Team orders put NASCAR into disrepute at Talladega

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10/24/2011 - Talladega, AL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - NASCAR's latest shindig at Talladega Superspeedway turned out to be as big of a political circus as the one in Washington these days. Don't blame NASCAR officials for the latest mess in restrictor-plate racing. Point the finger at the drivers, team owners and car manufacturers this time.

It was neither compromise nor common ground with opposing teams and manufacturers on Sunday at Talladega -- the sixth race in the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship. A Chevrolet pairing up with a Ford or visa-versa during the 500-mile race at Talladega was along the lines of Democrats and Republicans agreeing on a political issue. It was out of the question.

Thanks to team orders, finding a partner in NASCAR's latest episode of "Dancing With the Cars" had its limits. And that cost many drivers, including several in the Chase field, an opportunity to win the race...and perhaps a championship.

Jeff Gordon was one of the championship contenders left hanging in the final laps. Gordon, in a Chevrolet, had partnered with his Hendrick Motorsports teammate, Mark Martin, in a two-car tandem throughout the race, but Martin was one of five drivers caught up in a wreck with eight laps remaining.

Prior to the final restart with two laps to go, Gordon was hoping to tango with Ford driver and Daytona 500 winner Trevor Bayne. The two had worked well together in previous restrictor-plate races (Daytona and Talladega) this season. But when it came crunch time in this race, Bayne bailed on Gordon and hooked up with Ford driver and title hopeful Matt Kenseth.

"We worked together pretty well in February [Daytona 500]; him pushing me and me pushing him," Gordon said. "But I think everybody knew coming into the weekend, the Fords made it very clear about what they were doing in working with one another and helping one another out and all those things. So I didn't expect him to commit to me on the radio. I expected him to say, 'Man, I'm sorry; I can't.' And when he said, 'Yeah, I'm pushing you; we're good.' I believed him, but I think they had a different plan."

Gordon finished 27th and saw his hopes of winning a fifth Sprint Cup Series title begin to fade away. He is now 82 points behind leader Carl Edwards.

Bayne wound up finishing 15th, four positions ahead of Kenseth.

"Trevor came over to me [after the race in the garage] and said, 'Hey, it wasn't me; it wasn't me. That's what I'm being told to do'," Gordon noted. "But I'm surprised that somebody didn't come back over [the radio]. I just think it could have been handled better.

"If somebody is going to screw you, you'd like them to say it to your face you know? Or at least on the radio. I would have been fine with that."

Bayne had no comment at the track but later responded on his Twitter account.

"I'm not happy about what this has become... It's too premeditated," Bayne tweeted. "We should be able to go with whoever is around [us]."

He also posted on his account, "I would have rather pulled over and finished last than tell [Jeff Gordon] I would work with him and then be strong armed into bailing."

In what's should be every man for himself in each NASCAR race, restrictor- plate racing has become every team and every manufacturer for itself.

"The plan was that we should stick together as Roush Fenway and as the Ford group and try to help one another as best we can," said Edwards, who partnered with teammate Greg Biffle. "I thought we did a good job with that, and I saw other teams doing the same thing.

"You never know what is going to happen. We didn't think that plan would go through to the end. We thought that some of us would be crashed or have trouble or something like that, and then people would mix up partners and stuff."

It's a shame that politics played a major role in this race. It has no business on the racetrack. And NASCAR needs to address it.

You know who really got screwed the most in this race?

The fans.

"These fans pay a ton of money to watch these races, and we owe it to them to put a show on them from rag to rag," race winner Clint Bowyer said.

Talladega is supposed to be a real barnburner. This time, it was a real bummer.

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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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