Gilardino's brace leads Fiorentina past Roma

Soccer Betting Lines

04/25/2009 - Florence, Italy (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Alberto Gilardino scored a pair of second- half goals as Fiorentina cruised to a 4-1 win over Roma at Stadio Artemio Franchi on Saturday.

Juan Vargas scored a wonderful goal six minutes into the game before Gilardino doubled the lead in the 47th minute.

Roma was then reduced to 10 men as David Pizarro picked up a second yellow card, and Gilardino tallied his second goal of the match before Massimo Gobbi put home a rebound in the 73rd minute and Julio Baptista pulled a goal back for Roma with four minutes to play.

The win lifts Fiorentina into fourth place, one point ahead of Genoa, while Roma falls six points back of the Viola.

The home side wasted little time in settling into the match and they found themselves ahead after just six minutes.

A turnover in midfield by Roma allowed Vargas to take a pass 40 yards from goal and dribble past a defender. He then unleashed a laser into the bottom right corner from 30 yards that gave Roma goalkeeper Artur no chance.

It was a brilliant individual effort by Vargas, but it was nearly canceled out two minutes later on a free kick from Baptista, whose shot went close but sailed just over the crossbar.

The Viola had a shout for a penalty kick in the 22nd minute when Stevan Jovetic was tripped inside the box by Roma's Daniele De Rossi, but the referee was not interested and he waived play to continue.

Roma came close again in the 23rd minute when Marco Motta got into the box on the right and fired wide of the near post, while a corner kick three minutes later was nodded past the left post by Christian Panucci.

The visitors had another good look at goal five minutes before the break when Francesco Totti drew three defenders and slipped a pass to Matteo Brighi at the top of the box, but with only the keeper to beat, Brighi fired wide.

After scoring six minutes into the first half, Fiorentina needed just two minutes to open the scoring in the second half.

Franco Semioli took the ball on the right wing and floated a cross to the top of the six-yard box for Gilardino, and he nodded it inside the far post to make it 2-0.

Roma was swift to carve out another good chance as Baptista beat goalkeeper Sebastien Frey with a low shot, but Fiorentina's Manuel Pasqual cleared the ball off the goal line.

Only the woodwork denied Roma a goal in the 58th minute as a free kick was cleared to the top of the box and volleyed off the crossbar by Marco Cassetti, but one minute later, Roma was reduced to 10 men.

Pizarro picked up a yellow card in the 56th minute for a hard challenge, but he got another in the 59th when he got involved in an altercation with Semioli.

Gilardino took advantage and he fired his side ahead by three goals in the 67th minute to seal the win.

The former AC Milan man appeared to be offsides when he took a long ball down from midfield, but the flag stayed down and Gilardino cut the ball past Cassetti inside the box and fired into the bottom corner.

Gilardino had a chance to complete his hat trick in the 73rd minute, but his header was stopped by Artur, who parried the ball into the path of Gobbi to slam home.

Baptista then spoiled Frey's clean sheet with a good strike into the bottom right corner with four minutes to play.

The other match on Saturday saw Udinese claim a 2-1 win over Chievo as Gaetano D'Agostino scored the winner in stoppage time.

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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.

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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.

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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.”

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