Juice / Vigorish (Vig)

Juice, also known as vigorish or simply the vig, is the built-in commission that a sportsbook charges for accepting a wager. It is not listed as a separate fee on your betting slip. Instead, it is embedded directly in the odds, ensuring that the bookmaker earns revenue regardless of which side wins. The juice is the primary way sportsbooks generate profit and stay in business.

The most common example of juice appears in standard point spread and totals betting, where both sides are priced at -110. At these odds, a bettor must risk $110 to win $100. If two bettors place equal wagers on opposite sides, the book collects $220 in total stakes but only pays out $210 to the winner ($110 stake plus $100 profit). The remaining $10 — roughly 4.55% of the total handle — represents the bookmaker’s margin.

In a perfectly efficient market with no juice, both sides of a 50/50 proposition would be priced at +100 (even money). The difference between the actual offered odds and these fair odds represents the cost of placing the bet.

Example

A sportsbook offers a college basketball spread with Team A at -5.5 (-110) and Team B at +5.5 (-110). You bet $110 on Team A. If Team A covers, you win $100 in profit. If you lose, the book keeps your $110. Meanwhile, another bettor wagered $110 on Team B at the same odds. The sportsbook holds $220 total and will pay $210 to whichever bettor wins, keeping a $10 margin.

If the same market were offered at -105 on each side, you would only need to wager $105 to win $100, meaning the vig is lower and the bet is cheaper for the bettor.

Key Points

• Lower juice is better for bettors: Shopping for reduced-juice lines (such as -105 instead of -110) saves money over time and meaningfully improves long-term profitability.
• Juice varies by market and sport: Mainstream markets like NFL spreads often have tighter juice than niche markets or prop bets, where the vig can be significantly higher.
• The vig is not the same as the hold: Juice refers to the margin on a single side, while the hold is the overall percentage the sportsbook retains from the total amount wagered on a market.
• Implied probabilities reveal the vig: When you convert the odds for both sides of a market to implied probabilities and they sum to more than 100%, the excess represents the total overround — the bookmaker’s combined margin across the market.