Friday, February 26, 2010

Tennis Gambling

There's a new phenomenon with a lot of these on-line books recently. They are really starting to provide lines on random tennis events from all around the world.

Sure we have seen for years the majors being put up, or at least the seminfinals and finals at most places, but now the quantity is up a ton and that creates more opportunities for you and I.

Let me say that I am far from being a tennis afficianado but I do follow it enough to know the good players from the mediocre and the mediocre from the bad. That has been enough this season to spot overinflated lines and there are a ton of them out there. This is the case for whatever reason more with the women than the men as the better male seems to prevail at a higher rate than the better female. Ironically enough I would venture to guess how it was the complete opposite in years' past as the best women (Chris Evert, Martina, etc.) used to be heads and shoulders better than the rest, but not so much anymore.

If you can break down a tennis line and compare it to another sport a lot of the time the better value will be on the courts with that horizontal net. A lot of players play tournaments just to put some coin in their pocket, get their fee for being there and then mail it in a bit, those people are tennis whores that don't have all that much desire to be there but a thirst for wealth. For example you can get a young up and comer who wants to play in these events and make a name for themselves against the older veteran who would rather get the match over with and lay on the beach. Take a look at the venue where some of these things are and realize the makeup of the players and would they rather be in a hard fought match or relaxing in luxury.

There is a great example of that later today and win or lose it is still a solid value. Romanian Edina Gallots, ranked something like 150th in the world takes on Venus Williams. Serena's older sister just won in three sets last night against a total nobody, is not what she used to be and cannot be all that excited about playing an unknown near the beaches of Acapulco. Last night the Flytrap needed three sets as the $25 favorite, yes $25, not 2 and not 5 but $25 and had to rally from 5-2 down in that third set in order to beat an unknown. That took a lot of energy and probably zapped strength from Venus and who knows how she will respond today or if she even will care.

Gallots meanwhile has been playing spirited tennis and is coming off of two quality upsets in a row including as the $3 dog against a fairly well known Sara Errani. The Romainian who currently lives in Atlanta is looking to rise up the charts. This match is the Super Bowl to her.

Of course Venus should win as she is much better but to get literally $8 back in this very random spot is a ton better in terms of value than the 14 point NFL or NBA dog on the moneyline as that just hardly ever happens. In other words the odds are much greater for a Gallotts upset here than for the Rams to go on the road to Indianapolis and beat Peyton Manning and the Colts or for Ul Monroe to travel to Troy and beat the Trojans.

All in all on the hardcourts we are seeing the superior players getting a little too much credit and you can make some coin by isolating numbers that are just too high. The juice is normally a ton as $8 favorites will only get you $5 or so back but the $5 a lot of times is still very generous.

Take advantage of this because eventually these still new and fresh lines will sharpen!

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