Montanes into semis in Stuttgart

Tennis Betting Lines

07/16/2010 - Stuttgart, Germany (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Albert Montanes of Spain rolled over second-seeded Jurgen Melzer in the quarterfinals of the Mercedes Cup tennis event on Friday.

Montanes, seeded fifth, cruised over the second-seeded French Open semifinalist, 6-4, 6-1, on the red clay at TC Weissenhof to set up a match against fourth-seeded countrymate Juan Carlos Ferrero, who bounced German Simon Greul, 6-3, 7-5, in their quarterfinal match.

Third-seeded Gael Monfils moved into the round of four with a 5-7, 6-3, 6-4 victory over German Florian Mayer.

The Frenchman will meet Daniel Gimeno-Traver in the semifinals, as the Spaniard upended Marco Chiudinelli of Switzerland, 6-1, 6-3. Gimeno-Traver upset top-seeded Nikolay Davydenko in the quarters.

Wwwworldwidegamble Tennis Betting News

<< Lightning re-sign Szczechura
Tampa, FL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Tampa Bay Lightning re-signed forward Paul Szczechura to a one-year contract on Friday. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Szczechura appeared in 52 games last season for the Lightning, rec

<< Sunderland's Gordon to miss start of new season
Sunderland, England (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Sunderland goalkeeper Craig Gordon will miss the start of the upcoming Premiership season after he fractured a bone in his arm. Gordon sustained the injury in training on Thursday after he fell awkwar

<< Szavay moves on in Prague; Garrigues ousted
Prague, Czech Republic (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Last week's Budapest titlist Agnes Szavay advanced to the semifinals of the $220,000 Prague Open tennis event with a straight set win over Slovenian Polona Hercog. The seventh-seeded Sza

<< Barrera completes West Ham move
London, England (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Mexico international Pablo Barrera completed his move to West Ham on Friday, the club announced. The 23-year-old winger has moved to Upton Park from Mexican side UNAM Pumas on a four-year contract

<< Celtics to bring back Robinson
Boston, MA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Boston Celtics are reportedly set to re-sign guard Nate Robinson. According to the Boston Herald on Friday, Robinson will ink a two-year, $8 million deal with the club that traded for him last season.

As the wind blows, scores soar at St. Andrews >>
St. Andrews, Scotland (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - After second-round play was stopped for 66 minutes at the British Open, the wind continued to blow at St. Andrews, and in the process, sent scores soaring. With the final group midway through th

EWU home victories would turn opponents red >>
Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - In an effort to boost exposure, Eastern Washington University will literally go in the red this year, replacing the traditional grass surface of Woodward Field with red artificial turf. The move is admitte

Predators sign Lundmark >>
Nashville, TN (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Nashville Predators signed center Jamie Lundmark to a one-year, two-way contract on Friday. The 29-year-old appeared in 36 games between Calgary and Toronto in the 2009-10 season and tallied five

Roberts, Skelton under contract >>
Phoenix, AZ (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Arizona Cardinals will head into training camp with their two FCS draft choices, quarterback John Skelton and wide receiver Andre Roberts, signed to four-year contracts. Skelton was the Cardinals' fifth-rou

AL Central: Tribe's future will take shape in second half >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - For Cleveland Indians fans, the hard part is over. They've endured a first half of the season that saw their team finish 20 games below .500 (34-54) and fall 15 1/2 games off the pace in the American League Central. Grante

SPORTS BETTING - Tennis is an underrated and under-utilized bettors' sport.

Ten years ago, at just about this time, I called Alan Boston in Vegas and left him a voicemail that went something like this (abridged version): "Hey Alan, Chad Millman from ESPN The Magazine calling. I want to do a book about wise guys, you in?"

A couple weeks later I got a message back (abridged version): "I don't know, maybe," Boston said. "Call me and we'll talk about it. But not later today. I got $1,000 on Andre Agassi to win the French Open at 40-1, and he's in the finals."

Here's what happened next (abridged version): Agassi won his tourney. Boston won his $40,000. I wrote sportsbook.

In the ten years since, how much has been wagered on the big-time tennis events? Put it this way: The Nevada Gaming Commission doesn't even track the number year by year because it's so small.

"Tennis makes up about one-tenth of one percent of our take," says Lucky's bookmaking boss Jimmy Vaccaro. "The last big golf major we probably had $100,000 worth of bets. In tennis, we might have written two big tickets."

Tennis' lack of popularity amongst the American bettoratti is no surprise, really. For starters, the biggest sports betting holidays -- the Super Bowl, the NCAA tourney -- are must see TV. People, at least the degenerates I know, plan vacations around watching those events in Vegas sports books.

But Wimbledon? Doesn't exactly reel in the whales. "Seriously, it's the nuts as an event," says Boston. "But who even knows when it's on?"

Here's another reason that helps explain why golf gets traction, something I call "The Bubbe Theory." My Bubbe is pushing 95 and has cataracts so bad that, to her, even the most crystalline Chicago day is mostly cloudy. But she still listens to the Cubs games, and she still calls me in a fit if she disagrees with something Rick Telander writes in the Chicago Sun Times. She's a sports fan. If she doesn't know you, you're just filling a niche. And niche players, even historically good ones like Roger and Raf, don't drive betting volume. Only the highest profile names attract square money, which inflates wagering totals like a shot of saline to the lips. Bubbe, and the public, loved Agassi, tennis' last cross-the-rubicon, mainstream draw. She also has a crush on Tiger. She's given me standing orders to put a sawbuck on the big cat whenever I walk through a sports book (or mistakenly tap into one via my Internet machine.) That explains why the Masters is getting $100K in action at some books while the four tennis majors might not get that combined this year.

This isn't a case of tennis being a difficult sport to bet. In fact, in Europe, it's probably the second most popular sport for gambling after soccer. Granted, as the WSJ football betting last week and The Mag's Shaun Assael examined in even greater depth last year, that might be because gamblers across the pond see it as an easy game to fix. But it could also be because, over there it holds the kind of sway the big two do over here.

Street corners in Spain are peppered with public courts and kids doing their best Raffy impressions. In some war torn parts of Eastern Europe poverty-stricken kids view tennis as an escape route, like football or basketball here. A couple years ago The Mag's Lindsay Berra wrote a great piece about Belgrade's Jelena Jankovic, Ana Ivanovic and Novak Djokovic. They learned the game as kids while bombs were raining down on their homeland. They practiced in drained swimming pools. Not exactly Nick Bolletierri conditions.

In the United States, casual fans think tennis is played four times a year. But on the tightly packed European continent, national interest in homegrown talent runs deep every weekend. Of the ATP's current top 20 players, only two, tennis betting and James Blake, are American. Fourteen are from Europe, representing six different countries.

No wonder fans from Lisbon to Bhudapest get jacked up for the net game, whether it's Wimbledon or a low-level tourney like the Estoril Open in Portugal (congrats to Spain's Albert Montanes for winning that one, btw). Chances are good that someone representing their flag will not only be playing, but have a shot at winning.

And that's all any bettor can ask for.

To visit this sports book go to MySportsbook.com for all your football betting needs.


Online Sportsbook Football Betting

Why Sports Betting is so much fun?

Betting Sports

The most popular sports to bet on are NFL and college football along with NBA and NCAA basketball. There are multiple betting opportunities within those sports, beginning with the basic wager on a game’s outcome (also called betting the side). College Football Point spreads are used in both football and basketball in an attempt to even the attractiveness of each team in a match-up. ( See our article detailing how and why point spreads are made)

But you could also simply bet on the money line, or straight-up winner of the game. Oddsmakers use the money line so that more money must be risked on the favorite or expected winner and less money on the underdog to balance the action on both sides. While money line gambling is an attractive option for football and basketball bettors who only care about picking a winner, it is the primary option for those bettors who enjoy wagering on MLB baseball and individual sports like boxing, tennis, golf and racing events such as NASCAR. ( More details on playing the Money Line)

Points (or Runs) Scored

Another bet across all major team sports including football, basketball, baseball, and hockey involves wagering on the amount of scoring in a game, called an Over/Under total. For example, the Over/Under total on Super Bowl XXXIX was 48, which means a bettor could wager whether there would be more or less than 48 points scored by both teams combined in the game.

The final score of Super Bowl XXXIX was 24-21; the scoring of both teams added up to 45, which means the game went Under . So Under bettors won, and Over bettors lost.

Future Bets

Sports gambling doesn’t end there. Betting sides and totals are the most common wagers available everywhere, but many sportsbooks also offer future bets on big upcoming events like who will win next year’s Super Bowl and what movie will win Best Picture at the Academy Awards.

The main advantage of futures is that you can get appealing odds by betting far in advance. For example, with NFL futures you often can get much higher odds on a team by betting before the season even starts. A NFL future bet on a team to win the Super Bowl odds might be 20/1 in the preseason; but by midseason, their odds might decrease to 10/1 if they turn out to be legitimate championship contenders.

Proposition Bets (or Prop Bets)

Proposition bets , also known as prop bets, focus upon the more exotic aspects of a game and are generally reserved for events that are widely televised. Prop bets are extremely popular when it comes to wagering on the Super Bowl in Las Vegas. The Imperial Palace Casino’s sportsbook is well-known for the enormous number of prop bets offered. For example, you can bet on:

Types of Bets

Straight Bet

Involves one individual wager, whether it be on your team to cover the point spread, to win the game straight-up on the money line, or to go over/under the total.

Sports Betting Parlays

A parlay is a single bet that links together two or more individual wagers and is dependent on all of those wagers winning together. The benefit of the parlay bet is much better odds than placing each individual bet separately since the difficulty of hitting it is much higher.

Standard payoffs on a two-team parlay are 13/5; while a three-teamer pays 6/1; and a four-teamer 10/1.

Parlay cards are also fairly common in sportsbooks and popular with bettors, as they are released early in the week with set odds that do not change in return for a slightly lower payoff.

Round Robin Betting

Adventurous bettors who enjoy betting parlays sometimes put together a series of parlays called a Round Robin . A three-team Round Robin consists of one three-team parlay and three two-team parlays. For example, Joe likes teams A,B,C – with a Round Robin he has a three-teamer with ABC, and two-teamers with AB, AC, and BC.

Betting Teasers

Similar to a parlay, a teaser bet is a single bet that links together two or more individual wagers, but is different in that the point spread is adjusted to your advantage on each individual wager. In exchange for the points, you get less of a return on your bet compared to a parlay. For example, a 6-point teaser would move the line on a 7-point favorite from -7 to -1, meaning the team would have to cover 6 less points. Each of the individual wagers must win or the bet is a loss.

These are the main types of sports bets available today. But as sports betting continues to grow, sportsbooks will continue to develop new and creative ways to bet. We’ll continue to track these changes to the sports gambling landscape, so check back often and we’ll tell you all about it!

To visit this online sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your football betting needs.