Juice / Vigorish (Vig)
The bookmaker's commission on each wager, embedded in the odds rather than charged separately.
Juice — also vigorish, or simply the vig — is the built-in commission a sportsbook charges for taking a bet. It never appears as a separate line item on your slip; it is baked straight into the odds, ensuring the book earns regardless of which side wins. Juice is the primary engine of sportsbook profit and survival.
The clearest example shows up in standard spread and totals betting, where both sides price at -110. At that number a bettor risks $110 to win $100. With two bettors staking equal amounts on opposite sides, the book takes in $220 in stakes but pays the winner only $210 ($110 stake plus $100 profit). The leftover $10 — about 4.55% of total handle — is the book’s margin.
In a perfectly efficient, juice-free market, both sides of a 50/50 proposition would price at +100 (even money). The gap between the offered odds and those fair odds is the cost of placing the bet.
Example
A book posts a college basketball spread with Team A at -5.5 (-110) and Team B at +5.5 (-110). You stake $110 on Team A. Cover, and you win $100 profit; lose, and the book keeps your $110. Another bettor stakes $110 on Team B at matching odds. The book holds $220 total and pays $210 to whichever bettor wins, retaining a $10 margin.
Were the same market offered at -105 per side, you would risk only $105 to win $100 — lower vig, and a cheaper bet.
Key Points
- Lower juice is better for bettors: Hunting reduced-juice lines (e.g., -105 over -110) saves money over time and meaningfully boosts long-term returns.
- Juice varies by market and sport: Mainstream markets like NFL spreads tend to run tighter juice than niche markets or props, where the vig can climb much higher.
- The vig is not the same as the hold: Juice is the margin on a single side; the hold is the overall percentage the book retains from total money wagered on a market.
- Implied probabilities reveal the vig: Convert both sides of a market to implied probabilities — when they sum past 100%, the excess is the total overround, the book’s combined margin across the market.