Frustrated Kings visit Islanders

Hockey Betting Lines

02/11/2012 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - It has been an offensively-frustrating road trip for the Los Angeles Kings, one they will continue this afternoon against a New York Islanders club that failed to post a point for the first time in six games last time out.

The Kings rank dead-last in the NHL with 115 goals and it is safe to say that they would be contenders in the Western Conference if they could just score some goals. Los Angeles is 15-0-1 on the year when scoring three or more goals, but failed to hit that mark on Thursday in Florida.

Drew Doughty managed just a third-period tally for the Kings in a 3-1 loss to the Panthers, two nights after Los Angeles beat hosting Tampa Bay by the same score. Still, the Kings have been held to a mere two goals in the three losses so far on their 1-3-0 six-game road trip that ends in Dallas on Sunday.

"We started the game in the first really well and just couldn't find the back of the net," Kings forward Dustin Brown said. "It was more of the same for us. We have got to find ways to score more goals."

Los Angeles got a rare rough outing from Jonathan Quick, who allowed two goals on 11 shots before getting replaced by Jonathan Bernier. The backup stopped all 11 Panther shots fired his way, though head coach Darryl Sutter was cautious after the game about reading into his goaltending switch.

"Just something different. It's no big deal. I'm not a guy who (usually) pulls my goalies. It's not my style," said Sutter.

While the Kings sit four points back of the first-place Sharks in the Pacific Division, the Islanders are 10 points out of a postseason berth in the East despite a recent season-high five-game point streak (3-0-2) that was halted on Thursday. New York was handed a 4-2 loss by visiting Montreal, getting goals from Matt Moulson and Mark Streit.

Evgeni Nabokov made 28 saves in the loss for an Islanders club that was coming off a 1-0 shootout win over the Flyers on Tuesday. John Tavares notched his 100th career assist in defeat.

"We had some chances on the power play," Islanders head coach Jack Capuano said. "We got pucks to the net late, but it was a little too late."

The Islanders had won six in a row over the Kings before notching a 3-0 shutout at home over them last season. Moulson scored twice and current backup Al Montoya notched 35 saves.

The Kings also lost for the first time in seven trips to Long Island. They had gone 5-0-0 with a tie over the unbeaten streak.

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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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