Edmonton takes Taylor Hall with first pick

Hockey Betting Lines

06/26/2010 -

LOS ANGELES (AP) -Although the Edmonton Oilers agonized over their decision until a few hours before the NHL draft, they eventually decided Taylor Hall was just a bit more irresistible than Tyler Seguin.

Both 18-year-old prospects realize this debate could go on for two more decades.

The Oilers selected Hall with the No. 1 pick Friday night, going with the Windsor Spitfires star's toughness and potential over the smooth skating and skill of Seguin, his fellow Ontario Hockey League forward.

The league-worst Oilers had the toughest call at the top of a draft in several years, but general manager Steve Tambellini couldn't resist Hall's potential. He believes Hall has the physical gifts and work ethic to be a mainstay in the middle for a club that has lacked an elite front-line talent.

``He's such an imposing young man,'' Tambellini said. ``I don't think I've ever met a more focused, competitive athlete. He was the best player on a good team for a long time.''

The first round was completed at Staples Center on Friday, with the final six rounds set for Saturday. The assembled executives pulled off relatively few trades, with defensemen Keith Ballard and Dan Hamhuis the only significant names changing places.

Many NHL scouts and executives couldn't choose a favorite between Hall, a physical left wing who scored 106 points in 57 games for Windsor, and Seguin, the league MVP for the Plymouth Whalers. Hall's Spitfires knocked Seguin out of the playoffs on the way to their second straight Memorial Cup title.

Hall wasn't worried about the Oilers' recent struggles, instead focusing on their heritage in the City of Champions.

``They're such a great franchise with so much history behind them,'' Hall said after pulling on his blue-and-orange jersey. ``With the five (Stanley) Cups they won, it will mean a lot to me to join their organization and hopefully bring another one up there.''

The Boston Bruins eagerly grabbed Seguin moments later with the No. 2 pick. Hall and Seguin both intend to be on NHL rosters this fall, and they realize their careers are likely to run on parallel tracks for many years.

``I don't think it matters who goes first overall,'' Seguin said. ``I'm just excited to be here and to be going to Boston. I'm sure the rivalry will continue if we're both in the NHL next year, but we both respect each other. We're good buddies, and that isn't going to change.''

Hall and Seguin spent much of the past three days hanging out together at various tours and events - everything from batting practice at Angel Stadium to a red-carpet Hollywood movie premiere - in the NHL draft's first trip to Los Angeles.

Hall is the fourth straight OHL player chosen No. 1, following Patrick Kane, Steven Stamkos and John Tavares. Those three picks are working out quite well - and Hall believes he can join the Oilers' young core to return some respectability to the team.

``I feel honored with all the players that have gone No. 1,'' Hall said. ``When I came into this year, that was one of my goals, was to go No. 1. In saying that, there's still a lot of work to do out here.''

While the Los Angeles Kings hosted the draft, the Anaheim Ducks made bigger splashes. Anaheim picked defenseman Cam Fowler with the 12th pick, grabbing a top prospect expected to go much higher, and then drew a huge cheer from the crowd when they picked Long Beach native Emerson Etem with the 29th pick.

Earlier, Florida selected Kingston defenseman Erik Gudbranson with the third pick.

``I did my research on their team,'' said Gudbranson, a physical defenseman with a big shot. ``(With) Dmitry Kulikov there, I feel like I could be a good complement to him on the back end. The real attraction was having (new Panthers general manager) Dale Tallon there, seeing what he did with the Chicago Blackhawks and winning the Stanley Cup and building that team from scratch.''

Columbus grabbed WHL center Ryan Johansen with the fourth pick. Forward Nino Niederreiter, Johansen's teammate in Portland, became the highest-drafted Swiss player in NHL history when he went to the Islanders with the fifth pick. The Islanders already have defenseman Mark Streit, the only NHL All-Star from Switzerland.

``I'm trying to be a scorer one day,'' said Niederreiter, who believes he can make the Islanders roster this fall. ``At the moment, I think I'm a two-way player with some skills and also defensively. At the end, I just want to be a goal-scorer.''

Forward Brett Connolly went sixth to Tampa Bay, which wasn't worried by his recent injury problems. Carolina pulled a mild surprise at No. 7, grabbing Kitchener center Jeff Skinner, a former figure skater.

Atlanta took Russian forward Alex Burmistrov with the eighth pick, and Minnesota grabbed Finland's Mikael Granlund at No. 9. The New York Rangers used the 10th pick on tough Moose Jaw defenseman Dylan McIlrath, who was rated much lower than still-available defensemen Fowler and Brandon Gormley by most scouting services.

Dallas chose the draft's first goalie with the 11th pick, selecting Jack Campbell from the U.S. national development team.

Fowler was projected as a top-five talent by most observers, yet he fell all the way to No. 12, where the Ducks eagerly added him to a roster badly in need of talented defensemen. Fowler accepted his new jersey from Scott Niedermayer, the recently retired defensive star and Fowler's model for his game.

``It's hard when you're projected as a top pick and you slide, but it's something to use as motivation,'' Fowler said. ``Who knows why it happened? I'm just glad I landed where I did.''Copyright © 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

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2007 Academy Award Betting : Oscars odds

The 79th Annual Academy Awards odds , which will air February 25th, is sparking an interest throughout the nation with the announcement of its nominees. As the public chooses their favorites, sportsbooks are creating odds for one of the biggest entertainment betting nights of the year.

Whether its at a “Oscar Party” or in an on line sportsbook, entertainment gambling on award shows represent a huge increase in betting. As the public speculation mounts, MySportsbook.com, the largest and most respected sportsbook on the web, posted odds on who is going home with a “Golden Best Friend.”

“ We see a majority of our entertainment wagers come from the Academy Awards,” said MySportsbook.com spokesperson, Tim Dalton. “This is a competition that applies to everyone. These are the people that entertain us on a daily basis and you want to see them win.”

MySportsbook.com posted the following odds for Academy Awards:

Odds to win the Achievement in Directing:

Alejandro González Iñárritu "Babel": 8/1

Martin Scorsese "The Departed": 2/17

Clint Eastwood "Letters From Iwo Jima: 4/1

Stephen Frears "The Queen": 12/1

Paul Greengrass "United 93": 15/1

Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role:

Leonardo DiCaprio in "Blood Diamond": 11/1

Ryan Gosling in "Half Nelson": 20/1

Peter O’Toole in "Venus": 16/5

Will Smith in "The Pursuit of Happyness": 16/1

Forest Whitaker in "The Last King of Scotland": 1/11

Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role:

Penélope Cruz in "Volver": 18/1

Judi Dench in "Notes on a Scandal": 15/1

Helen Mirren in "The Queen": 1/50

Meryl Streep in "The Devil Wears Prada": 10/1

Kate Winslet in "Little Children": 20/1

Best Animated Feature Film:

"Cars": 1/3

"Happy Feet": 2/1

"Monster House": 20/1

Best Foreign-Language Film of the Year:

"Water" – Canada: 22/1

"The Lives of Others" – Germany: 7/2

"After the Wedding" - Denmark: 24/1

"Days of Glory (Indigenes)" – Algeria: 23/1

"Pan's Labyrinth" - Mexico: 1/10

Odds to win the Best Live-Action Short Film:

"Binta and the Great Idea (Binta Y La Gran Idea)": 6/5

"Eramos Pocos (One Too Many)": 7/2

"Helmer & Son": 5/2

"The Saviour": 6/1

"West Bank Story": 7/2

Odds to win the Best Original Screenplay:

"Babel": 7/4

"Letters From Iwo Jima": 3/1

"Little Miss Sunshine": 21/20

"Pan's Labyrinth": 11/4

"The Queen": 5/4

Best Motion Picture of the Year:

"Babel": 11/4

"The Departed": 1/2

"Letters from Iwo Jima": 15/2

"Little Miss Sunshine": 17/10

"The Queen": 20/1

Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role:

Alan Arkin in "Little Miss Sunshine": 11/10

Jackie Earle Haley in "Little Children": 10/1

Djimon Hounsou in "Blood Diamond": 9/1

Eddie Murphy in "Dreamgirls": 2/5

Mark Wahlberg in "The Departed": 5/1

Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role:

Adriana Barraza in "Babel": 14/1

Cate Blanchett in "Notes on a Scandal": 11/1

Abigail Breslin in "Little Miss Sunshine": 2/1

Jennifer Hudson in "Dreamgirls": 1/8

Rinko Kikuchi in "Babel": 11/1

Film To Win Most Oscars:

Dreamgirls: 2/3

Pans Labyrinth: 6/5

The Departed: 6/1

The Queen: 11/1

Babel: 15/1

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest: 11/1

Little Miss Sunshine: 15/1


Additional sports and entertainment odds can be found at: www.MySportsbook.com

To visit this online sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com - this sportsbook accepts credit cards.

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.

To visit this sports book go to MySportsbook.com for all your football betting needs.