Boyd's brace lifts Rangers over Falkirk

Soccer Betting Lines

01/17/2009 - Glasgow, Scotland (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Kris Boyd continued to find the back of the net for Rangers as he scored a pair of goals in his team's 3-1 win over Falkirk at the Ibrox Stadium on Saturday.

Boyd has been the subject of a transfer to Birmingham over the past couple of weeks despite the fact that he leads the Scottish Premier League in goals. However, the striker added two more to help Rangers move to within two points of Celtic ahead of the Hoops visit to Aberdeen on Sunday.

Falkirk entered the match just one point from the bottom, but the visitors started well with Steve Lovell putting his team in front after 12 minutes, only for Boyd to equalize from the penalty spot just before halftime.

Both teams then had a player sent off with Falkirk's Patrick Cregg being shown a red card in the 51st minute and Sasa Papac seeing red in the 77th.

Boyd then tallied his second goal of the match with 10 minutes to play before Steven Davis put the result away in stoppage time.

A pass from Neil McCann put Lovell in behind the Rangers defense, allowing him to slot past goalkeeper Allan McGregor, and although the hosts had a number of penalty appeals turned down, they were given one right before the break as Cregg was whistled for bringing down Boyd inside the area.

The striker then stepped to the spot and fired home his 19th goal of the season to level the match at 1-1.

Cregg's day got worse in the 51st minute when he was sent off for a dangerous challenge on Pedro Mendes, while Gers also lost a man in the 77th minute when Papac brought down Falkirk's Mark Stewart in the open field, earning a straight red.

Just three minutes later, Boyd had Rangers ahead when Nacho Novo's low cross was blocked and scooped up by Boyd for his second goal of the match.

Stewart nodded wide after a good cross as Falkirk tried to even things up, but Davis put an end to the suspense as he beat two defenders before beating goalkeeper Robert Olejnik.

Hearts moved into fourth place with a 2-0 win over Kilmarnock as Bruno Aguiar and Christos Karipidis scored second-half goals, Hamilton moved six points clear of the bottom with a 1-0 win over last-place Inverness while Hibernian doubled up on St Mirren, 2-0.

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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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