As expected, boxing pound-for-pound king Manny Pacquaio had little trouble with a clearly past-his-prime Shane Mosley on Saturday night in Las Vegas, with Pacquiao winning a lopsided 12-round decision. While we all hope that Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. finally agree to a bout, that is simply not going to happen in 2011 if ever. So what now for Pacquiao then?
Reportedly when Pacquiao will fight is already set: It will happen either at the MGM Grand on Nov. 5 or at Thomas & Mack Center on Nov. 12 in Las Vegas. Most believe a third fight with Juan Manuel Marquez is in the cards. Marquez is 38 but has a solid history against Pacquiao as a lightweight. Marquez got a draw against Pacquiao in 2004 even though Pac-Man knocked him down three times in the first round. Then Marquez lost a split decision in 2008 that could have certainly gone either way. Marquez is coming off a tough TKO of Michael Katsidis and a decision over Juan Diaz. He lost handily to Mayweather before that.
Promoter Bob Arum said Pacquiao’s next bout will be against either Marquez, Timothy Bradley or Zab Judah. Pacquiao's trainer, Freddie Roach, said he felt Marquez was the ideal next opponent for his fighter.
"They have history and those were two great fights," Roach told the media after Pacquiao's 14th consecutive win since his loss to Erik Morales in Las Vegas in March 2005. "They were very close fights and could have gone either way. So I would love to fight him one more time just to shut him up, I really would. If Mayweather doesn't come to the table, I think Marquez is going to be our next opponent because we are running out of opponents.”
The one problem is that Marquez, a natural lightweight, would have to come up to 147 pounds.
The field for The PLAYERS Championship tournament has been finalized, and PGA betting fans might be a little surprised to see Tiger Woods there.
Woods has been battling injuries and withdrew from the Wells Fargo Championship last week. After a resurgent effort at the Masters—Woods finished fourth—observers are wondering if he’s back to form. Woods has cracked the Top 10 in two of his five tourneys this season, but finished 24th or worse in the other three.
World No. 1 golfer Lee Westwood will make an appearance at The PLAYERS this week. The Englishman has yet to bust through on the PGA Tour this season, as he hasn’t even made the Top 10 once in five outings. Westwood’s best effort was an 11th-place finish at the Masters.
Martin Kaymer is another European player ranked high in the golf rankings, but failing to deliver results. Since a second-place finish at the Match Play Championship in February, the German has finished 20th or worse in four straight PGA tournaments. Kaymer placed 62nd at the Wells Fargo Championship last week.
Luke Donald, on the other hand, is taking care of business. The Englishman has cracked the Top 10 in six consecutive PGA tournaments. He won the Match Play Championship and finished fourth at the Masters. Donald had a fine April, finishing fourth, second, and eighth, so he has a bit of momentum heading into The PLAYERS Championship tournament.
Phil Mickelson probably has the best shot out of the Americans. Lefty has four Top-10s in 10 outings this season, including a ninth-place effort at the Wells Fargo Championship last week. Mickelson is looking for his second win of the year; he won the Shell Houston Open at the beginning of April.
The tennis season’s second major championship, the French Open, could now be without arguably the two best players in the world after Serena Williams withdrew from the clay-court Grand Slam tournament on Thursday.
Serena hasn’t played since winning Wimbledon last July after two foot operations, then blood clots in her lung, and has not recovered in time. Williams was replaced in the main draw by Japanese player Junri Namigata.
"Serena has not sufficiently recovered from her health problems," said a French tennis federation statement.
As well as her foot injury, Williams also suffered a pulmonary embolism in February that led to an emergency operation to remove a blood clot from her lung, a health concern she called the scariest moment of her life.
Already in doubt was Kim Clijsters, the winner of the past two Grand Slam tournaments, because of an injury she suffered during her cousin’s wedding after winning the Aussie Open. And Venus Williams remains in doubt as she has not played since January because of a hip injury. She hasn’t played since withdrawing from the Australian Open. Venus and Serena own a combined 20 Grand Slam singles titles. The French Open begins May 22 in Paris.
You know all those Players Championship odds and props on Bodog involving Tiger Woods, who went off as the favorite to win golf’s “fifth major”? Well, they are all bust now.
For the second straight year, Tiger has withdrawn from the Players Championship. Last year, way out of contention, Tiger withdrew on Sunday because of a neck injury. This year, he entered off minor knee and Achilles’ tendon injuries suffered at the Masters. This was his first tournament since and he hadn’t even picked up a club until recently.
On the first tee shot of the day Thursday, Woods tried to hit a draw with a 3-wood and felt something give in his left knee — the same knee that was surgically repaired two years ago after his victory at the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines. The knee then affected his Achilles’ tendon, which he had torn two years ago, and his calf muscle began to cramp, and he struggled to shoot a 6-over-par 42 on the front nine before he was forced to withdraw.
According to reports, Woods was more than a minute behind playing partners Martin Kaymer and Matt Kuchar and the caddies in walking from the tee to their second shots by about the sixth hole. Following his tee shot at the par-3 eighth hole, Woods watched the ball’s flight from a “flamingo” stance – his left foot lifted completely off the ground.
“I’m having a hard time walking,” Woods said to reporters after the WD. “Everything started getting tight. It was like a whole chain reaction. … This morning, felt fine during warm-up and during play, it progressively got worse.”
This obviously brings up the question of whether he will be healthy for the U.S. Open at Congressional in mid-June. Tiger was scheduled to play only once before that, at the Memorial Tournament, which begins June 2.
There are still plenty of Players Championship props at Bodog Sportsbook!
Russian Maria Sharapova upset world No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki with a straight-set victory in the semifinals of the Italian Open in Rome on Saturday to set up a final on Sunday against Aussie Samantha Stosur – bet on the match at Bodog.
Sharapova, the seventh seed, won the first set 7-5 but was down 3-1 in the second before rolling of five straight games for the victory. It’s just Sharapova’s second WTA singles final of the year and she hasn’t won a title in nearly a year (2010 Strasbourg). She broke Wozniacki’s serve seven times in the match. Wozniacki is tied with Petra Kvitova for the most WTA titles this year with three.
The sixth-seeded Stosur's 7-6 (8-6) 6-0 triumph over Li Na was the Australian's third straight sets win to maintain her unbeaten record against Na. This will be Stosur’s first final of the year. The 27-year-old has won just two titles in her career and was a runner-up to Francesca Schiavone at last year's French Open. This year’s clay-court tournament starts May 22 in Paris.
"I haven't played a final for about a year now so I'm looking forward to it. For sure Rome's a lead up to the French Open but it's a prestigious tournament in itself," Stosur said.
Sharapova is 7-0 lifetime against Stosur.
On the men’s side, top-seeded Rafael Nadal beat No. 16 Richard Gasquet in straight sets and will face the winner of Novak Djokovic – who has yet to lose this year – and Andy Murray in Sunday’s final. Djokovic has beaten Nadal in all three finals they've played this year, including at the Madrid Open last weekend, when the Serb registered his first victory over Nadal on clay.
Thanks to the rain, pole qualifying for the FedEx 400 benefiting Autism Speaks Sprint Cup Series race at Dover International Speedway was cancelled and thus Jimmie Johnson was awarded the provisional pole for Sunday's race – bet on it with Bodog’s NASCAR odds.
Johnson gets the nod because he posted the fastest average practice speeds. This is the first time this season NASCAR had to use the new system that starts drivers based on practice speed, not the points standings. AJ Allmendinger will start second.
Allmendinger could be a good long-shot bet. In last season’s fall race, he led more than a third of the 400-lap race before a flat tire derailed him. Allmendinger, who has finished seventh, 14th and 10th in his past three starts at Dover, feels like he might be the series' next first-time winner on Sunday.
"I know the race tracks that we go to that I have more of a shot [to win] at," Allmendinger said to NASCAR-com. "Let me put it this way. If we win on Sunday, I won't be shocked, like I would be if we were to win at Charlotte in the [Coca-Cola] 600 — because I've struggled with those tracks.”
This could be the week Greg Biffle gets his first victory of 2011. Biffle has two victories at Dover in 17 starts. He has 10 top-10 finishes and an average finish of 11.0, which is fourth best behind teammate Carl Edwards among active drivers. Edwards, incidentally, has scored Top-10 finishes in the past four races, the longest current Top-10 streak. He leads all drivers with six Top-5 and eight Top-10 finishes in the first 10 races.
Will we see a fourth fence climb celebration for Brazilian Helio Castroneves after Sunday’s Indianapolis 500? If we do, then Castroneves will have joined a select group with four Indy 500 titles: Only legends A.J. Foyt, Rick Mears and Al Unser have won this race four times.
Castroneves broke onto the IndyCar scene with back-to-back Indy wins in 2001 and ’02 – no driver has gone back to back since. At the age of 27, Castroneves became the youngest driver to win the race twice and the only driver ever to win in his first two attempts. He then added No. 3 in 2009, leading the last 59 laps and 66 on the day. His third career win made Castroneves the only non-American driver to win more than two career 500s and came in a year in which he was earlier acquitted on tax charges.
In 10 career starts at Indy, Castroneves has three wins, four poles, five front-row starts and nine top-10 finishes. He started on the pole in 2010 but finished ninth. So you have to think he will contend again, and he is 10/1 to win the race on Bodog’s auto racing odds.
But Castroneves, who starts in Row 6 (16th spot overall) for this race, has had a rough season. He crashed on the first lap of the season opener in St. Petersburg. He took out teammate Will Power three weeks later in Long Beach. And he got caught in a melee at Sao Paulo. Castroneves has just one Top-10 finish in the four races so far and hasn’t led a lap.
Dan Wheldon made his first start of the season a memorable one, paying off for those doing IndyCar betting on him by crossing the finish line first in the Indianapolis 500 on Sunday afternoon.
Wheldon, who didn't have a ride for the first four races of the season, managed to get past rookie J.R. Hildebrand down the stretch to win his second career Indy 500 title. Hildebrand hit the wall on the final turn and ended up in second place.
Graham Rahal ended up in third place on Sunday, followed by Tony Kanaan and Scott Dixon. Oriol Servia, Bertrand Baguette, Tomas Scheckter, Marco Andretti, and Danica Patrick completed the Top 10.
Wheldon paid off at 10/1 on the Bodog odds list for the Indianapolis 500. Dixon had been a race co-favorite at 4/1 odds with Dario Franchitti, who ended up back in 12th place. Pole sitter Alex Tagliani, who had been set at 13/2 odds, hit the wall on lap 147 and had to leave the race.
Helio Castroneves, another former Indy 500 champ, had been set at 10/1 on the odds board along with Wheldon but could only manage a 17th-place result. And Will Power, listed at 7/1 odds to win his first Indy 500 on Sunday, finished in 14th place.
Power might have disappointed at Indy, but with Top-10 results in each of the first four races of the season – including two victories – he still sits in first place in the standings and remains in the driver's seat to win the series championship this season.
Wheldon, on the other hand, is still well back of Power in the standings thanks to missing the year's first four events. The veteran driver was on a one-race contract for the Indy 500 and is hoping Sunday's win gets him a gig for the rest of the season.
Australia is considering stiff penalties of up to 10 years in jail for anybody involved in match-fixing and corruption in sport, sports minister Mark Arbib said on Friday.
Arbib has been working with state ministers to establish a national framework to deal with gambling-related corruption, a problem highlighted by last year's spot-fixing scandal involving Pakistani cricketers.
"We want to make sure that we do everything possible to send a message to those people who want to be involved in match-fixing that there will be jail time, and it won't be a light punishment," he told ABC radio.
"What we're doing now is we're focused on people who intend to manipulate sport for profit through illegal activities.
"We're looking at uniform sentences across the country.
"We're also looking at codes of conduct that get implemented across sports so players, coaches, officials understand what is right, what is wrong."
There have been relatively few cases of corruption in Australian sport but sports gambling, which was worth A$2.8 billion ($2.99bn) in 2008, is a major growth industry.
The Coalition of Major Professional and Participation Sports -- which represents the national bodies in rugby, cricket, Australian Rules, soccer, tennis and netball -- earlier this year called for a national law to battle the problem.
The Australian Olympic Committee has also been lobbying the government to establish an independent national sports betting authority to investigate cheating and fraudulent conduct.
NASCAR betting on this season’s Sprint Cup Championship has been a challenge to say the least. Here’s hoping for a little more predictability at Sunday afternoon’s STP 400 at Kansas Speedway.
Heading into last week’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte, smart bettors were sure of two things: Carl Edwards is going to run well after dominating the All-Star Race at Charlotte the previous week, and Kevin Harvick is the least valuable driver in the field.
Well, Edwards had a good car, but the Series points leader finished out of the top 10 for only the third time in 14 races dating back to last year, while Harvick took home his Series-leading third win of the season on what he describes as his least favorite track.
Bodog has Edwards as +500 chalk to head down Victory Lane on Sunday, but there’s serious value in Greg Biffle at +900. Biffle has a four-race top 10 streak going, and he’s finished in the top three in his last four at Kansas, including his win last year and in 2007.
In addition to giving Biffle a long look, don’t count out that Jimmie Johnson (+750) guy this week. Johnson rarely has two bad races in a row, and he was second behind Biffle last year at Kansas. The No. 48 cashed at Kansas in 2008, too.
Kyle Busch is priced at +800 to win at Kansas, but there’s a bigger return in an equally likely winner such as Tony Stewart (+1300) or Jeff Gordon (+1600).
Edwards is a +300 fave to win the Sprint Cup at Bodog rolling into Kansas, while Kyle Busch is set at +350 and Johnson at +400 to make it six titles in a row.
Thanks for staying with us.
Following the recent scandal in the country's professional football league, the government has announced new measures to prevent sports match fixing.
Vice Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Park Sun-kyoo said today the enforcement ordinance for the national sports promotion law will be revised and that the government will tighten monitoring and strengthen the punishment for illegal sports gambling.
Organizations found guilty will be suspended or banned from claiming their portion of Sports lottery proceeds, a government-sponsored sports betting business.
As for illegal gambling, the government is looking to toughen the penalty, with fines up from 15 million to 70 million won, almost 65-thousand US dollars, and jail time increased from three years to seven.
In what shouldn’t have been much of a surprise to anyone, Tiger Woods officially pulled out of next week’s U.S. Open on Tuesday because of the Achilles’/knee injury he suffered at the Masters and that forced him out of the Players Championship after just nine holes last month.
Tiger hasn’t played since the Players and reportedly still is in a walking boot. With virtually no practice time ahead of the U.S. Open, Tiger was highly unlikely to be a factor regardless and could have made the injury worse.
"I am extremely disappointed that I won't be playing in the U.S. Open, but it's time for me to listen to my doctors and focus on the future," Woods said on his website. "I was hopeful that I could play, but if I did, I risk further damage to my left leg. My knee and Achilles' tendon are not fully healed."
Woods said he hoped to be ready for the AT&T National, which starts June 30 at Aronomink, and the next two majors, the British Open and PGA Championship. Tiger hasn’t won a major since taking the 2008 U.S. Open on what was essentially a broken leg. He remains four majors shy of tying Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18.
The 2011 U.S. Open starts June 16 at Congressional, where Woods won the AT&T National two years ago and tied for 19th when the U.S. Open was last played there in 1997. Tiger was among the betting favorites on Bodog’s golf odds, but as of now Lee Westwood is the favorite at 10/1. Bodog also had offered a prop on how many majors Tiger would win this year, but that has been closed with the uncertainty of Woods’ return. You can still bet on how many majors Westwood, Phil Mickelson, Rory McIlroy or Martin Kaymer wins in 2011. Tiger does remain the 8/1 favorite to win the British Open, however.
Get the best golf props always at Bodog Sportsbook!
Formula 1 betting seems pretty simple heading into the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal this weekend – put your money on Sebastian Vettel, and collect your winnings.
Vettel has been the runaway leader in Formula 1 this season, taking the checkered flag in five of six races for his Red Bull team and building up a big 143-85 lead on McLaren's Lewis Hamilton in the drivers championship.
However, that's caused Vettel to lose quite a bit of value on the odds board – he's sitting at just 5/4 at Bodog to win the Canadian Grand Prix on Sunday.
There's more value in Hamilton, who won in China in April and took the checkered flag in the Canadian Grand Prix last season (with Vettel finishing fourth in that race). Hamilton would give a better payout of 9/4 for finishing in first place on Sunday.
The usual suspects sit behind Vettel and Hamilton on the race odds to win this week, with Ferrari's Fernando Alonso at 6/1, Red Bull's Mark Webber at 7/1, and McLaren's Jenson Button at 8/1.
Red Bull is also a 5/7 favorite to provide the winner on Sunday, with McLaren at 3/2, and Ferrari at 11/2.
If you want to play it even safer with Vettel and Hamilton, you can get them at 1/3 and 4/9 odds, respectively, at Bodog to finish in the Top 3 in Montreal. Alonso is next at 5/6 odds on that list, with Webber at 10/11, and Button at 1/1.
Looking ahead on the Formula 1 futures board, it seems that the drivers championship has all but been conceded to Vettel as he sits as a huge 2/15 favorite. Hamilton is the nearest contender at 9/1.
The story is the same on the constructors championship board, with Red Bull at 1/10 to claim the team title, McLaren at 6/1, and Ferrari at 33/1.
It hasn’t been a good season so far for Denny Hamlin, but he’s in prime position to turn things around in Sunday afternoon’s 5-Hour Energy 500 at Pocono Raceway.
Hamlin is only 11th in the Sprint Cup Series points standings heading into Pocono, but this is a track he owns. The FedEx driver won his first two career races at Pocono, and has five top fives there since, including a win at this race last year.
Hamlin was third last week at Kansas, so this could be the race in which he breaks through. Bodog has Hamlin as a +450 favorite for Sunday’s race on the NASCAR betting odds, putting him ahead of Jimmie Johnson (+600) and Series points leader Carl Edwards (+700).
If Hamlin is the king of Pocono, Tony Stewart (+1000) might be the sharpest play this week. Stewart won the spring Pocono race in 2009 and 2003, and has the most points there over the last four stops at the triangle-shaped, 2.5-mile track with 664.
Hamlin (599) is second in that category, followed by Edwards (586), Johnson (579), and Juan Montoya (574), who has fallen off the radar this season.
Greg Biffle (+1400) won at Pocono last August, and with Roush Fenway Racing running strong, he presents good value.
The same can’t be said for Dale Earnhardt Jr. (+1400), who is due for a win after finishing second at Kansas last week. Everyone loves Junior, but Pocono has never been a good track for him. Bettors would be wise to hold off before capping Earnhardt Jr. to earn his first trip to Victory Lane this season.
Other drivers to consider this week are Kyle Busch (+1000), Kevin Harvick (+1100), Jeff Gordon (+1400), Kasey Kahne (+2500), and Kurt Busch (+2500).
There once was a time when PGA betting meant deciding exactly how much money you were going to put down on Tiger Woods when a major tournament rolled around.
Then Woods' personal life blew up, the injuries started to mount, and the wins stopped coming. Bettors, though, were still left with trying to decide whether that week's tournament was going to be the one where Tiger finally got back on track.
Well, you're at least spared that decision this week, as injuries will keep Woods out of the U.S. Open at Congressional Country Club. Instead, you've been given a foursome of golfers at the top of the Bodog odds list for the event.
Lee Westwood leads the way at 11/1 to win the U.S. Open this week, followed by Luke Donald at 12/1, Phil Mickelson at 14/1 and Rory McIlroy at 16/1. From there it's a drop to the next set of golfers, all at 25/1: Dustin Johnson, Hunter Mahan, Martin Kaymer, Matt Kuchar, Nick Watney, and Steve Stricker.
If the field looks a little too even to you there's also the full Bodog prop bets list available for the tournament, where you can wager on whether there'll be a playoff (yes +225, no -300) a hole-in-one (yes +120, no -162), a wire-to-wire winner (yes, +1600), or a lefthanded winner (yes, +900).
The golfers' nationalities are also in play on the props board, with the United States the favorite to produce the winner at -110. Europe sits at +160 on that odds list at Bodog, with Australasia at +1100, and the Rest of the World at +800.
Check out the Bodog golf odds section at the sportsbook for the complete props list.
Get all your PGA betting lines at Bodog Sportsbook.
While Serena Williams’ comeback from almost a full year off has drawn most of the publicity, sister Venus is also making her way back from a long injury absence heading into Wimbledon. Venus opened at 9/1 on Bodog’s tennis odds to win the grass-court major championship.
Venus hadn’t played in five months due to a hip injury before returning last week at the grass-court warm-up tournament at Eastbourne. Venus is a five-time Wimbledon champion and seven-time major winner overall. The former world No. 1 has fallen down to 33rd in the world. She had to retire in her third-round match against Andrea Petkovic and hadn’t played since then. It was the first time in Venus’ previous 250 Grand Slam matches that she retired. She arrived in Melbourne having not played an official match since the U.S. Open in September. Venus, who turned 31 on Friday, has had tendinitis in both knees in recent years and sprained her left kneecap last year.
Wimbledon has been by far Venus’ best tournament, winning it in 2000, ’01, ’05, ’07 and ’08. She has been runner-up three times, most recently in 2009. Last year Venus was ousted in the quarterfinals, losing 6-2, 6-3 to 82nd-ranked Tsvetana Pironkova of Bulgaria. Pironkova had never previously passed the second round in 18 previous Grand Slam appearances. Venus, seeded second, had reached the Wimbledon final in eight of the past 10 years and hadn’t lost in a Grand Slam tournament to a player ranked outside the Top 80 since the 2006 Aussie Open. She and sister Serena have played in four Wimbledon finals. Venus is seeded 24th this year.
Get the best Wimbledon match odds and futures props at Bodog Sportsbook!
After being dominated by Novak Djokovic earlier this year, Rafael Nadal re-established himself as the world’s top-ranked player and the best clay-court champion ever by winning a record-tying sixth French Open title a few weeks ago in Paris. Can he add a third Wimbledon title to his Hall of Fame resume? The grass-court major begins Monday in England and Nadal is the slight 2/1 favorite on Bodog’s tennis odds.
There’s no questioning that Nadal is the clay-court king: He is 45-1 career at the French Open and his six titles ties him with Bjorn Borg for the most. But perhaps it’s time to consider Nadal the best player ever. By beating Roger Federer 7-5, 7-6 (3), 5-7, 6-1 in the French final, Nadal won his 10th Grand Slam title. That’s now just six behind Federer’s record of 16. And Nadal is only 25.
Technically Nadal is going for his third straight Wimbledon title. He beat Federer in an epic five-set final in 2008 and then Tomas Berdych last year in straight sets. Nadal missed the 2009 tournament with an injury – that’s the only Wimbledon that Federer, the holder of six titles at the All England Club, has won in the past three years. Nadal didn’t have to face Federer last year because Berdych did him the favor of beating the Swiss star in the quarterfinals. With Nadal the top seed and Djokovic No. 2 and Federer No. 3, the Spaniard would only have to face one of the two and only in the final. Nadal is 6-2 in his career in Grand Slam finals vs. Federer. Nadal is 0-4 vs. Djokovic this year, but grass is easily Djokovic’s weakest surface as he has never even made the finals at Wimbledon. If Djokovic should make the final this year, however, he would take Nadal’s No. 1 ranking.
Get the best Wimbledon match odds and futures props at Bodog Sportsbook!
It’s starting to look more and more like Tiger Woods won’t be able to play in the British Open next month as Woods, who of course missed the U.S. Open, has already pulled out of his own tournament, the AT&T National.
Tiger pulled out of the tournament, which used to be held at Congressional but was moved to suburban Philadelphia for two years, citing “Doctor’s orders” on his Twitter account. Because of injuries to his left leg and Achilles' tendon, Woods has not completed a tournament since the Masters in early April. Last week, he missed the U.S. Open for the first time since 1995.
Woods’ appearance in the tournament — played this year and last at Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown Square, Pa., while Congressional Country Club first overhauled its greens and then hosted the Open — would normally mark his one competitive bit of preparation between the U.S. and British Opens.
Tiger’s last appearance on the course was the Players Championship on May 12, when he limped through nine holes in 42 shots before quitting. He is suffering from a Grade I medial collateral ligament sprain to his left knee and a mild strain to his left Achilles’ tendon. The injuries occurred while he was hitting an awkward shot from underneath a tree at Augusta during the third round of the Masters. According to his swing coach, Sean Foley, the two have not worked together since the week of the Players.
The British Open is set to start July 14. In the past two Opens, Tiger missed the cut at Turnberry and finished 23rd at St. Andrews last July. Woods has not won a tournament since November 2009 and is down to No. 17 in the Official World Ranking.
If you expected Sebastian Vettel to pay off on the Formula 1 betting odds in the circuit's last event, you got thrown a curveball. Red Bull's Vettel, who had won five of six F1 races heading into the Canadian Grand Prix on June 12, ended up in second place in Montreal behind McLaren's Jenson Button.
That, however, has not dampened the oddsmakers' enthusiasm for Vettel heading into this weekend's European Grand Prix at the Valencia Street Circuit in Spain.
Not only does Vettel sit atop the odds list for the European Grand Prix at 1/1, but he's also still the heavy favorite to win the F1 drivers championship at 2/15, and his Red Bull team is the 1/10 chalk on the constructors championship odds.
Vettel has a commanding 161-101 lead on Button in the drivers championship after seven races, and Red Bull leads McLaren 255-186 in the constructors championship.
Vettel won the European Grand Prix in 2010, with Lewis Hamilton ending up in second place, and Button finishing third. McLaren's Hamilton is the second-favorite on the Bodog odds for the race this week at 10/3, with Button listed at 15/2 odds.
Ferrari's Fernando Alonso was eighth at this event last year, and teammate Felipe Massa finished 11th; they're at 5/1 and 33/1 odds, respectively, for the weekend. Red Bull's Mark Webber (8/1) crashed in this race last year and didn't manage to finish.
Those thinking Vettel might collapse over the second half of the season can get lucrative Bodog odds on the other top drivers winning the championship – Hamilton is at 14/1, Alonso and Button are at 16/1, and Webber sits at 33/1.
McLaren is also at 6/1 on the constructors championship odds, with Ferrari at 50/1.
It wasn’t that long ago when open-wheel racing was the top dog in the United States, and stock car racing was strictly for fans of The Dukes of Hazzard (special guest star: Cale Yarborough). Now CART/Champ Car doesn’t even exist, and nobody jokes about turning left all the time anymore. But this Sunday afternoon (3:00 p.m. ET), you get the best of both worlds, as the Sprint Cup circuit visits Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, Calif. for the Toyota/Save Mart 350. Which means it’s time for the road racers to take their rightful place atop the NASCAR odds list.
First up is Marcos Ambrose at 4/1. He cut his teeth on the Australian V8 Supercar circuit in his native country, winning the championship in 2003 and 2004, and although he has yet to win a Sprint Cup race, Ambrose did take the checkered flag each of the last three years at Watkins Glen (another road course) on the Nationwide circuit. And making the move to Richard Petty Motorsports for 2011 means that Ambrose will have the vaunted Ford FR9 engine under the hood this Sunday.
Crowding Ambrose’s rear-view mirror at 15/2 are three of the most successful road racers on this side of the Atlantic: Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart and Juan Pablo Montoya. Stewart has the best driver rating for Sonoma at 110.4 points out of 150, followed by Montoya (108.6), Ambrose (108.4) and Gordon (100.2). But those loop data stats only go back to 2005; Gordon is a five-time champion here, most recently in 2006, while Stewart has won twice (2001, 2005) and Montoya once (2007).
How about Jimmie Johnson? He may be vanilla, but that’s still a tasty and reliable flavor. Johnson won this race last year en route to his fifth consecutive Sprint Cup title, and is available this week at the reasonable price of 8/1. Kyle Busch, who won this race in 2008, is also 8/1 for Sunday.
Reportedly when Pacquiao will fight is already set: It will happen either at the MGM Grand on Nov. 5 or at Thomas & Mack Center on Nov. 12 in Las Vegas. Most believe a third fight with Juan Manuel Marquez is in the cards. Marquez is 38 but has a solid history against Pacquiao as a lightweight. Marquez got a draw against Pacquiao in 2004 even though Pac-Man knocked him down three times in the first round. Then Marquez lost a split decision in 2008 that could have certainly gone either way. Marquez is coming off a tough TKO of Michael Katsidis and a decision over Juan Diaz. He lost handily to Mayweather before that.
Promoter Bob Arum said Pacquiao’s next bout will be against either Marquez, Timothy Bradley or Zab Judah. Pacquiao's trainer, Freddie Roach, said he felt Marquez was the ideal next opponent for his fighter.
"They have history and those were two great fights," Roach told the media after Pacquiao's 14th consecutive win since his loss to Erik Morales in Las Vegas in March 2005. "They were very close fights and could have gone either way. So I would love to fight him one more time just to shut him up, I really would. If Mayweather doesn't come to the table, I think Marquez is going to be our next opponent because we are running out of opponents.”
The one problem is that Marquez, a natural lightweight, would have to come up to 147 pounds.
Bet on boxing futures now at Bodog Sportsbook!