Chicago’s Jay Cutler took a lot of heat for not playing through a knee injury when the Bears lost to rival Green Bay in the playoffs, but you can’t fault him for this. Cutler, along with girlfriend Kristin Cavallari from “The Hills” and “Laguna Beach”, recently traveled to Kenya to help rebuild schools in the poverty-stricken country. This should aid Cutler with his image rehabilitation, but we get the feeling that he doesn’t really care either, which actually works out even more in his favor.

Emmitt Smith won “Dancing With The Stars”, while Jerry Rice, Jason Taylor and Warren Sapp have all finished second in the competition. Now, Hines Ward of Pittsburgh seems to be next as he and partner Kym Johnson have the highest score among all competitors through four dances, and their average score of 23.5 is also the best in the event.

Ward has shown a natural affinity for dancing and he’s a very quick learner, so there is no reason that he shouldn’t make it very far in the latest season of “Dancing With The Stars”. The only thing that seems like it’ll be able to stop Ward and Johnson is an injury, and we don’t know about Johnson, but Ward has never played less than 13 games in a season for the Steelers and he didn’t miss a game for the first eight seasons of his career. Expect to see Ward standing tall when it’s all said and done.

The fact that Dawn Olivieri was teased while she was growing up because kids thought she was ugly really makes me regret all the cruel things I used to say to the class trolls.

Inner Dialogue: Someday Lara, if you’re listening, and if you lose those 150 extra pounds, and get a nosejob, and cut off the warts, and trim the nosehair, and you end up looking like Dawn Olivieri, the mean things I said to you in high school were all just… products of… love…

For more Dawn Olivieri, head on over to BetUS

Karen Bray

Karen Bray may the lesser known of the two BetUS Models, but what she lacks in notoriety she makes up for in physique. Does she have more sex appeal than Kathryn Arbenz? You be the judge.

Kathryn Arbenz

Fitness model Kathryn Arbenz has done just about every kind of modeling from fitness to lingerie (yea, I guess that’s not that big of a stretch).

Check out the personal site of Kathryn Arbenz for more pictures, and then head on over to BetUS for more sexy BetUS models.

With tons of wagers on football, you’ve probably guessed why sportsbooks pay so much attention to the action on the pigskin. It’s where books assign only the best oddsmakers, and it’s where they make the majority of their money.
Because football betting is public in nature – with every American and their neighbor a supposed expert – the market plays an extremely large role in setting the price, or point-spread. That’s the first and most important lesson of football betting 101: Always remember the point-spread is a reflection of public perception of the quality of the teams in question, and isn’t a prediction on the part of oddsmakers.

When you see the New England Patriots as 7-point favorites for their game against the Miami Dolphins, it means oddsmakers have assessed the public opinion of the matchup. In this particular case, the public expects the Patriots to beat the Dolphins by a touchdown, so in order for bettors to cash in on New England, it has to win by more than seven points. Anything less than seven points and the Dolphins have covered the spread, even if they lose the game outright.

After sportsbooks release a line, or spread, they let the public tell them how accurate it is. For instance, oddsmakers could open the Pats as 7-point favorites, only to receive a vast majority of plays on New England. This means the public thinks the Patriots are going to win by more than seven points, and that’s why they’re putting their money with them.

The ideal scenario for books is to take in equal action on both sides, so as to maximize their profit regardless of which team wins against the spread (ATS). This way the Dolphins-Patriots game pays for itself; if New England wins against the spread, the house can use the money wagered on Miami to pay the winners, while keeping some juice or vigorish for itself.

Juice is the industry term designated for the commission the house takes for handling a wager. In most cases, sportsbooks take 10 cents on the dollar for bets against the spread, meaning you have to put down $110 to make $100. Knowing this, it’s pretty easy to see why sportsbooks have an interest in hauling in equal money on each side of the ledger.

Oddsmakers attempt to achieve this balance by adjusting the line depending on how bettors react to their initial posting. Again, if the Pats open as 7-point favorites, but two-thirds of wagers come in on New England, that’s not optimal for the house. Oddsmakers could then move the line in the Patriots’ favor, making the Dolphins bigger underdogs so it’s easier for them to cover the spread.

The same principle applies to the total or over/under, which is a wager on the combined number of points two opponents will score in a head-to-head matchup. If oddsmakers set the total at 40.5 points for the aforementioned Miami-New England game, it means a wager that plays the “over” needs the teams to combine for 41 or more points for the bet to cash. Any combined score of 40 points or less and the game plays “under” the number listed by oddsmakers.

For more info on Week 2 of the 2009-2010 NFL Season, check out the video below courtesy of BetUS.