12/16/2006 - Washington, DC (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Caron Butler poured in a game-high 30 points and Gilbert Arenas scored 27 to lead Washington over Miami, 106-95, at the Verizon Center.
Butler, who shot 12-of-19 from the floor, also grabbed nine rebounds and dished out four assists. Arenas finished 10-of-23 and pulled down six boards and had six helpers.
Antawn Jamison netted 22 points with 10 rebounds and five blocks for the Wizards, who have won two straight and snapped a 12-game losing streak against Miami.
Washington finished 49 percent shooting.
James Posey led the Heat with 26 points off the bench while Alonzo Mourning added 17 points and eight boards in defeat. Antoine Walker added 12 points for Miami.
The Heat, which have dropped two in a row and five of their last eight, shot 41 percent from the field.
The Wizards got going right away with a 12-2 spurt in the opening 3:20 of the first quarter. Then, after Chris Quinn's driving layup cut Miami's deficit to 30-17 with 1:45 left, Washington fired off 10 straight points for a 23-point advantage after one.
Trailing 46-21 early in the second, the Heat went on an 11-1 run led by nine points from Posey to cut within 15. With 3:47 remaining, Posey drilled a pair of threes and Quinn added one of his own to make it a 55-44 contest.
Miami got as close as nine late in the frame, but Arenas' driving layup gave the Wizards a 60-49 halftime lead.
Posey's three-pointer capped an 8-0 scamper by the Heat to start the third and cut it to 60-57. However, Washington scored six of the next seven points and maintained its lead en route to an 83-76 edge entering the final quarter.
In the fourth, Gary Payton's jumper closed it to a five-point game, 94-89, but the Wizards cruised to victory after a pair of Arenas free throws opened up a 10-point advantage with just under four minutes to play.
Game Notes
Jamison finished 9-of-14 shooting...Miami's Brendan Haywood and Jarvis Hayes each donated eight points...Quinn ended with nine points...Miami hosts Memphis on Saturday while Washington visits the Lakers on Sunday.
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Pierce ended
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. “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).
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.
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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