Edwards wins pole at Homestead, Stewart starts 15th

Autoracing Betting Lines

11/19/2011 - Homestead, FL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Carl Edwards gained a huge advantage over Tony Stewart in their battle for the Sprint Cup Series championship by winning the pole for Sunday's season-ending Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Tony Stewart qualified 15th with his lap at 173.332 mph. Stewart enters the season-finale just three points behind Edwards.

Edwards, who was the second-to-last driver to make his qualifying run in the 48-car field, posted a lap at 175.467 mph for his third pole of the season and the 10th of his Sprint Cup career. He also won the pole at this track in 2005.

With the pole victory, Edwards' No.99 team claimed the first pit selection, which could play in favor for Edwards during his pit stops.

"That's huge," Edwards said. "That's just one lap, but that's a great start for us. We were great in practice. My guys did a great job today. That's what it's about, being able to come here and perform the best we can and not leave anything on the table. This is a great Saturday for us."

Edwards is the defending race winner at Homestead.

In the Chase for the Sprint Cup era (2004-present), three eventual champions have won the pole at Homestead. Kurt Busch did it '04, and Jimmie Johnson did so in 2007 and '09.

Stewart is attempting to win his third championship in the series. He is also trying to become the first driver/owner to win the title since Alan Kulwicki accomplished the feat first in 1992.

"The qualifying deal isn't how a race is going to play out, so this is one lap of 400 miles that we've got to go," Stewart said. "I'm glad that we spent more time on race trim than qualifying trim. We'll see how it plays out."

Martin Truex Jr. earned the outside pole after turning a lap at 174.808 mph.

Kasey Kahne, who won last weekend at Phoenix, qualified third, while Kurt Busch and his Penske Racing teammate, Brad Keselowski, rounded out the top- five.

Matt Kenseth took the sixth spot, followed by Jeff Gordon, Greg Biffle, Jimmie Johnson and Denny Hamlin.

Scott Speed, Reed Sorenson, Mike Skinner, Scott Riggs and Grant Enfinger failed to qualify.

The 400-mile race at Homestead is scheduled to start just after 3:00 p.m. (et).

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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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