Mine That Bird to be trained by Hall of Fame member

Horseracing Betting Lines

05/19/2010 - Louisville, KY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas has been named the new conditioner for 2009 Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird. Owners Leonard Blach and Mark Allen announced the decision on Wednesday.

The move to Lukas means that Mine That Bird will no longer be trained by Chip Woolley who saw the gelding through an historic three-year-old campaign. Mine That Bird is being vanned from New Mexico to Churchill Downs and will arrive in Louisville on Thursday.

Mine That Bird won last year's Run for the Roses as a 50-1 longshot with Calvin Borel riding. Two weeks later in the Preakness the gelding was ridden by Mike Smith. Borel rode Rachel Alexandra to victory, one-length better than the Derby champ.

Borel got back on Mine That Bird for the Belmont Stakes and finished third to Summer Bird.

He was third in the West Virginia Derby on August 1 of last year and then underwent throat surgery for an entrapped epiglottis. He was held out of the Travers at Saratoga while he recovered.

Mine That Bird was sixth in the Goodwood Stakes at Santa Anita as the 3-1 second choice in the 10 horse field. He closed 2009 with a ninth-place result behind Zenyatta in the Breeders' Cup Classic at Santa Anita.

Mine That Bird has five wins in 14 lifetime starts with earnings of nearly $2.2 million. In 2009 the gelding earned almost $1.9 million with one win in eight starts.

Wwwkimo Horseracing Betting News

<< Habs D Markov has knee surgery
Montreal, QC (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Montreal Canadiens defenseman Andrei Markov underwent surgery Wednesday to repair a tear of the anterior cruciate ligament of his right knee. Markov, who suffered his injury during the first period of the o

<< Rays P Howell has season-ending surgery
Bronx, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Tampa Bay Rays reliever J.P. Howell will miss the entire season after having surgery on his left shoulder, the team announced on Wednesday. The operation was performed Wednesday by Dr. James Andrews in Birmi

<< Indians' Sizemore put on DL; Cabrera has surgery
Cleveland, OH (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Cleveland Indians have placed center fielder Grady Sizemore on the 15-day disabled list with a deep bone bruise on his left knee. The team also announced that infielder Asdrubal Cabrera underwent s

<< Red Sox put Beckett on DL
Boston, MA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Boston Red Sox starting pitcher Josh Beckett has been put on the 15-day disabled list due to a lower back strain. DETAILS TO FOLLOW...

<< Wilson Chandler charged with marijuana possession
New York, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - New York Knicks forward Wilson Chandler was charged with fifth-degree criminal possession of marijuana after the drug was found in the car he was driving Tuesday night. A spokeswoman for Queens District

Sallie to forego remaining eligibility >>
Memphis, TN (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Memphis junior guard Roburt Sallie announced he will forego his remaining eligibility and will explore playing opportunities elsewhere. Sallie is due to graduate this summer. Even though he has a year of p

Piszczek seals Dortmund switch >>
Dortmund, Germany (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Poland international Lukas Piszczek has moved from relegated Hertha Berlin to Borussia Dortmund. The 24-year-old has signed a contract that will keep him in Dortmund for three seasons. Head coach Ju

Gekas joins Eintracht on two-year deal >>
Frankfurt, Germany (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Greece international Theofanis Gekas has completed his transfer from Bayer Leverkusen to Eintracht Frankfurt. The 29-year-old striker has penned a two-year contract with Eintracht who finished 10th

Diamondbacks recall OF Parra, option Gillespie >>
Phoenix, AZ (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Arizona Diamondbacks recalled outfielder Gerardo Parra from Triple-A Reno and sent outfielder Cole Gillespie to the same club on Wednesday. The 23-year-old Parra appeared in 26 games and hit .247

Oilers getting out of free agent market >>
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -Kevin Lowe has a new master plan for taking the Edmonton Oilers back to the proud days of the franchise's past.It starts with the No. 1 pick in next month's draft, earned by having the NHL's worst record this season, and also inc

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.

What Is the Point Spread?

What are Sports Betting Point Spreads?

In any football or basketball game (the main sports that use point spreads) there are two teams playing against each other.

Those teams, though, are rarely exactly evenly matched – meaning that typically one team has a better chance than the other to win the game. If bettors were allowed to bet on who was simply going to win the game, smart ones would obviously bet on the better team (likely winning more than 50% of the time in the process).

If winning were that easy the Las Vegas and online sportsbooks would stop taking any bets! This is where the point spread comes in: the basic function of the point spread is to balance the likelihood of each team “winning” by adjusting the final score by the point spread. After this adjustment is made you get the Against The Spread result (ATS result for short).

Let’s look at Super Bowl XXXIX, New England Patriots vs. Philadelphia Eagles. Most people believed the defending champ Patriots to be the better team – so if betting were simply based upon which team would win the game, an uneven majority of people would have wagered on New England. But, by using the point spread, the bookmakers adjusted the terms of the bet, evening the proposition so about half the people believed the Pats to be the smart bet, while the other half considered Philly to be the smart bet.

How to Read Point Spreads

New England Patriots -7 vs. Philadelphia Eagles

The better team, called the Favorite, is expected to win the game and must “give” or “lay” points to the weaker team. The favorite is listed with a minus sign and the number of points they are favored by (e.g., New England -7)

In the case of our example, New England must not only win the game, but they must win by more than 7 points for Pats bettors to have a winning ATS result. An Eagles bettor wins his bet either if:

To visit this internet sportsbook go to MySportsbook.com for all your football betting and World Series odds.