Rockets notch road victory over Wizards

Basketball Betting Lines

03/09/2010 - Washington, DC (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Luis Scola totaled 23 points with 10 rebounds, as Houston held off Washington, 96-88, at the Verizon Center.

Kevin Martin chipped in with 21 points, Aaron Brooks totaled 14 and Trevor Ariza added 13 for the Rockets, who have alternated wins and losses over the last eight games and finished a three-game road trip, 2-1.

Nick Young joined Andray Blatche with 18 points, Al Thorton notched 15 points and nine rebounds and James Singleton added 12 points for the Wizards, who have lost six of seven overall.

Blatche single-handedly propelled the Wizards to a 22-21 edge after the first 12 minutes of game action. The forward scored 10 points on 5-of-9 shooting, as an 8-0 spurt he capped with a driving slam for a 20-13 helped the home team to a one-point lead after one stanza.

Houston slowly pushed in front to stay at 33-32 on Ariza's trey with 7:40 to play in the first half. The margin increased to eight, 48-40, by the end of the period thanks to Jared Jeffries' jumper with 1:40 to go.

The Rockets started the third period with an 11-2 stretch to open a 59-42 lead thanks to Brooks' long-distance jumper about 3 1/2 minutes in. The margin was as high as 18 at one point, but an 11-2 run by the home team cut the deficit back to single digits. Young's trey made the score 68-60, and the margin stood at 71-60 after three stanzas.

The Wizards' deficit remained in double figures for the better part of the final quarter before coming within six at 92-86 with 1:12 to play on Shaun Livingston's jumper. Houston, however, made four straight free throws down the stretch to thwart any chance of a comeback.

Game Notes

Houston shot just 38.4 percent from the floor and made only 6-of-28 three- pointers but took advantage of an attacking offense to make 24-of-28 free throws...The Wizards made 42.2 percent of their shots in defeat...The two teams will meet again on March 30th in Houston.

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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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