunderstorms and heavy rain. That
round was f
Young makes second homer a game-winner for D'Backs >>
Phoenix, AZ (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Chris Young's second homer of the game, a two-
run blast in the bottom of the ninth inning, rescued the Arizona bullpen and
lifted the Diamondbacks to a 7-5 win over St. Louis in the rubber match of a
three-g
Pierce leads Celtics to halftime lead in Game 5 >>
Boston, MA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Paul Pierce netted 15 points on 7-of-10 shooting
from the field, helping Boston to a 45-39 halftime lead on the Los Angeles
Lakers in the pivotal Game 5 of the NBA Finals.
The Celtics, coming off a series-
The most popular sports to bet on are NFL and college football along with NBA and NCAA basketball. There are multiple betting opportunities within those sports, beginning with the basic wager on a game’s outcome (also called betting the side). College Football Point spreads are used in both football and basketball in an attempt to even the attractiveness of each team in a match-up. ( See our article detailing how and why point spreads are made)
But you could also simply bet on the money line, or straight-up winner of the game. Oddsmakers use the money line so that more money must be risked on the favorite or expected winner and less money on the underdog to balance the action on both sides. While money line gambling is an attractive option for football and basketball bettors who only care about picking a winner, it is the primary option for those bettors who enjoy wagering on MLB baseball and individual sports like boxing, tennis, golf and racing events such as NASCAR. ( More details on playing the Money Line)
Another bet across all major team sports including football, basketball, baseball, and hockey involves wagering on the amount of scoring in a game, called an Over/Under total. For example, the Over/Under total on Super Bowl XXXIX was 48, which means a bettor could wager whether there would be more or less than 48 points scored by both teams combined in the game.
The final score of Super Bowl XXXIX was 24-21; the scoring of both teams added up to 45, which means the game went Under . So Under bettors won, and Over bettors lost.
Sports gambling doesn’t end there. Betting sides and totals are the most common wagers available everywhere, but many sportsbooks also offer future bets on big upcoming events like who will win next year’s Super Bowl and what movie will win Best Picture at the Academy Awards.
The main advantage of futures is that you can get appealing odds by betting far in advance. For example, with NFL futures you often can get much higher odds on a team by betting before the season even starts. A NFL future bet on a team to win the Super Bowl odds might be 20/1 in the preseason; but by midseason, their odds might decrease to 10/1 if they turn out to be legitimate championship contenders.
Involves one individual wager, whether it be on your team to cover the point spread, to win the game straight-up on the money line, or to go over/under the total.
To visit this online sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your football betting 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.
To visit this sports book go to MySportsbook.com for all your football betting needs.
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