Share your thoughts and comments at the end of the following article.
Before you indulge in sports betting it’s important for you to
familiarize yourself with the different terms that are the part and
parcel of sports betting. For example, for those who are new to sports
betting, understanding terms like point spread is the very starting
point. For those who don’t know, it is “the line” or “the spread” that
is used as a margin to handicap the favorite team.
For
betting purposes, the odds makers usually predict that the favored team
will win by a certain number of points. This number of point is the point spread.
The favorite is always indicated by a minus sign while the underdog by
a plus sign. If you bet on the favorite, you win your bet if the
favorite wins and their margin of victory is greater than the point
spread. If you bet on the underdog, you win if the underdog wins, ties,
or if the favored team wins but fails to exceed the point spread.
On
the other hand, in baseball and hockey, point spreads are replaced by
the money line. Money line betting is simply wagering on the contest
based on a given price rather than a point spread.
In
football, the two most popular ways of expressing odds is either the
football betting point spread or money lines. Football betting point
spread can go up or down at any time depending on various factors like
player injuries, weather, and others.
More about Betting Lines, Point spreads football odds, etc.
1.
Football Point Spread bets are one of the most common sports bets. And
if the handicappers do their job right and choose the right spread
number, there should be an even chance of winning or losing the bet.
2.
As the season begins, it signals the opportunity to make quick bucks,
betting against the NFL pointspreads. Like all the NFL teams, you
undoubtedly have a fair chance of emerging a winner. Now, if a football
team has scored 20 points or less in each of its last three games, they
are likely to cover the point spread in the fourth but if a team has
scored over 90 points in the last three games, they may let you down in
the fourth. Since the line will likely be too high, they may not beat
the spread, even if they win the game.
3. After a big win in
which an opponent was thoroughly whipped, a team may be let down a bit.
They may win the football game, but be unable to beat the point spread NFL.
4.
After an embarrassing loss, assuming it is the first one of the season,
expect a team to come back and beat the spread,if not win the game.
This is particularly true if they were shut out.
5. If two teams
played earlier in the season and the score was close, the loser of the
first game is likely to win this one. However, if one team whipped the
other, they are likely to win again.
6. When all else fails in
the game of football, take the underdog because favorites tend to be
overplayed. So, when you see nothing better to do, take the underdog
and the points.
7. If you are betting for real on individual
games and want to take the favorite, do so early in the week. If the
line changes, the chances are good that it will be because of more
bucks coming in on the favorite. And conversely, if you want to take
the underdog, do so later in the week; the favorite may have been
considerably overplayed by then.
8. In the case of basket ball
games, NBA point spreads make betting more difficult to predict, thus
adding excitement to the betting experience. However, the excitement of
winning is far sweeter.
9. NBA games must go at least 43 minutes to have some interesting action. For wagering
purposes, winners and losers are determined by the final
score(including overtime), provided that the game has gone the minimum
time as specified above. If a game is suspended after the minimum time
has been played and not resumed the same day, then regardless of
whether the game is completed at a later date, the score when the game
is halted will determine the betting results.
10.If play is
suspended before the minimum time has been reached and not resumed the
same day, all bets will be scored as’no action’ and all the money is be
refunded.
Looking for good sports betting sites?
If you’re serious about sports betting, we sure pick a good sports book or informative site like www.brandonlang.com.
With a solid reputation and experience spanning several years,
thousands of sports bettors around the world swear by Brandon Lang’s
sport handicappers picks. Not just experienced bettors, betting
enthusiasts who have no prior experience in sports gambling also earn a
considerable sum of money through sites like www.brandonlang.com,www.sportsadvisors.com and www.whowillcover.com
that give out a lot of interesting and useful information on point
spreads, etc. These sites can help you place bets on your favorite
professional or college sports teams. They offer sports betting odds on
professional and college football, NBA point spread, NFL pointspreads,
baseball, and more.
Besides, these sites also provide a large
variety of betting options such as Proposition betting, Odds to win
betting, Player vs. Player match up betting, Money Line betting, Teaser
betting , Parlay betting , Reverse betting, Pleaser betting, and more
gambling options that you can enjoy from the comfort of your home.
About the Author: David Kaplin is one of the top
experts in the sports betting industry today. The author has over 10
years of experience in this industry. Dealing in most of the prime
sports and closely monitoring top players have made him one of the
safest resources for betting information. For more information please
contact us at: http://www.brandonlang.com
Technorati Tags: sports betting lines, sport betting, sports betting line, vegas sports betting
Betting Big on China’s Vegas
Las Vegas Sands (LVS) Chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson has never been one to shy away from a bet, and on Aug. 28 he unveiled his biggest gamble yet: the Venetian Macao, a giant casino, hotel, and convention complex that cost $2.4 billion.
And that’s just for starters. By the end of 2009, the group expects to spend as much as $12 billion on 14 more hotels with casinos offering a total of 20,000 rooms on a strip of reclaimed land called Cotai in the former Portuguese colony of Macao, an hour’s ferry ride from Hong Kong. “Never before has such an entertainment center occurred in the history of Asia,” Adelson told a press conference at the Venetian a few hours before it opened its doors to thousands of gamblers waiting outside. “The opening is the beginning of what has been my dream, to reproduce the capital of entertainment [of Las Vegas] in Asia for Asians.”
Big doesn’t even begin to describe the sprawling complex, which the group claims is the second-largest building constructed in one phase in the world; only a flower warehouse in Holland is larger. [The Boeing (BA) factory outside Seattle is bigger, but was built in several phases.] The Venetian boasts 3,000 rooms, 51 gondolas for its Venice-style canals, a 15,000-seat indoor arena, and 1.2 million square feet of convention space. With 870 gaming tables and 3,400 slot machines, its 550,000-square-foot casino is the world’s largest. The employee canteen, which serves a staff of about 10,000, has more than 20,000 pairs of reusable chopsticks.
In Development: The Macao Strip
Originally, Las Vegas Sands had hoped to entice major hotel chains to build their own properties in Cotai, but when there were no takers, the group revised its strategy and now is building them itself, while international chains will manage them. The collection of hotels will include properties run by the Four Seasons, Sheraton and St. Regis (HOT), and Hilton (HLT).
Plunking down so much cash in bricks and mortar in Macao may sound like a risky strategy, but not to Sands President and Chief Operating Officer William Weidner. “It’s equivalent to asking if you could own 20,000 rooms on the Las Vegas Strip,” he says. “If you could own the entire center of the Las Vegas Strip with $12 billion, you would do it today in a heartbeat.”
Filling all those hotel beds is still going to be a major challenge. While Macao, a city of just 450,000, attracted more than 22 million tourists last year, they stayed on average only about 1.25 days. Weidner is expecting that convention-related guests at the Venetian will stay four to five days, and regular tourists two to three, with a strong weekend crowd visiting from Hong Kong and southern China. By October, he predicts a 90% occupancy at the Venetian, where suites go for about $200 per night.
Revenue Sharing Hurts Earnings
There’s no doubt that many Chinese are already flocking to Macao. The city trumped Las Vegas last year as the world’s biggest gambling destination, earning more than $7 billion in bets compared with $6.6 billion for Vegas. That lead looks to widen. Growth in the first half was up an explosive 46 percent year-over-year, to $4.75 billion, fueled in part by money from people who have made a killing on mainland stocks. The benchmark CSI 300 index is up more than 150 percent this year. “Macao is an indirect equity play for the region,” says Gabriel Chan, gaming analyst at Credit Suisse (CS) in Hong Kong. The market for high rollers “is totally driven by the wealth effect [from the stock market].”
Unfortunately for shareholders of Las Vegas Sands, that has not yet translated into higher earnings from Macao. After deducting expenses for junket operators who bring in the high rollers in exchange for a hefty percentage from net house winnings, first-half earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization [EBITDA] at the 740-table Sands Macao [the downtown Adelson casino that opened in 2004] fell $2 million, to $228 million, due to what Executive Vice-President Bradley Stone described as “aggressive program” sharing of revenues with operators to pull in VIPs to its casinos. The Sands has seen its total market share fall from about 23 percent a year ago, to 17 percent-18 percent now.
Competition is certainly heating up. Las Vegas-based Wynn Resorts (WYNN) opened the first phase of a $1.2 billion casino and luxury hotel last September, and Melco-PBL (MPEL) started taking its first bets at the Crown Macau in May. MGM Mirage (MGM) will open a property before the end of the year. Already the pickings are thinning out. Daily gaming revenue per table has been steadily declining since peaking at $10,000 in 2002, when billionaire Stanley Ho’s gaming monopoly had not yet expired. In 2006, the average take was just $3,200 because of the rapid overall expansion of gaming tables. It’s going to get worse: As ever more properties come on stream in the next few years, that figure could fall as low as $1,800 by 2010, Morgan Stanley (MS) gaming analyst Rob Hart said in an interview earlier this year.
More Like Asia’s Atlantic City
Macao also attracts a big-spending clientele. Whereas Las Vegas casinos earn more than half their gaming revenues from small-time players feeding coins into slot machines, in Macao one-armed bandits only contributed to 4.1% of the take in the first six months of this year. Baccarat, where the minimum bid in VIP rooms can start at $40,000, accounted for 85 percent of total Macao gaming revenues.
Wynn and Adelson won their gaming concessions from the Macao government in 2001 largely on the promise they would help transform the former colony, with an image as “sin city,” into a family-friendly multipurpose destination. That transformation is well under way. This fall the Venetian arena will host an exhibition basketball game between the NBA’s Orlando Magic and China’s national team, as well as a match between tennis legends Roger Federer and Pete Sampras. The Wynn Macao is sponsoring the musical Cats. In the spring, Las Vegas Sands will open a dedicated, 2,000-seat theater for Cirque du Soleil.
Another challenge of the Macao market for operators building big properties is that it has a lot more in common with Atlantic City than with Las Vegas. Most visitors, of whom more than 50 percent now come from mainland China, stay less than a day, but even those who do stay the night are more likely to spend most of their time at the gaming tables or in massage parlors, not sipping champagne in the Jacuzzis of luxury suites or browsing the marble-inlay malls selling Prada handbags and Gucci shoes. “Here in Asia, you will have a bit of imbalance because Asians like to game,” says Weidner, who expects gaming to account for as much as 70 percent of gross revenues, compared with 50 percent in Las Vegas. “Ethnically and culturally, they are more comfortable with gaming as a form of recreation.”
Frederik Balfour — BusinessWeek