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08/24/2010 - Joliet, IL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Series: IZOD IndyCar. Date: Sunday, August 29. Race: PEAK Antifreeze and Motor Oil Indy 300. Site: Chicagoland Speedway. Track: 1.5-mile tri-oval. Start Time: 8:00 p.m. (et). Laps: 200. Miles: 300. 2009 winner: Ryan Briscoe. Television: VERSUS. Radio: IMS Radio Network/SIRIUS XM Satellite.
After the ninth and last road/street course race of the season was completed last Sunday at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, CA, the IZOD IndyCar Series now holds its "final four" events on 1.5-mile ovals, beginning this weekend at Chicagoland Speedway.
With five wins so far this season, Will Power from Team Penske holds a 59- point lead over Dario Franchitti, the defending series champion. Franchitti's Chip Ganassi Racing teammate, Scott Dixon, is 95 points out of the top spot. All five of Power's wins have come on road/street courses.
"I don't think this championship is almost mine," he said. "There's a lot of racing to go. Four races, a lot can happen. Really, whatever the buffer is, you can lose a lot of that in just one race. I'm going to race those ovals like I want to win the championship. I think I got enough experience now, and I think we'll be very strong."
After Chicagoland, the series will head to Kentucky Speedway (September 4) and then Twin Ring Motegi in Japan (September 19) before wrapping up the season at Homestead-Miami Speedway (October 2).
Penske has won the last two race at Chicagoland, with Helio Castroneves taking the 2008 race and Ryan Briscoe capturing the 2009 event.
Power did not compete in last year's race at Chicagoland due to season-ending injuries he sustained during a practice crash at Sonoma. He finished fifth in his only IndyCar start at Chicagoland in 2008, when he drove for KV Racing Technology.
Even though Dixon and Franchitti have been dominant on the 1.5-mile ovals lately, a Ganassi driver has not won at Chicagoland since Dan Wheldon's victory in a Ganassi car here in 2006. Wheldon also won at Chicagoland in 2005.
Wheldon departed Ganassi and moved over to Panther Racing at the conclusion of the 2008 season.
Dixon has been the bridesmaid at Chicagoland, finishing second in the last four races here.
Last year, Briscoe beat Dixon to the finish line by 0.0077 seconds -- the fourth closest finish in series history.
"I've seen this movie before several times, so it's frustrating," Dixon said after his runner-up finish at Chicagoland in 2009. "I was thinking maybe for a lap or two there that we just might be able to do it. But for the majority of the night, if it came down to that shootout, I think we definitely knew we were going to lose. But it's getting pretty old, so hopefully we can turn it around at some point."
In 2008, Castroneves finished 0.0033 seconds ahead of Dixon in the second closest finish in series history. However, Dixon clinched the series title by 17 points over Castroneves.
When the series competed at Chicagoland in 2007, Franchitti, who drove for Michael Andretti's team at the time, entered the season-ending race with just a three-point lead over Dixon. The two drivers battled all the way to the final lap, with Franchitti taking the checkered flag and the series title.
Dixon held the lead on the last lap, but Franchitti passed Dixon, who suddenly slowed when he ran out of fuel. He coasted home second.
Chicagoland had hosted the series' season-finale from 2006-08. The season now ends in Homestead.
Twenty-nine teams are on the preliminary entry list for the Peak Antifreeze and Motor Oil Indy 300.
<< Nationwide runs final road course race of the season at Montreal
Montreal, Canada (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Series: NASCAR Nationwide. Date: Sunday,
August 29. Race: NAPA Auto Parts 200. Site: Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. Track:
2.710-mile, 14-turn road course. Start time: 2:30 p.m. (et). Laps: 74. Miles:
200.466. 20
<< Red Sox activate C Cash
Boston, MA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Boston Red Sox have activated catcher Kevin
Cash from the 15-day disabled list.
To make room for Cash, the Red Sox optioned catcher Dusty Brown to Triple-A
Pawtucket after Monday's win over Seattle.
C
<< Tigers' Ordonez to have ankle surgery
Detroit, MI (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Detroit Tigers slugger Magglio Ordonez will
undergo a procedure on Wednesday to stabilize his broken right ankle.
Ordonez was examined by foot/ankle specialist Dr. Phillip Kwong of the Kerlan-
Jobe Clinic
<< This Week in Auto Racing August 27 - 29
Montreal, Canada (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series takes its
final off-week of the season, but there's still plenty of racing action this
weekend. While the Nationwide Series heads north of the border to Montreal,
the Ca
Mariners-Red Sox game rained out; day-night DH set for Wednesday >>
Boston, MA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Tuesday's scheduled game between the Seattle
Mariners and Boston Red Sox has been postponed because of rain.
The contest will instead be played Wednesday as part of a day-night
doubleheader. The f
Cards place pitcher Reyes on DL >>
Pittsburgh, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - St. Louis placed southpaw relief pitcher
Dennys Reyes on the 15-day disabled list with a left elbow strain Tuesday.
The move, retroactive to August 16, leaves a gap on the roster that will be
filled
Rangers purchase Cora's contract, designate Arias >>
Arlington, TX (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Texas Rangers have purchased the contract
of infielder Alex Cora from Triple-A Oklahoma City.
Cora, who the Rangers signed to a minor league deal last week, played in 62
games for the New York Mets thi
Ohlendorf could be done for year >>
Pittsburgh, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Pirates might have lost the services
of pitcher Ross Ohlendorf for the year.
Ohlendorf was diagnosed with a strained lat muscle behind his right
shoulder after an MRI was taken Tuesday m
There is little doubt that the NFL is where the sportsbooks see the most action and also make the most loot. The NFL possesses betting friendly attributes that are unlike any of the other major sports. First off, there are relatively few teams to keep track of in comparison to college football betting or college basketball. And second, these teams play only once a week which makes staying on top of the results much easier than it is in the daily leagues such as the NBA, NHL, and MLB.
These dynamics, along with the sheer excitement of watching and wagering on football, brings more square action to the table than any of the other sports. Almost every Tom, Dick and Harry in America is an NFL expert in their own mind and that is precisely what the oddsmakers prey upon.
Understanding who bets the games is just as important as understanding which teams are playing the games. The market at times will dictate price, which in the betting world means the oddsmakers cater to the public rather than reality.
Knowing the market inside and out is the basis of our NFL handicapping model. That is, our approach to NFL handicapping is of the contrarian or value seeking variety. We will at times place a higher premium on public sentiment than on the fundamentals. This strategy dictates playing dogs and/or lesser competent teams, or teams the public wants nothing to do with. Or better yet, fading the teams the oddsmakers want you to bet on.
Along these same lines, we carry a similar notion that the first week of the NFL season presents one of the ripest opportunities for the astute gambler. This conflicts with conventional wisdom and/or handicapping lore, as most would say it is better to watch a few games and assess each team before jumping in with both feet. That’s all fine and dandy, but there are some interesting trends to exploit in Week 1 and we’d be remiss to ignore them. Let us quickly explain.
Gone are the days of dynasties, where the same core players stay intact and dominate the league year after year. Free agency and player movements can completely transform teams from one season to the next. In today’s parity-driven NFL, poor teams typically don’t stay poor for all that long and excellent teams must constantly reinvent themselves to stay on top.
The temptation might be to assume prior year results are the best indicator of who is going to cover in Week 1. To Joe Public, playoff teams from the prior season, home teams, favorites, and so one, look even more enticing than usual since there is no current season performance to judge them against. But the question begs: are the oddsmakers setting a trap?
To find the answer, we culled five years worth of Week 1 NFL data. As always, all of our analysis is done from an ATS perspective. The purpose here is to share the most important angles we unearthed and try to explain the logic behind them. So strap on your helmet, throw on your shoulder pads, and follow our lead as we expose some rare holes in the oddsmakers’ line of defense.
Home vs. Away Teams
Over the past five seasons, NFL home teams in Week 1 are just 31-42-7 ATS (42 percent). This of course implies that roadies are a 58 percent winning proposition during this time. The public at large has a tendency to overvalue home teams and this is especially true in Week 1 when there is no current season data to make predictions from. Consequently, the oddsmakers almost surely shade the home teams, by and large making road teams the choice for the value player.
Conclusion: Look long and hard at road teams first when handicapping the opening week.
Price ranges
Favorites are just 31-42-7 ATS (42 percent) in the opening week over the past five NFL seasons (Coincidentally, home teams hold the same ATS record as noted above). This means that underdogs bark at a 58 percent clip. Mid-range favorites performed the worst among our specified price ranges. In particular, favorites priced between –3 1/2 and –6 1/2 are only 8-15 ATS (35 percent) during this time.
The same basic pattern holds true when looking at home favorites (road favorites gravitate towards a 50 percent mean). Home favorites indeed are just 21-32-3 ATS (40 percent) in the first week of NFL action since 1999. Again, mid-range favorites are similarly the poorest performers when we look at home teams. Consider that home teams priced between –3 1/2 and –6 1/2 have stumbled to a 6-13 ATS (32 percent) mark in Week 1 games the past five seasons.
Conclusion: Like home teams, favorites and particularly mid-range favorites are generally overvalued in Week 1.
Playoff teams
It might surprise you to learn that playoff teams from the prior year versus non-playoff teams from the prior year are a mere 16-23-3 (41 percent) ATS in NFL Week 1 games over the past five seasons. Home teams which made the playoffs versus teams which did not make the playoffs from the prior season drop to a meager 7-14-1 ATS (33 percent) during this time.
Why are playoff teams, and in particular those at home, such bad bets the past five openers? Just as the case with home teams and with favorites, oddsmakers intentionally overprice playoff teams in the opening week to compensate for the public’s propensity to over bet them.
This theory holds true just looking at straight-up records from the past season as well. That is, home teams with winning records from the prior season vs. road teams with losing records from the prior season are just 8-13 ATS in Week 1 NFL games since 1999.
Conclusion: Playoff teams from the prior year and in particular, home playoff teams, are overvalued in Week 1 NFL games.
Scoring defense and scoring offense
Do good defenses and for that matter good offenses from the prior season fare better against the number the following year in Week 1 games? Well, sort of. Generally speaking, teams with a solid offense or defense from the prior season tend to do well in the opening week so long as they are on the road. As a host, however, the best offenses and best defenses from the prior year tend to be overvalued in Week 1.
Consider that the top five scoring defenses (i.e. points allowed) from the prior season are a nice 8-4 ATS (66 percent) on the road in NFL openers the past five seasons. Meanwhile, the top five scoring defenses from the prior season are just 3-8-2 ATS (27 percent) as a host in Week 1 during the same time period.
There is no discernable advantage or disadvantage for teams with a top five scoring offense (i.e. points scored) in Week 1 games. However, when we look at scoring offenses from the bottom up (isolating the five worst offenses from the prior season), the results are rather interesting. In particular, teams ranked in the bottom five in scoring offense from the prior season are 9-4-1 ATS (69 percent) when on the road in Week 1.
The logic is simply that the public perception is a poor scoring offensive unit from the year prior will have little chance of winning on the road in Week 1. In turn, the oddsmakers compensate for this perception and these poor offensive teams from the year prior carry extra line value on the Week 1 trail.
Conclusion: Teams with top-ranked defenses from the previous season are good bets when playing on the road, but poor bets when playing at home. Also, teams ranked among the bottom five in scoring offense from the prior season are generally a good value in their Week 1 openers, provided they are playing on the road.
Scoring margin
An exceedingly straightforward way of measuring scoring offense and scoring defense together as a whole is to look at a team's “margin." Margin is simply scoring offense minus scoring defense, which is a fairly clear-cut measure of how a team does on both sides of the ball. Typically, the higher the margin, the better the team.
In this regard, it might seem counterintuitive that teams carrying the higher margin from the prior season in week one matchups are merely 31-42-7 ATS (42 percent). Furthermore, road teams with the higher margin are 14-20-6 ATS (41 percent), while home teams with the higher margin are 17-22-1 ATS (44 percent). Once again, these results line up with the theory that better teams from the prior year are overvalued come opening day of the following season.
Conclusion: “Better” teams, which often boast a higher margin than their opponent, are overvalued the following season in NFL openers.
In sum
Oddsmakers cater NFL betting lines to match public perception and also to bait the public into poor bets. The temptation to use the prior year’s success as a buy sign for how a team will perform against the spread in Week 1 of the following season is an enormous trap.
The fact is, isolating road teams, road dogs, non-playoff teams vs. playoff teams, teams with a losing record or low margin vs. playoff teams or ones with a high margin from the previous year is where the line value resides. Quite simply, taking the road less traveled is your surest path to NFL betting profits.
To visit this sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your Sportsbook accepts Visa needs.
(This is an update of a sportsbook for the May 4th issue of ESPN The Magazine).
The Kentucky Derby's post-position draw happened on Wednesday. And, as is always the case, shortly afterwards, a buzz raced around Churchill Downs. It was a low rumble at first, nothing that the squares in the mint julep crowd pick up right away. But by the time the sun set over the twin spires, the chatter was impossible to ignore. Everyone -- sharps, trainers, owners -- was talking about one thing: the wise guy horse, the pre-draw long shot us mopes didn't have on our radar until it was too late.
"You think you're hearing the scoop," says handicapper Lane Gold. "Then you get to the window, the odds are short, and you missed it."
Recognizing a wise-guy horse early is as hard as picking a Derby bonnet. That's because handicappers don't like hype (see ya, I Want Revenge). They want Thoroughbreds who look good losing prep races like the Santa Anita Derby. They eye horses who ate up the field after starting wide or made an easy transition from synthetic tracks to dirt. They look for ponies who showed muscle gain race to race and those who ran hard after several weeks' rest.
"A wise guy," says John Avello, a bookmaker at Wynn Las Vegas, "looks for a horse who can improve."
When I first wrote Horse Betting for The Mag, which I turned in a three weeks before Wednesday's draw, I predicted these three horses had wise guy potential:
CHOCOLATE CANDY (15-1 in mid-April, currently 20-1 according to Avello): His second-place finish at Santa Anita, following a seven-week layoff, proved two things: He can run after resting, and -- by losing a high-profile prep race -- he wouldn't be overhyped.
DESERT PARTY (15-1; 15-1): He was upset in the UAE Derby by a horse he had beaten twice. The public remembers his loss, but the wise guys his wins.
PIONEEROF THE NILE (8-1; 4-1): The big favorite at Santa Anita struggled to win, so he initially got less hype than Quality Road and I Want Revenge.
You may have noticed that the odds on Pioneerof the Nile have been cut in half, from 8-1 to 4-1. Which means the wise guys took a shine to him long before the post-position draw. But, to be honest, this is one of those years with four elite horses getting everyone's attention, squares and sharps alike.
"You're not gonna get a lot of chatter about a horse that isn't in that group, which includes Pioneer, I Want Revenge, Dunkirk and Friesan Fire," Avello told me Wednesday. "We don't have a group of horses behind those top four who look like real legit contenders."
Come Derby week, the final two elements in picking a wise guy horse are how he's working out and what gate he's coming out of.
(By the way, picking a Preakness favorite is a whole different bale of hay, partially based on how horses finish in the Derby. You can see my analysis of who has the best shot at Pimlico on Insider Sunday morning.)
Well, early in the week I Want Revenge, Pioneerof the Nile and Friesan Fire were working out better than anyone. Some thought Friesan Fire, currently 6-1, might have run too fast, burning a five-furlong run in :57 4/5. "When you are running that fast you have the sense that it took something out of him," says Gold. "The Derby is longer than any horse has run, and if they need that extra surge you worry they won't have it because they burned it in the workout."
But, Gold points out, Friesan Fire's trainer is Larry Jones, Two years ago his horse Hard Spun did a five-eighths workout in :57 3/5 and then went on to finish second, behind Street Sense, in the Derby. "Every trainer has different methods," says Gold. "And clearly he knows what he's doing."
Now, as for starting position, Gold says to remember this: Churchill Downs traditionally has 14 starting gates. For the Derby, it brings out auxiliary gates and between the original 14th gate and the new 15th gate, there is a little more space than there is between gates 1-14. "That 15 position will give you a precious second or two to sort out what's happening to your inside," says Gold. "Sixteen is also okay because you can follow the horse in front of you."
Dunkirk, one of the race favorites, is coming out of gate 15. In 16 is Baffert's Pioneerof the Nile. I Want Revenge drew 13, where Smarty Jones won from in 2004, and Friesan Fire picked the sixth position. "He doesn't have a lot of speed to the inside of him," says Gold. "So he will get a clear shot to be near the front."
All the jibber-jabber means this: Pioneerof the Nile has leapfrogged from 8-1 to being the second favorite, along with Dunkirk, behind I Want Revenge. Meanwhile, Friesan Fire, with a good trainer, a strong week of training and a decent post position, is still at 6-1. "By Saturday, it's possible he could go from fourth to the favorite," says Gold.
In other words, meet Friesan Fire, your 2009 wise guy horse.
"Now," says Avello, "it's time for action."
To visit this horse betting site go to MySportsbook.com for all your horse racing betting needs.
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