Drake to play in Africa in 2011

NCAA Football Betting Lines

09/01/2010 - Des Moines, IA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Drake University football team will play in the first American football game on the continent of Africa next year.

Drake, a member of the Missouri Valley Football Conference, will play an all- star team from Mexico, the CONADEIP All-Stars, in the inaugural Global Kilimanjaro Bowl on May 21, 2011, in Moshi, Tanzania, under the shadows of Mount Kilimanjaro.

The two teams will do much more than meet on the field. The trip will begin on May 17, and following two practices there will be a football clinic for local youth and a safari.

After the historic game, players from both Drake and the CONADEIP All-Stars will do community service projects. The primary project will be working at the Kitaa Hope Orphanage in Moshi, including the construction of an addition to the orphanage.

In addition, players and coaches from both teams will climb the 19,340-foot Mount Kilimanjaro, the tallest mountain in Africa. The teams will ascend the mountain by different routes and meet at the summit, where they will hoist their respective university and national flags.

"I am overwhelmed with excitement as this long time vision is now becoming a reality," Drake head football coach Chris Creighton said. "This trip allows for us to bring the game we love to a place and to a people who have never experienced it. This trip also provides a unique opportunity to serve those who are far less fortunate than we are and to hopefully make a positive difference. Finally, climbing Mount Kilimanjaro as a team will be one of the greatest challenges we will ever face."

Global Football, a Texas-based football events organization, is coordinating the trip. Drakes Mexican opposition will be selected from the CONADEIP Conference that will play an inaugural football season this fall.

Gamblegambling NCAA Football Betting News

<< Murray eases into second round at the Open
Flushing Meadows, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Former runner-up Andy Murray was an easy opening-round winner Wednesday at a very hot U.S. Open. The fourth-seeded Murray mauled helpless Slovakian Lukas Lacko 6-3, 6-2, 6-2 in 1 hour, 51 minutes on

<< Quality Road out to make amends in Woodward Stakes
Saratoga Springs, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Four weeks after coming up a head short in the Whitney Handicap, Quality Road will once again go postward on Saturday in the $750,000 Woodward Stakes at Saratoga Race Course. The colt, traine

<< Marlins call up RHP Sosa
Miami, FL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Florida Marlins selected the contracts of pitcher Jorge Sosa from Triple-A New Orleans and catcher Chris Hatcher from Double-A Jacksonville on Wednesday. This will be Sosa's third stint with the b

<< Baltimore brings up three
Baltimore, MD (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Baltimore Orioles added three to their roster on Wednesday, recalling outfielder Nolan Reimold, infielder Brandon Snyder and selecting the contract of infielder Rob Andino from Triple-A Norfolk

<< BYU signs TV deal with ESPN
Provo, UT (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Brigham Young University has announced an eight- year agreement with ESPN for the network to televise the school's football games starting next fall. BYU officially announced its decision to leave the Mou

NHL extends deadline on Kovalchuk deal >>
NEW YORK (AP) -The NHL has extended its deadline to Friday for approving Ilya Kovalchuk's $100 million, 15-year contract with the New Jersey Devils.The league and the NHL Players' Association announced the new deadline Wednesday.The NHL has already

Tar Heels DE Austin suspended indefinitely >>
Chapel Hill, NC (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - North Carolina senior defensive end Marvin Austin has been suspended indefinitely. Tar Heels head coach Butch Davis made the announcement on Wednesday, just days before the team's season-opener against LSU

Big Ten set to announce realignment >>
Bristol, CT (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Big Ten is set to announce its divisional realignment Wednesday evening and early reports have the controversial split of longtime rivals Michigan and Ohio State in place. According to an earlier report

Rangers reinstate Kinsler, Guzman from DL >>
Kansas City, MO (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Texas Rangers reinstated second baseman Ian Kinsler and infielder Cristian Guzman from the 15-day disabled list on Wednesday. Kinsler has been sidelined since going on the DL July 29 with a left

BoSox make moves with roster expansion >>
Baltimore, MD (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Boston Red Sox made several moves for the September 1 roster expansion. The club reinstated infielder Eric Patterson and catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia from the 15-day disabled list and recalled pi

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.”

To visit this internet sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your sports betting needs and World Series odds.