Pack 'em in for the Daytona 500

Autoracing Betting Lines

02/22/2012 - Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Series: NASCAR Sprint Cup. Date: Sunday, February 26. Race: Daytona 500. Site: Daytona International Speedway. Track: 2.5-mile tri-oval. Start time: 1:00 p.m. (et). Laps: 200. Miles: 500. 2011 Winner: Trevor Bayne. Television: FOX. Radio: Motor Racing Network (MRN) /SIRIUS NASCAR Satellite.

This year's Daytona 500 is shaping up to be another thriller, perhaps more breathtaking than last year's season opener at Daytona International Speedway.

Why?

After what we saw in last Saturday night's Budweiser Shootout, the pack is back and the two-car tandems are pretty much gone at Daytona. And the drivers as well as the fans are happy to see the big draft return.

"This is a lot more fun than the two-car stuff was," reigning Sprint Cup Series champion Tony Stewart said after finishing second in the Budweiser Shootout. "I still like the open motor races better where we can literally control our own destiny, but this is by far a lot better than what we had with the two-car stuff."

Since the most recent restrictor-plate race -- last October at Talladega Superspeedway -- NASCAR has made numerous modifications to the Sprint Cup cars, including alterations to the restrictor plates and the front grille openings. NASCAR anticipated the changes would drastically reduce the number of two-car breakaways and bring back the packs.

The Budweiser Shootout featured three big crashes, including the final one that involved eight cars. Jeff Gordon endured the worst of that incident when his car got turned upside down and then flipped several times before it came to rest on its roof along the backstretch.

Kyle Busch remarkably bounced back from two near wrecks and then beat Stewart to the finish line by inches to win the preseason, non-points race at Daytona. Busch made a sling-shot pass on Stewart for the lead coming out of the final turn of the last lap.

Stewart begins his title defense at Daytona with a lot of new faces on his team this year, including crew chief Steve Addington.

Three months ago, Stewart won at Homestead-Miami Speedway and finished the season in a points tie with Carl Edwards. Stewart captured the title by virtue of his five wins for the season -- all of them coming in the 10-race Chase for the Sprint Cup. Edwards had only one victory for the year -- Las Vegas.

As of now, Stewart is tied with Bobby Allison for the second-most race wins at Daytona with 16. Stewart has three wins in both the Coke Zero 400 (July Sprint Cup race) and the Budweiser Shootout as well as two victories in the Gatorade Duel. He also has six Nationwide race victories and two in IROC events at this track.

But Stewart has yet to win the Daytona 500 in 13 attempts.

"Two tracks we haven't won at and the Daytona 500 we haven't won at everything else we have pretty much accomplished in this sport that we want to accomplish," Stewart said. "It's the biggest race of the year. Everyone wants to win that race. I won't say that it is not a complete career if you don't win it, but there is a lot of priority on this. Darrell Waltrip and Dale (Earnhardt) Sr. both had to go a long time before they got it."

It took Earnhardt 20 attempts to win the Daytona 500. Waltrip's first win in this race came after 17 years of trying.

Edwards' lap at 194.738 mph during last Sunday's time trials earned him the pole position for the 54th running of the Daytona 500. Edwards has now accumulated 11 career poles in the series, including one last November at Homestead.

"It feels really nice," he said. "This is our second pole in a row. Feels nice to pick up right where we left off."

Dale Jarrett is the last driver to win the Daytona 500 from the pole, doing so in 2000. Edwards' best finish in this race is second, which came last year.

There have been 11 different drivers who have won the Daytona 500 since 2000. Trevor Bayne is the defending race winner. One day after turning 20 years old, Bayne shocked the auto racing world by taking the checkered flag for NASCAR's most prestigious event of the season. He did it in just his second Sprint Cup start.

Can Bayne pull off another stunning victory in the Daytona 500?

"That's the plan," he said. "We wouldn't have come if we didn't think we could win. There's a little bit more pressure this year. We're not exactly flying under the radar, but I think we can go for it, that's for sure."

If Bayne wins Sunday's race, he would join Richard Petty (1973-74), Cale Yarborough (1983-84) and Sterling Marlin (1994-95) as those drivers who won back-to-back Daytona 500s.

The Daytona 500 also will mark the highly anticipated debut of Danica Patrick in Sprint Cup. Patrick is guaranteed a starting position in the race, since her No.10 Tommy Baldwin Racing team is in the top 35 for owner points. TBR recently formed an alliance with Stewart-Haas Racing to assure her a spot in the race.

"I have a fast car, so I think that's taken care of, but I think it's going to take some good breaks and a patient race, staying out of trouble," Patrick said. "You know it would be nice to kind of keep toward the front. I've found that when you are up near the front, away from the thick of things, you're much less likely to be caught in an accident that smoke is filled the air to and you can't miss or you can't see. But I think luck is going to play a big factor."

Patrick will become the third female to start the Daytona 500, following Janet Guthrie (1977 and '80) and Shawna Robinson (2002).

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March Madness odds and printable March Madness brackets

With the field of 64/65 set, MySportsbook.com has the Florida Gators as the 4-1 favorite to successfully defend their National Championship.  Men’s Division-1 College Basketball has not seen a team repeat as National Champions since Duke won back to back championships in ’91 & ‘92.  After losing three out of four late in the season, the Gators are full of momentum as they won their last four games by an average of 18 points.  Not surprisingly, right behind the Gators are the other three top seeds: Kansas 5-1, UNC 6-1, and Ohio State 7-1.  Many consider Kansas to be the hottest team in the country, having won 11 straight. With Kansas, it is hard to ignore all of the early exits from the “dance” in recent years.  With an impressive ACC Tournament, UNC ensured themselves the other top seed.  UNC has about as much talent as any other team in the tournament but with a team that’s best players are primarily freshman and sophomores, could youth be a concern.  Behind freshman sensation, Greg Oden, OSU will look to do what their football team failed to do just a few months earlier.  OSU seems to have peeked at the right time, as they currently have a 17 game winning streak.  Since the tournament field was expanded in 1985, there has never been an instance where all four #1 seeds advanced to the Final Four.  It is obvious that each of the top seeds have the talent to make it through to Atlanta.  But as everyone knows, when makes the NCAA Tournament so special are all of the spoilers and “Cinderella” stories that knock off the favorites on a daily basis.

Be sure to logon to MySportsbook.com to see check out all of the early lines and “March Madness” props.  Also be sure to enter the “$10,000,000 Perfect Bracket Contest”. If someone has the skills to predict every winner, they will be set for life and walk away with $10,000,000.  Even if no one can cash in on the Grand Prize, with a $35,000 guaranteed prize pool and a Mazda RX-8 to the first prize winner, Sportsbook.com’s bracket is a must for all “March Madness” fans.

MySportsbook.com’s odds to win the Championship and Regions:

EAST National Championship Region
Arkansas 300-1 50-1
Belmont 1000-1
Boston College 100-1 40-1
Eastern KY 1000-1
George Washington 75-1
Georgetown 10-1 3-2
Marquette 100-1 40-1
Michigan State 100-1 25-1
New Mexico St. 500-1 200-1
UNC 6-1 6-5
Oral Roberts  500-1
Texas 15-1 5-1
Texas Tech 200-1 5-1
USC 75-1 20-1
Vanderbilt 100-1 30-1
Washington State 40-1 15-1
WEST
Duke 50-1 10-1
Florida A&M 1000-1
Gonzaga 200-1  40-1
Holy Cross 300-1
Illinois 300-1 60-1
Indiana 75-1 40-1
Kansas 5-1 13-10
Kentucky 100-1 40-1
Niagara 1000-1
Pittsburgh 40-1 8-1
Southern Ill. 50-1 12-1
UCLA 10-1 3-2
VCU 500-1 100-1
Villanova 100-1 40-1
VA Tech 50-1 15-1
Weber St 1000-1
Wright St 1000-1 300-1
MIDWEST
Arizona 50-1 30-1
Butler 40-1 30-1
Davidson 300-1
Florida 4-1 4-5
Georgia Tech 75-1 25-1
Jackson State 1000-1
Maryland 30-1 6-1
Miami-OH 300-1
Notre Dame 100-1 20-1
ODU 500-1 100-1
Oregon 40-1 6-1
Purdue 300-1 60-1
Texas A&M CC 1000-1
UNLV 100-1 30-1
Winthrop 500-1 100-1
Wisconsin 15-1 7-2
SOUTH
Albany 200-1
BYU 200-1 40-1
Central CT St. 1000-1
Creighton 100-1 35-1
Long Beach St. 500-1 200-1
Louisville 40-1 10-1
Memphis 30-1 4-1
Nevada 75-1 35-1
North Texas 500-1
Ohio State 7-1 6-5
Penn 500-1
Stanford 200-1 50-1
Tennessee 100-1 20-1
Texas A&M 12-1 11-5
Virginia 75-1 18-1
Xavier 100-1 40-1

Field                                              100-1

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SPORTS BETTING: NFL Football Sportsbook Betting

NFL owners, already life's biggest winners, want to try their luck with the lottery.


That was the news out of their meetings last week, where team bosses voted unanimously to allow stamping state and local lottery tickets with franchise logos, if, ahem, any governments wanted to do a deal.

A shocker: Within days the Pats announced they'd be sponsoring the Massachusetts state lottery, the Skins said they'd slap their sticker on Virginia scratch-offs and the Ravens admitted they were talking to Maryland lottery bosses. In all likelihood, it won't be long before every team is a presenting sponsor of scratch-offs or just plain old pick fives. "The change in policy was approved 32-0," said NFL spokesman Greg Aiello. "So you can expect to see more deals soon."

It's a branding opportunity too big for the owners to ignore, and one a couple of dozen baseball franchises have enjoyed for years. The fact the NFL has been slower to act than those slack-brained Seligites is indicative of its complicated relationship with all forms of gambling. Consider this: Last Thursday, as the Pats and the Redskins finalized their new lottery deals, a lawyer representing the NFL argued before Delaware's Supreme Court that the state's newly signed sports betting law should be repealed.

The NFL betting is the face of opposition to sports gambling . And as much as it would like to share that responsibility with other leagues, that's not going to happen as long as more than 40% of all money legally wagered on games is bet on football. That's why the Brewers can do a multi-million dollar deal with a local casino, or the Celtics can make their own pact with the Mass lottery, and the response is, "Sweet, let's play." But when the NFL does it the stakes are higher, and everyone from NPR's Frank Deford to the Associated Press to the guys blogging at Deadspin will line up to play gotcha.

So I asked Aiello, who surely knew there'd be piling on, how the league can rail against being bait for sports bettors, then allow its franchises to be just that for lotteries, the most insidious and addictive form of gambling around. He emailed me this response: "We are not moral crusaders. NFL personnel are permitted to engage in legal forms of gambling, except for betting on NFL games. We are making a distinction here between the spread of gambling on the outcome of our games and supporting state lottery scratch-off games, that have nothing to do with the outcome of our games."

Here's where I should rip him. But, the thing is, he's right. Not to get Obama on you, but this is a complicated, nuanced issue. As much as lotteries are considered a tax on the poor, the NFL isn't a socially obligated government program -- it's just a business. Scratch-off's help the bottom line, sports betting doesn't. Now, it's okay to call the league hypocritical when it releases injury reports, which players have told me only helps bettors … But when it supports other forms of gaming? Big Deal.

Now, it's okay to call the league hypocritical when it releases injury reports, which players have told me only helps bettors. And it's okay to mutter something obscene when the league pretends gambling doesn't help drive TV ratings and fan interest and put money in owners' pockets. But when it supports other forms of gaming? Big Deal. The Bears should put an orange "C" on every deck of cards dealt at Harrah's in Joliet; the Eagles should slap their logo on roulette wheels at the Borgata in Atlantic City; the Dolphins should hold training camp at the El San Juan in Puerto Rico.

Seriously.

The NFL's problem, when it comes to the gambling world, isn't hypocrisy, it's worse: The bosses lack vision. That's why the league is picking unwinnable fights in Delaware and taking pot shots from critics after making smart sponsorship deals. Roger Goodell and his gang are acting and thinking locally rather than globally, which is rare for them, especially compared to their professional (and amateur) counterparts.

The NBA held its All Star game in Las Vegas and David Stern's kingdom didn't crumble (although the town did bring plenty of players to their knees.) I'd say it's 6 to 5 and pick 'em that Lebron will make a road swing through Sin City before his career is over.

Even the NCAA College Football Betting is more progressive on this issue than the NFL. Several years ago Rachel Newman Baker, college sports' gambling czar, opened a dialogue with Vegas bookmakers to learn about how they do business. She's visited Nevada sports books, studied their operations and listened to how they regulate action. Now she knows she can expect a call from bookmakers, who lose money when sports are fixed, if they think something sketchy is going on in NCAA games. She's not in favor of sports betting, but, as she once told me, "I know it's not going away, either."

The NFL can't seem to accept that. And until it can find peace with the idea, it'll get flack, even when it's right.

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