Tag Archives: #sportsgambling

Western races highlight Thursday NBA betting slate

Odds courtesy of OddsShark.com

Thursday marks the penultimate day of the very unusual 2019-20 NBA regular season with seven games on the schedule from the Orlando bubble. Frankly, three of the games are completely meaningless and some starters are going to sit out ahead of the playoffs, which will begin on August 17.

Even in the four games that matter, they only do for one of the teams so it’s hard to know how much the team that has nothing to play for will care in terms of playing key guys. What’s at stake Thursday is which teams will earn spots in the Saturday play-in game for the Western Conference’s final seed. The No. 9 seed will play the No. 8 in that; if the eighth seed wins, it earns the final spot. If the ninth seed wins, it plays the eight again the next day in a winner-take-all for the final spot.

Led by the scorching-hot Damian Lillard, the Portland Trail Blazers control their destiny to get into the play-in game as they currently hold the eighth seed. The Blazers face the Brooklyn Nets on Thursday, and the Nets have squat to play for as they are locked into the seventh seed in the East.

Champions League quarter final preview

There are four games to be played in the UEFA Champions League quarter-finals this weekend, and with two former champions clashing in the quarter-finals, all four ties look mouth-watering for sportsbettors and football fans alike.

Atalanta vs. Paris St. Germain (Wednesday 12th August, 8pm GMT kick-off)

A fascinating first semi-final sees surprise package Atalanta (27/10), who scored 98 goals in Serie A alone this year, take on a Paris St. Germain side (12/11) who have big misses in Verratti, Di Maria and in all likelihood, Kylian Mbappe, who will struggle to be fully fit after his recent injury.

While PSG have some terrific players, they also have a dreadful record in the knockout phase of the Champions League, and Atalanta are absolutely lethal on the break. If the Italians, making their debut in this competition, score first then there could be one of the most memorable games ever played in the legendary competition.

Two of NCAA’s Big Five just canceled all fall sports

The “inevitable” cancelation of college football this fall just got more real. Several conferences had already called off their sports programs because of the coronavirus, and two more were added yesterday. These two, however, are part of the largest group of college sports activity, and their refusal to move forward with their seasons shows how dire the situation has become. The Big Ten and the Pac-12 both announced yesterday that they are canceling football and all other sports, including soccer and volleyball, heading into the final months of the year.

The conferences’ decision didn’t come as a surprise to anyone who follows football, but there was still hope that a last-minute reversal would allow them to have a change of heart. This wouldn’t be the case, and Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren said in a statement, “The mental and physical health and welfare of our student-athletes has been at the center of every decision we have made regarding the ability to proceed forward. As time progressed and after hours of discussion with our Big Ten Task Force for Emerging Infectious Diseases and the Big Ten Sports Medicine Committee, it became abundantly clear that there was too much uncertainty regarding potential medical risks to allow our student-athletes to compete this fall.”

Both the Big Ten and the Pac-12 have asserted that they’re not actually canceling sports – they’re only postponing them until the spring. However, this is an unrealistic plan that doesn’t seem to be completely legitimate. It could be simply a way for the conferences to buy some time and save face, but it would be logistically impossible to see college basketball, football, baseball, volleyball and more all at the same time. 

Urban Meyer, an assistant athletics director and Fox Sports analyst, agrees. He asserts, according to 247sports.com, “No chance. You can’t ask a player to play two seasons in a calendar year. When I first heard that, I said that. I don’t see that happening when I hear that. The body, in my very strong opinion, is not made to play two seasons within a calendar year. That’s 2,000 repetitive reps and football’s a physical, tough sport. So I don’t, really don’t, see that happening.”

Deion Sanders departs NFL Network, headed to Barstool Sports

Deion Sanders has spent the past 14 years as a football analyst with the NFL Network. Prior to that, the 53-year-old had spent 14 years as an NFL standout, earning two Super Bowl rings and a number of awards for his on-field talents. Despite his extensive knowledge and fanbase, the NFL Network has decided it can no longer afford to keep Sanders around, and the two are parting ways after being unable to agree on terms for a new contract. Sanders could easily walk away and retire, but that’s not his style. He’s almost certainly going to remain a huge part of sports and, apparently, is on his way to Barstool Sports. 

Sanders and the NFL Network were unable to reach an agreement regarding how much the player/coach/analyst was worth, forcing Sanders to call it quits. The network had already made it apparent that the Hall Of Famer’s time with the company was coming to an end when it decided to drop his 21st & Prime show last year. That move was made as a way for the network to cut expenses, but the writing was on the wall at that point – no pay increases would be coming. 

While working as an analyst, Sanders was also serving as the offensive coordinator at the school his sons attend, Trinity Christian School, and could have sought a coaching position at any level. He had previously looked to become a coach at Florida State University, his alma mater, and the news of his departure from the NFL Network led to rumors that he could be once again looking for another shot. However, he perhaps has learned to enjoy his time in the booth. 

Barstool Sports announced yesterday that it had managed to rope in Sanders to be part of its growing team. The sports media company includes the program Pardon My Take in its portfolio, and the Apple Podcasts offering confirmed on Twitter that Sanders was on board. It tweeted, unceremoniously, “…HUGE announcement & interview with our new coworker @DeionSanders…” Scoring one of the biggest names in football would have probably been worth a larger celebration. 

Did Biden choosing Kamala Harris help his chances? US election 2020 odds

With a few days to go before the Democratic convention, U.S. Presidential candidate Joe Biden has announced his pick for Vice President: Kamala Harris. The junior Senator from California brings youth and the minority qualifications Biden was looking for, but will she help him in any way to beat President Donald Trump? We have odds from Bodog to give us a clue.

Harris’ pick is the least shocking choice Biden could have made. Going into the decision, Harris was always the favored pick by Bodog at -180 odds. Although she clashes with Biden on the campaign trail, she was a minority woman who wasn’t going to push the party too far left, and that perfectly suited the type of campaign Biden was running. And besides, Politico seemed to know this would be the pick over a week ago.

But does she help Biden’s chances in any way? The conventional political thinking is that you vote for President, not for the Vice President, but all the same the announcement of a choice has been cause for a slight bump in the polls in the past. But polls aren’t always right, and looking at how the odds move is a much better indicator of where people are willing to part with their money over a sure thing.

When we last looked at Biden’s odds on June 23, he was favored to win with -130 odds. Now with the pick having been declared, he’s climbed to -156. In the same timeframe, Trump has fallen from +115 to +135. Considering Trump is the incumbent, that’s a fairly large gap between them and a healthy shift for Biden.

NRL’s Apollo project crash lands over COVID breaches

Sport to Australians is like a religion, something that’s worshipped every weekend without fail. Americans have had no issues in 2020 to wake-up at 3:00 am watching guys that resemble line-backers crash into each other in football stadiums around Australia.

You may not get the rules but you get its better than second division Belarusian soccer. Aussies walked an inch taller knowing that in the early parts of the pandemic, they were doing their part to keep North Americans entertained. This week a couple of village idiots screwed that up.

Club Statement on Tevita Pangai Jnrhttps://t.co/yM0uqwCLKA pic.twitter.com/cBowxoG2dc

— Brisbane Broncos (@brisbanebroncos) August 9, 2020https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Seven Premier League transfers to remember for your Fantasy Football Team

It won’t be long until you’re hurriedly making that last-minute transfer on your phone 90 seconds before the Gameweek #1 deadline. Yes, Premier League Fantasy Football is going to return, and you’ll need your wits about you to finish higher than you did last time.

It would be easy to make the same sort of mistakes that dogged you last time round, but we’re here to pull your back from the brink and inform your choices with our ruthless blend of industry expertise and desperation to finish higher than that guy from accounts. Hate that guy.

Timo Werner (Chelsea)

It’s impossible to ignore the German’s phenomenal statistics ahead of his arrival in West London. It’s rumoured that virtually every side in the Premier League top four courted him at one time or another, so it’s a massive coup that Frank Lampard will be able to call upon the deadly Werner for goals and assists in 2020/21.

Simpson leads Wyndham Championship betting lines

Odds courtesy of OddsShark.com

This has been the shortest PGA Tour season in modern history with the coronavirus pandemic canceling several tournaments, and the Tour’s “regular season” concludes already this week at the Wyndham Championship from Greensboro, North Carolina.

The past two weeks on Tour have featured absolutely loaded fields at the World Golf Championships-St. Jude Invitational and PGA Championship. Most top golfers don’t like playing more than a few weeks in a row, and with the FedExCup playoffs starting next week a lot of big names are skipping the Wyndham Championship.

The stars are safely in the playoff field, which will include the Top 125 in FedExCup points after this week. Thus, nearly every player between about 120-175 in points is playing the Wyndham Championship in an attempt to qualify for the three-event playoffs.

Dan Snyder hunting down the whistleblower on the Washington Football Team

A lot of bad news has come out in recent months regarding the Washington Football Team and its majority owner Dan Snyder. Believing this was possibly a setup, Snyder has now gone to court to see if he can prove this was an elaborate scheme to push him out of his ownership position.

The New York Times reports Snyder has filed for discovery in the Federal District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, requesting documents about former employee Mary-Ellen Blair, who was an executive assistance in the front office. The legal reason for the discovery request is to support his defamation case against Media Entertainment Arts WorldWide, an Indian company, who Snyder contends published defamatory rumors about him and the team.

“We are aggressively pursuing Mary-Ellen Blair, a disgruntled former employee who is clearly in the pocket of another and complicit in this scheme to defame Mr. Snyder, in order to ensure that the full weight of the law comes down heavily on all those responsible for these heinous acts,” said Joe Tacopina, a lawyer of Snyder’s.

Snyder contends that Blair started reaching out to former employees as early as May, asking for information that could be used against him. The discovery notes Blair contacted one employee, telling them they could “probably make a lot of money” if they had dirt on Snyder.

ICC T20 World Cup moves to India

India has been given the official go-ahead to host the ICC T20 World Cup in 2021 by the International Cricket Council. Australia was originally scheduled to host the tournament in Australia in the second half of 2020, but the second wave of COVID-19 has forced the ICC to delay the tournament. A revised ICC international calendar will see Australia host another T20 World Cup 12 months later.

The changes to the international calendar have meant that the ICC Women’s 50-over World Cup, scheduled for New Zealand in 2021 has been pushed back to March 2022.

ICC Chief Executive Manu Sawhney commented on the revised changes to the international calendar:

“We now have absolute clarity on the future of ICC events enabling all of our Members to focus on the rescheduling of lost international and domestic cricket. We will now proceed as planned with the Men’s T20 World Cup 2021 in India and host the 2022 edition in Australia.

Stanley Cup odds update: Knights, Avs co-favorites

Odds courtesy of OddsShark.com

No question that the big losers of the NHL’s unique round-robin tournament to determine the top four seeds in each conference were the Boston Bruins and St. Louis Blues – the two teams that met in the 2019 Stanley Cup Final, won by St. Louis in seven games for the first Cup in franchise history.

The Eastern Conference Bruins had the most regular-season points in the NHL this year with 100 and would have had home-ice advantage throughout a normal Stanley Cup playoffs. The Western Conference Blues had the second-most points in the league and would have had home ice against every team in the NHL except for Boston. Both slipped to the fourth seed from the round-robin games. The Bruins are now +750 to win the Stanley Cup and the Blues +1100.

The Vegas Golden Knights earned the top seed in the Western Conference and the Colorado Avalanche the No. 2. They are the co-favorites to win the Cup at +550. The Golden Knights are in just their third season of existence and memorably reached the Stanley Cup Final as an expansion team, losing in five games to the Washington Capitals (+1100). The Avalanche have won two Cups, most recently in 2001.

Defending champion Rafael Nadal withdraws from US Open

Reigning U.S. Open men’s champion Rafael Nadal has confirmed his withdrawal from the Flushing Meadows event. Nadal cited the timing of the event being so close to the French Open and player safety as the motives for his withdrawal.

Nadal has joined World Number One Ash Barty and Nick Kyrgios as confirmed withdrawals from the U.S. Open in recent weeks. Nadal called on tennis authorities to give players more control over the timing of events in the revised calendar. “We know that the reduced tennis calendar is barbaric this year after 4 months stopped with no play,” Nadal said on Twitter.

After many thoughts I have decided not to play this year’s US Open. The situation is very complicated worldwide, the COVID-19 cases are increasing, it looks like we still don’t have control of it.

— Rafa Nadal (@RafaelNadal) August 4, 2020https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

NFL’s former Redskins have new helmets, still no name

The NFL team formerly known as the Washington Redskins finally caved against overwhelming pressure to change its name this past July, but has yet to offer an alternative. The brass at the franchise is busy with damage control over reports of widespread sexual harassment that has already led to at least five employees, either by force or by choice, announcing their departures. However, it plans on surviving the drama and is making preparations to start the upcoming NFL season along with the rest of the teams. While the team, now simply called the Washington Football Team, may not have a viable name, at least they’ll have pretty helmets. 

The team posted a video on Twitter yesterday, unveiling the new helmets as it announced “exciting news.” The individual affixing numbers to the helmet, which will use the same color scheme the team has used for decades, can’t be seen, but he’s applying “20,” which is the number worn by safety Landon Collins. Notably absent from the helmet is any type of logo, moniker, drawing or even shadow, giving the helmet the appearance of being something one would see out of a low-budget rural community college. Previously, the helmets carried the Redskins logo, with the player’s number nowhere on the protective headgear.

Reactions to the changes have been mixed. Some haven’t been afraid to show their opinion of fashionable by supporting the changes, while others recognize that they leave something to be desired. One Twitter user, Dominic Lucente, pointed out, “Looks like a college football helmet but that seems appropriate. You have been playing like a college football team going on many years now.” In the past decade, the former Redskins only had winning seasons twice. Another tweeter aptly summed things up, responding to the team’s announcement by saying, “I don’t think you know what ‘exciting’ means.” 

The regular NFL season is expected to get underway on September 10, providing the coronavirus doesn’t force the league to make any last-minute changes. It has already had to scrap the All-Star Game and the preseason games, but everything else seems to, at least for the time being, remain on schedule. If it does, this could be a great fall for sports fans everywhere. 

NBA restart: Thursday games betting preview

Odds courtesy of OddsShark.com

The key to betting these NBA restart games is all about motivation, and that was never more clear than Tuesday. Both the Brooklyn Nets and Milwaukee Bucks had little to play for in their game with both essentially locked into their playoff positioning in the Eastern Conference.

The Bucks, the team with the NBA’s best record, were 19-point favorites over a Nets team without its top eight players for one reason or another. Brooklyn pulled a 119-116 stunner, the biggest point spread upset in the NBA since Dallas was +19.5 in Seattle and upset the Sonics on April 6, 1993.

So, while Los Angeles Lakers vs. Houston Rockets on Thursday night (9 p.m. ET) looks like a marquee matchup, the Lakers have absolutely no reason to care because they have wrapped up the top seed in the Western Conference.

PFL launches OTT platform to provide year-round premium content

Click here for a video trailer of the PFL OTT platform

The Professional Fighters League (PFL) will bring the action closer to fans once again with the release of a brand-new OTT platform.

The premium content service – which will be free – was announced by the promotion on Tuesday, providing fight fans around the world with hundreds of hours of viewing from the first organization to present MMA through a regular season, playoff and championship format.

“With the launch of our first OTT platform, we’re excited to fulfill the growing global demand for our product by providing fight fans around the world with free access to premium PFL content wherever, whenever and however they want to consume it,” said PFL CEO Peter Murray. “Professional Fighters League is a media and content company. As we continue to grow, innovate and reimagine MMA, we have placed an emphasis on engaging fans all year long through impactful storytelling and unprecedented access to the sport, our fighters and the action inside the cage.

NFL opt-out deadline nears as player fines about to soar

The latest scandal to hit the NFL comes at the worst possible time. With over 50 players having taken the league up on the ‘Opt-Out’ option, preferring the $350,000 and their family’s guaranteed health over running the risk of catching COVID-19, new rules have come into place to coincide with the deadline for pre-season opt-outs being confirmed as this coming Thursday.

Just the other day, an incredible eighth New England Patriot was confirmed among the latest raft of opt-outs, with Matt LaCosse choosing to give the 2020 NFL season a miss. The NFL had to act and they have done, confirming exactly what will happen to anyone else who decides to opt out, and when.

With a busy page on the NFL’s official site now dedicated to what has been a largely chaotic start to training camps up and down the United States of America, the NFL announced that issues have been resolved and they’ve finally got a procedure in place, along with fines for players who opt out without good reason. With over 50 opt-outs already, this smacks a little of a nightclub putting together a new set of rules for bouncers at nine the next morning after the dancefloor was empty at midnight.

The deadline for pre-season opt-outs is Thursday August 6th at 4pm Eastern Time, with players informed of the cut-off on Monday night. This deadline coincides with the drug-testing window opening on Friday Aguust 7th, with

Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson purchases the XFL: Will he play too?

It’s difficult not to love that glorious SOB Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson – is there anything that the man can’t do? If you were a fan of the HBO Ballers, then it’s a case of life imitating art. The Rock purchased the XFL from WWE boss Vince McMahon for only $15 million. The former wrestler turned movie star partnered with investment firm Redbird Capital Partners and ex-wife Danny Garcia to acquire the XFL in a bankruptcy auc’tion.

Johnson confirmed the acquisition on Twitter

“With my trailblazing partner Dany Garcia and RedBird Capital, we have acquired the XFL.” Johnson tweeted. “With gratitude and passion, I’ve built a career with my own two hands and will apply these callouses to our XFL brand. Excited to create something special for the fans.”

With my trail blazing partner @DanyGarciaCo & Red Bird Capital, we have acquired the XFL.

Desperate housewives land AFL in hot water

Excuse the puns, but the AFL is in a hub of trouble after drawing a strong backlash from media for firing one of their own journalists. Respected AFL writer Mitch Cleary published an Instagram post from Brooke Cotchin, that had earned the Richmond team a USD 32K fine for breaking COVID protocols.

“I don’t know Mitch Cleary, but I do not agree with him being stood down and I have voiced that to the AFL.”

Brooke Cotchin says sorry for breaking the AFL’s hub rules and backs the journo who was stood down for reporting her breach >>> https://t.co/YCUDZ5KZqB pic.twitter.com/LEGrtsGous

— Fox Footy (@FOXFOOTY) August 3, 2020https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

NBA Restart: Tuesday games betting preview

Odds courtesy of OddsShark.com

In the 2018 NBA Draft, the Phoenix Suns took Arizona big man Deandre Ayton at No. 1 overall, which left the Sacramento Kings on the clock at No. 2. They could have taken European teenage superstar Luka Doncic, called by some scouts the best Euro prospect ever, but the Kings opted to take Duke forward Marvin Bagley III.

That would prove to be a huge mistake. Doncic went No. 3 to the Atlanta Hawks and was immediately traded to the Dallas Mavericks (who picked Trae Young fifth and sent Young and a 2019 first-round pick to Atlanta). Doncic already is one of the best players in the league, while Bagley hasn’t been able to stay on the court due to injury.

The Kings are without Bagley for the entire NBA restart due to a right foot sprain as Sacramento chases its first playoff berth since 2006. The Kings face Doncic and the Mavericks at 2:30 p.m. ET on Tuesday from the ESPN World Wide of Sports Complex in the Orlando “bubble”. The Mavs, who have been historically good on offense this season, are 5.5-point favorites.