Pamthers Baseball Betting News

<< Is it too early to worry about Tiger or Phil?
Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Using a 'huge' sample size of three combined events, what can we make of the starts by Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson? Woods teed it up on the European Tour this week instead of playing the Farmers Insura

<< Union releases Mondragon
Chester, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Philadelphia Union and goalkeeper Faryd Mondragon agreed to part ways on Monday, allowing the Colombian to return to his native country to play for Deportivo Cali. Mondragon began his professional c

<< Ljubicic wins Zagreb opener
Zagreb, Croatia (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Croatian tennis hero Ivan Ljubicic was a hard-fought opening-round winner Monday at the Zagreb Indoors tennis event. The top-seeded Ljubicic slammed 16 aces and held off Slovak Karol Beck 7

<< Pat Burrell retiring after 12 seasons
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Pat Burrell is retiring after a 12-year major league career, according to multiple reports. Burrell spent the majority of his career with the Philadelphia Phillies, who selected him with the No. 1 overall pick

Godin helps Atletico hold off Osasuna >>
Navarra, Spain (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Atletico Madrid climbed to seventh in La Liga on Monday after Diego Godin's first-half goal handed Atletico a 1-0 win at Osasuna. The goal arrived five minutes before halftime when a corner ki

Porto stunned at Gil Vicente >>
Lisbon, Portugal (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - FC Porto fell five points back of league- leaders Benfica on Sunday after sustaining a surprising 3-1 defeat at Gil Vicente. The home side brought a five-match winless streak into the contest against

Orioles invite P Galarraga, others to spring training >>
Baltimore, MD (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Baltimore Orioles signed and invited 14 non-roster players to spring training. Among those with previous major league experience are pitchers Armando Galarraga and Pat Neshek and catcher Ronny Paulino

Wizards F Blatche out with calf injury >>
Washington, DC (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Washington Wizards forward Andray Blatche is expected to miss between three and five weeks with a strained calf. Wizards coach Randy Wittman made the announcement before Monday's game against Chicago. Bla

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.

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