Cards KO 49ers; Leinart injures shoulder

Football Betting Lines

12/25/2006 - San Francisco, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Matt Leinart completed 9-of-13 passes for 162 yards and a score before spraining his left shoulder just before halftime, as the Arizona Cardinals went on to top San Francisco, 26-20, and knock the 49ers out of playoff contention.

Leinart got sacked by Roderick Green just under the two-minute mark of the second quarter and went to the locker room with a sprained left shoulder, but Kurt Warner came in to complete 9-of-13 passes for 105 yards in relief.

Edgerrin James rushed for 105 yards on 29 carries for the Cardinals (5-10), who have won three of their last four. Larry Fitzgerald caught four balls for 93 yards and a touchdown, while Anquan Boldin added 64 receiving yards on four catches.

Alex Smith completed 18-of-29 passes for 190 yards and an interception for the 49ers (6-9), who have dropped four of their last five. Frank Gore rushed for 51 yards on 11 attempts. Vernon Davis had four receptions for 91 yards, and Arnaz Battle posted 55 receiving yards on seven catches.

Because of San Francisco's loss, Seattle won the NFC West.

Gore scored on a one-yard run with five minutes left, but the Cardinals never gave the ball back after getting three more first downs.

San Francisco drew first blood on a 49-yard field goal from Joe Nedney with 10:19 remaining to cap a seven-play, 37-yard drive. Neil Rackers responded with a 25-yarder almost three minutes later to tie the score.

Marcel Shipp then ran it in from five yards out to cap an eight-play, 64-yard drive with a tick under a minute left to take a 10-3 Arizona lead into the second quarter.

Leinart got his passing game going and found Fitzgerald for a six-yard touchdown pass to cap a 10-play, 74-yard drive that chewed up over five minutes off the clock. Rackers followed with a 39-yarder about six minutes later, but Nedney converted a 32-yarder with just 22 seconds left for a 20-6 Arizona lead at halftime.

San Francisco punted on its first possession out of the locker room, but Troy Walters fumbled and Maurice Hicks recovered for the 49ers. They capitalized on the turnover when Gore scored from two yards out for a 20-13 deficit with 6:25 remaining in the third.

Rackers got credited with a 37-yard field goal three seconds into the fourth, but the ball actually hooked to the left of the upright, for a 23-13 Cardinals lead.

After Battle fumbled on San Fran's opening play of the drive, Robert Griffith recovered the ball. The Cardinals then needed just three plays to set up Rackers for a 32-yarder with 8:28 left.

The 49ers responded with a seven-play, all-passing drive to set up a one-yard touchdown run by Gore with five minutes left. However, Arizona picked up three first downs en route to running out the clock and the playoff hopes for the 49ers.

Game Notes

San Francisco has a 17-14 lead in its all-time series with the Cardinals, but has dropped four in a row to Arizona...The Cardinals opened University of Phoenix Stadium with a 34-27 win over San Francisco in Week 1, and also swept a pair of games against its NFC West rival last season. The Niners were 17-10 losers when Arizona visited Monster Park in Week 13...Prior to 2005, the 49ers had prevailed in eight of the previous nine head-to-head meetings. The Niners won by identical 31-28 marks, both in overtime, in a 2004 home-and- home...James became Arizona's first 1,000-yard rusher in eight years.

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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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