Johnson on the brink of third-straight title with Phoenix win

Autoracing Betting Lines

11/09/2008 - Avondale, AZ (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Jimmie Johnson took a huge step closer towards capturing his record-tying third-consecutive Sprint Cup Series championship with a dominating victory in Sunday's Checker O'Reilly Auto Parts 500 at Phoenix International Raceway. Johnson led 217 of 313 laps and held off Kurt Busch in a green-white-checkered finish.

The victory was Johnson's seventh of the season and the 40th of his Sprint Cup career. He also became the first driver to win three races in a row at Phoenix.

Johnson now holds a 141-point lead over Carl Edwards, who finished fourth. If Johnson finishes 36th or better, regardless of Edwards' performance, in next weekend's season-finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, he will clinch the title.

"I can't tell you how tough the last week has been," Johnson said. "It's just emotional regardless of where you're at if you have a big points lead or not. This is what I've worked my whole life for."

Johnson finished 15th last Sunday at Texas, his first finish outside the top-10 in this year's "Chase for the Sprint Cup." Edwards, who won at Texas, trimmed Johnson's lead to 106 points.

Now Edwards is hoping for a miracle in Homestead if he has any chance at winning the championship.

"Jimmie is just doing it, and he did a great job," Edwards said. "I think what we have to do is keep our heads up and go to Homestead. It's still possible, but not probable. I guarantee you we're just gonna go there and give it a 100% and hope something happens."

Johnson started on the pole, but Jamie McMurray passed Johnson to take the lead on the opening lap.

Sam Hornish, Jr. got loose and made contact with Elliott Sadler, causing the two to spin and hit the wall on Lap 19. Busch was the quickest off of pit road during the caution, while McMurray fell to seventh after a lengthy stop.

Johnson restarted fifth on Lap 24, but quickly moved to up to second just before the second caution came on Lap 30 when Brian Vickers cut a right rear tire and hit the wall hard.

When the race resumed on Lap 37, Johnson attempted to take the top spot from Busch, but the caution flag quickly came back out, this time for rain falling on the backstretch.

As the rain intensified by Lap 43, NASCAR stopped the race for 24 minutes.

Johnson chased down Busch and completed the pass as he took the lead for the first time on Lap 81.

Denny Hamlin and David Gilliland pitted on Lap 99 to begin a round of green- flag stops. Johnson came in two laps later and handed the lead back over to Busch, but Johnson was in front again on Lap 110.

At the half-way point, all four Hendrick Motorsports drivers were in the top- six, with Johnson, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. and Jeff Gordon running 1-2-3, and Casey Mears sixth.

But Gordon quickly fell back in the field as he struggled with power in his engine. By Lap 195, Johnson had put Gordon a lap down.

Gordon's engine expired on Lap 269 as he headed to the garage and called it a day.

"I felt it early on and started to lose some power," Gordon said. "I didn't pay too much attention to it, because I was still getting plenty of rpm, and the car was still running good. Then all of the sudden, it started really going down, and I felt it lose a cylinder."

Gordon is on the verge of his first winless season since his rookie year in 1993. His last victory came in October 2007 at Charlotte.

McMurray recaptured the lead on Lap 212 when he beat Johnson off of pit road during a caution. Johnson was held up during his stop.

However, Johnson quickly caught McMurray and dove underneath him to take back the top spot just after the restart on Lap 219. He led from there on out.

The sixth caution for debris on Lap 261 set up the final round of pit stops. Johnson remained the leader after he was the quickest out of the pits, while Edwards moved up to fourth, gaining three positions.

A major pileup occurred on Lap 273 when Juan Pablo Montoya bumped Casey Mears, causing Mears to spin as he collected several cars behind him. David Gilliland's car rested on top of Scott Speed's machine.

"I went through a cloud of smoke and the next thing was I started hitting something and I saw a little bit of fire," Speed said.

Scott Riggs, Bobby Labonte, Kyle Petty and Johnny Sauter were also involved in the incident. NASCAR halted the race again, this time for 18 minutes to clean up the track.

Tony Stewart and Matt Kenseth made contact and spun on Lap 305. The 10th and final caution set up a green-white-checkered finish.

Busch attempted to steal the victory from Johnson during the final two lap but came up two car lengths short of accomplishing it.

"We were pretty good today but not that good," Busch said. "What Jimmie's team is building on and what they're doing to win three championships in a row is something pretty special."

McMurray finished third, while Hamlin came in fifth.

Earnhardt, Jr., Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch, Jeff Burton and David Ragan completed the top-10.

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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.”

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