Alouettes rout Eskimos

Football Betting Lines

07/09/2009 - Montreal, QC (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Anthony Calvillo completed 24-of-32 passes for 343 yards and two touchdowns and added a rushing TD, as the Montreal Alouettes routed the Edmonton Eskimos, 50-16, in the second game of the season for both teams.

Kerry Watkins caught nine passes for 119 yards and one score for the Alouettes (2-0), who kicked off the season by claiming a convincing 40-27 triumph over the reigning champion Calgary Stampeders. S.J. Green brought in five balls for 113 yards and a TD.

Avon Cobourne led the way on the ground, rushing for 65 yards and a score on 10 carries for Montreal, which was the only team in the East Division to post double-digit victories in 2008.

Edmonton (1-1), which won 19-17 against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in the season opener, sorely missed running back Jesse Lumsden on Thursday. Lumsden will miss at least nine games after dislocating his left shoulder in the opener.

Eskimos quarterback Ricky Ray ended up leading the way on the ground, rushing for 33 yards on five carries. Arkee Whitlock finished with 29 yards and a score on 12 rushing attempts.

Ray completed 19-of-33 passes for 280 yards. Maurice Mann caught seven balls for 139 yards.

Calvillo's 28-yard strike to Watkins early in the first quarter gave the Als a 7-0 lead. The Eskimos used a 22-yard field goal from Noel Prefontaine late in the frame to cut the deficit to 8-3.

Montreal used the arm of Calvillo and the foot of Damon Duval to take a comfortable 19-6 margin heading into the locker room. Prefontaine cut the gap to three with a 15-yard field goal early in the second period. The Alouettes, though, finished out the quarter with an 11-yard field goal from Duval and a Calvillo 3-yard TD run to take control.

Prefontaine's 14-yard field goal proved to be the only scoring in the third period.

The Als turned the game into a rout in the fourth, scoring four touchdowns and a field goal. Calvillo got things started when he connected with Green on a 21-yard TD pass early in the frame. Also included in the quarter was a 67- yard punt return from Larry Taylor and a 38-yard interception return by Cory Huclack.

Whitlock capped the scoring in the contest with a 1-yard TD run.

Game Notes

It was the 87th consecutive sellout for Montreal...Als' Keron Williams had five tackles and two sacks, while Mark Estelle recorded eight tackles. Jonte Buhl led the Eskimos defense with six sacks.

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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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