Kanaan leads all AGR front row

Autoracing Betting Lines

08/10/2007 - Sparta, KY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Andretti Green Racing driver Tony Kanaan captured the pole for Saturday night's Meijer Indy 300 at the Kentucky Speedway. The No.11 Dallara Honda circled the 1.5-mile speedway in 24.4307 seconds (218.086 m.p.h.).

The pole victory was Kanaan's second of the season and eighth of his IndyCar career.

"It was a pretty good lap," said Kanaan. "I was shooting for one lap, I knew my second lap would be slower."

Starting on the front row with Kanaan will be teammate and series points leader Dario Franchitti who posted a time of 24.5745 seconds.

Scott Sharp (24.5918) and Scott Dixon (24.6119) will start in row two.

Last week's race at Michigan was a wild race that included a spectacular crash involving the championship leader Franchitti sailing upside down and backwards onto the top of Dixon's Target Chip Ganassi race car.

The event took place on lap 143 and it started when Franchitti and Dan Wheldon touched wheels while fighting for the lead. Franchitti was sent airborne. He landed upside down right in front of Dixon and A.J. Foyt IV who had nowhere to go.

After a lengthy cleanup the race continued with less than 10 drivers still on the track. Despite the limited number of drivers, the finish was still quite a show.

The race came down to Kanaan and Marco Andretti and they raced clean and hard all the way to the checkered flag. Andretti tried four different times to go around the outside of Kanaan and each time he was denied by the 2004 IndyCar champion. The final margin of 0.0595 seconds was one of the closest of the year.

The win coupled with the accident to Franchitti and Dixon helped the No.11 Andretti Green Racing driver close to within 81 points of the leader and 57 points of second place.

In last year's Kentucky race, Sam Hornish Jr. edged Dixon for the win. Saturday night's race is scheduled to drop the green flag at 6:40 p.m. (et).

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SPORTS BETTING: NFL Football Sportsbook Betting

NFL owners, already life's biggest winners, want to try their luck with the lottery.


That was the news out of their meetings last week, where team bosses voted unanimously to allow stamping state and local lottery tickets with franchise logos, if, ahem, any governments wanted to do a deal.

A shocker: Within days the Pats announced they'd be sponsoring the Massachusetts state lottery, the Skins said they'd slap their sticker on Virginia scratch-offs and the Ravens admitted they were talking to Maryland lottery bosses. In all likelihood, it won't be long before every team is a presenting sponsor of scratch-offs or just plain old pick fives. "The change in policy was approved 32-0," said NFL spokesman Greg Aiello. "So you can expect to see more deals soon."

It's a branding opportunity too big for the owners to ignore, and one a couple of dozen baseball franchises have enjoyed for years. The fact the NFL has been slower to act than those slack-brained Seligites is indicative of its complicated relationship with all forms of gambling. Consider this: Last Thursday, as the Pats and the Redskins finalized their new lottery deals, a lawyer representing the NFL argued before Delaware's Supreme Court that the state's newly signed sports betting law should be repealed.

The NFL betting is the face of opposition to sports gambling . And as much as it would like to share that responsibility with other leagues, that's not going to happen as long as more than 40% of all money legally wagered on games is bet on football. That's why the Brewers can do a multi-million dollar deal with a local casino, or the Celtics can make their own pact with the Mass lottery, and the response is, "Sweet, let's play." But when the NFL does it the stakes are higher, and everyone from NPR's Frank Deford to the Associated Press to the guys blogging at Deadspin will line up to play gotcha.

So I asked Aiello, who surely knew there'd be piling on, how the league can rail against being bait for sports bettors, then allow its franchises to be just that for lotteries, the most insidious and addictive form of gambling around. He emailed me this response: "We are not moral crusaders. NFL personnel are permitted to engage in legal forms of gambling, except for betting on NFL games. We are making a distinction here between the spread of gambling on the outcome of our games and supporting state lottery scratch-off games, that have nothing to do with the outcome of our games."

Here's where I should rip him. But, the thing is, he's right. Not to get Obama on you, but this is a complicated, nuanced issue. As much as lotteries are considered a tax on the poor, the NFL isn't a socially obligated government program -- it's just a business. Scratch-off's help the bottom line, sports betting doesn't. Now, it's okay to call the league hypocritical when it releases injury reports, which players have told me only helps bettors … But when it supports other forms of gaming? Big Deal.

Now, it's okay to call the league hypocritical when it releases injury reports, which players have told me only helps bettors. And it's okay to mutter something obscene when the league pretends gambling doesn't help drive TV ratings and fan interest and put money in owners' pockets. But when it supports other forms of gaming? Big Deal. The Bears should put an orange "C" on every deck of cards dealt at Harrah's in Joliet; the Eagles should slap their logo on roulette wheels at the Borgata in Atlantic City; the Dolphins should hold training camp at the El San Juan in Puerto Rico.

Seriously.

The NFL's problem, when it comes to the gambling world, isn't hypocrisy, it's worse: The bosses lack vision. That's why the league is picking unwinnable fights in Delaware and taking pot shots from critics after making smart sponsorship deals. Roger Goodell and his gang are acting and thinking locally rather than globally, which is rare for them, especially compared to their professional (and amateur) counterparts.

The NBA held its All Star game in Las Vegas and David Stern's kingdom didn't crumble (although the town did bring plenty of players to their knees.) I'd say it's 6 to 5 and pick 'em that Lebron will make a road swing through Sin City before his career is over.

Even the NCAA College Football Betting is more progressive on this issue than the NFL. Several years ago Rachel Newman Baker, college sports' gambling czar, opened a dialogue with Vegas bookmakers to learn about how they do business. She's visited Nevada sports books, studied their operations and listened to how they regulate action. Now she knows she can expect a call from bookmakers, who lose money when sports are fixed, if they think something sketchy is going on in NCAA games. She's not in favor of sports betting, but, as she once told me, "I know it's not going away, either."

The NFL can't seem to accept that. And until it can find peace with the idea, it'll get flack, even when it's right.

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