Juice / Vigorish (Vig)
The commission a bookmaker takes on every wager, embedded within the odds rather than charged separately.
Juice, also called vigorish or simply the vig, is the built-in commission a sportsbook applies for taking a bet. It never appears as a standalone charge on your slip. Instead, it lives directly inside the odds, ensuring the bookmaker earns a return no matter which side prevails. The juice is the chief mechanism through which sportsbooks turn a profit and keep their doors open.
The textbook illustration of juice shows up in standard point spread and totals betting, where both sides are priced at -110. At those odds a bettor must risk $110 to win $100. When two bettors stake equal amounts on opposite sides, the book takes in $220 in total stakes yet pays out only $210 to the winner ($110 stake plus $100 profit). The leftover $10, about 4.55% of the combined handle, is the bookmaker’s margin.
In a flawlessly efficient market carrying no juice, both sides of a 50/50 proposition would sit at +100 (even money). The gap between the odds actually posted and those fair odds amounts to the cost of placing the bet.
Example
A sportsbook 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 collect $100 in profit. Lose, and the book keeps your $110. Elsewhere, another bettor has put $110 on Team B at the same price. The sportsbook is holding $220 in all and will pay $210 to whichever bettor wins, pocketing a $10 margin.
Were the same market offered at -105 a side, you would only have to stake $105 to win $100, which means the vig is lower and the bet costs the bettor less.
Key Points
- Lower juice is better for bettors: Seeking out reduced-juice lines (such as -105 rather than -110) saves money over time and meaningfully strengthens long-run profitability.
- Juice varies by market and sport: Mainstream markets like NFL spreads tend to carry tighter juice than niche markets or prop bets, where the vig can run considerably higher.
- The vig is not the same as the hold: Juice describes the margin on a single side, whereas the hold is the overall share a sportsbook retains from the total wagered on a market.
- Implied probabilities reveal the vig: Convert the odds for both sides of a market into implied probabilities, and when they sum to more than 100%, the excess is the total overround, the bookmaker’s combined margin across the market.