NASCAR's March Madness begins with Bristol

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03/17/2010 - Bristol, TN (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Series: NASCAR Sprint Cup. Date: Sunday, March 21. Race: Food City 500. Site: Bristol Motor Speedway. Track: .533-mile oval. Start time: 1:00 p.m. (et). Laps: 500. Miles: 266.5. 2009 winner: Kyle Busch. Television: FOX. Radio: Performance Racing Network (PRN)/SIRIUS NASCAR Radio.

After taking the first off-weekend of the season, the Sprint Cup Series will return to Bristol, and all eyes will be focused on Carl Edwards and Brad Keselowski.

Edwards begins his three-race probation period at Bristol. The Roush Fenway Racing driver avoided suspension after he deliberately hit Keselowski from behind and sent him flying upside down into the frontstretch wall last week at Atlanta.

Both drivers had an earlier encounter in the Atlanta race when Keselowski clipped Edwards and shot him up the track before he hit the wall. Edwards spent most of the event behind the wall, but retaliated against Keselowski shortly after he returned to the track. NASCAR immediately parked him for the altercation.

Atlanta was the latest in an on-going feud between Edwards and Keselowski. The issues between the two began last April when Keselowski hit Edwards from behind and sent him airborne into the wall during the final lap at Talladega. NASCAR plans to meet with both drivers and their team owners on Friday before Bristol track activities begin.

Will the Edwards-Keselowski rivalry continue at Bristol? It will make for an interesting weekend, as the two also compete in Saturday's Nationwide Series race.

Bristol recently underwent a track modification, with the addition of more than 160 feet of Steel and Foam Energy Reduction (SAFER) barriers. Track personnel extended the "soft wall" by three feet at the exits of turns two and four. The modification at the high-banked, half-mile track comes nearly three years after a fresh layer of concrete and four feet of additional width led to multiple racing grooves there.

With less room to move, drivers will have to adjust to the traditional style of racing at Bristol -- a lot of beating and banging.

"I like all the room that you can get at some of these race tracks, so that's going to make it tough," said Kyle Busch, who won both Cup races at Bristol last year. "They did it for the excitement of the racetrack and try to put some bumping and grinding back into that place. The exits were already tight with these cars. It's going to slow down the pace probably a little bit, because we don't have as much room on the exits to use. Maybe it will make for better racing. I'm hoping so."

Jeff Gordon, a five-time race winner at Bristol, thinks the barriers will make a considerable difference in racing at Bristol, but drivers should adjust to it quickly.

"We use every inch of that race track," Gordon said. "It is definitely going to be unique. I am anxious to get there and see how many right sides we take off the first hour of practice. It is like anything else, eventually you get used to it."

Heading into Bristol, Kevin Harvick holds a 26-point lead over Matt Kenseth and a 59-point advantage over Greg Biffle. All three drivers have recorded top-10 finishes in the first four races this season.

Four-time defending series champion Jimmie Johnson, who won at California and Las Vegas last month, has moved up to fourth in points (-74) following his 12th-place run at Atlanta.

Bristol is one of six tracks where Johnson has yet to win.

"We're getting close," Johnson said. "It's taken a lot from me as a driver to change my habits in the way I drive that race track and really drive any race track. I've had to completely switch over to a different driving style. It was easy for us to look at what had worked for [Gordon's team] for so many years, but I just couldn't make that work. Our styles are so different that I couldn't make it work."

The spring race at Bristol is the first of six short-track events on the season schedule. Next week, the series will run at Martinsville.

Forty-five teams are on the preliminary entry list for the Food City 500.

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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.