The Basics: Calculating the Hold Percentage in Sports Betting

Ever heard the expression “the house always wins?” This is due to the hold percentage, a margin that sportsbooks take on both sides of a bet. Knowing how to calculate the hold percentage in sports betting will help you distinguish good bets from bad and can greatly improve your chances of winning more money than you lose. So let’s learn what the hold is, examine how it’s calculated, and then review how the hold should be considered when you bet on sports.

What is the Hold?

Let’s say you bet $50 on the Eagles to cover a 4 point spread against the Lions, and they win by a touchdown. You’ve won that bet, but that doesn’t mean your bankroll is $50 richer. In fact, it’s only $45.45 richer…so what happened to that $4.65? That amount has been “held” by the sportsbook as a cost of doing business. Whether you call it the hold, vig, or juice, it all means the same thing: sportsbooks are taking a de facto tax on many of the bets you place.

Typically, favorites have a negative hold, which means you’ll earn less than your wagered amount if the bet hits, as it did in the example above. Betting on the underdog can sometimes pay out more than your wagered amount, but only if the hold is positive (technically, a positive hold isn’t a hold at all, but a premium on the wager to entice people to place riskier bets). In the hypothetical bet below, team 2 is a heavy underdog, so a $50 bet with a +110 hold would pay $55. But the same bet on the favorite at -110 would only pay out $45.45. 

The hold percentage determines how much less (or more) of your wager will be paid out on a winning bet.

Professional sports bettors use the hold to understand the profit that sportsbooks expect to make on their markets, and the percentage of bets they need to win to make money. There is a lot of advanced math involved here (for a deep dive, read this article by John V. Culver of The Intelligent Sports Wagerer), but the rule of thumb states that a professional bettor needs to win 52.4% of all the bets they place to have a profitable gambling career. 

How to Identify the Hold Percentage on Your Sports Bet

Now we aren’t professional gamblers, so there’s no need to break out your old TI 84 calculator and run the numbers on a couple bets you place on any given Sunday. Your sports betting app will do this for you on the bet slip; simply subtract your stake by the payout, and the difference between the payout and your stake represents the total hold amount.

If you do want to calculate the hold on your bets (and we aren’t saying you shouldn’t), Sportsbook Review offers a simple bet calculator that will quickly give you a payout number based on the American Odds system. 

How Should Amateur Bettors Use the Hold Percentage?

For our purposes, we want to be aware that hold exists and know how to use the odds in our favor. To review, the more negative a hold is (e.g., -150 vs. -110), the less your bet will payout. The more positive your hold (e.g., +115), the more your bet will payout. An “even money” bet has a +100 hold, meaning that you will win exactly what you wager.

Factoring the Hold in Single Game Markets

Consider a single game market, like our Eagles v. Lions bet above. If you like the Lions to cover, you’ll win $55 because the hold is +110. Not bad, but if you think the Lions are going to win outright, you may want to consider betting the moneyline vs. spread if the hold on the moneyline is more favorable. While you sacrifice the 4 point cushion, your payout could be higher because the probability of the Lions winning outright is less than them covering a point spread.

Betting the moneyline is a good football betting strategy especially for games with a point spread lower than a field goal. While no strategy is perfect every time, betting an underdog to cover +2.5 with a -110 hold might be suboptimal to betting that underdog to win outright at +115. Think about it this way: if the underdog loses the game, how likely are they to lose by 2 points or less? According to SportsInsights, not likely at all; in fact, less than 10% of NFL games are decided by 1 or 2 points. 

Taking the +2.5 points might feel like a nice safety blanket, but the odds are that if the underdog covers, they’re going to win by 3 points or more. Why not take the moneyline and increase your payout, especially if you think the underdog has a real chance of winning?

Factoring the Hold in Multi-Game Markets

When we’re talking mult-game markets, we’re talking about parlays. While the odds are going to increase on any parlay bet, you can really boost your payout if your package includes some positive holds. Let’s look at an example:

Notice how one game with a positive hold can greatly increase the odds of a parlay and it’s payout.

The parlay bet on the left features three favored teams to cover the spread. An individual bet on each team would pay out less than your wagered amount due to the negative hold, but when packaged in a multi-game parlay our odds increase to +581. This is because the chances of hitting all three games is unlikely. But still, a $10 bet would pay out $68.13, a profit of $58.13. 

The parlay on the right features two favored teams against the spread (ATS) and one moneyline (ML) bet on an underdog. The two ATS bets are the same from the bet on the right, but replacing the Ravens -6.5 at -110 with the Cardinals ML at +200 nearly doubles our odds, from +581 to +970. That means a $10 bet would payout $107.07, a $97.07 profit!

Are we saying you should bet more parlays? Not necessarily, because it is much harder to hit a parlay than an individual game bet, and all it takes is one beat in a parlay to lose your whole stake. But if you are going to bet a parlay, you want to consider the risk/reward: you’re probably going to lose, but if you add a positive hold bet to your package then your reward can be significantly higher.

Factoring the Hold into Bankroll Management

We are casual bettors here, which means we bet for enjoyment. The excitement of a few dollars at stake (never bet more than you can afford to lose) makes those random games you don’t care about all the more interesting. However, we don’t want to lose our shirts, and it’s always a good feeling when you can go to bed on a Sunday night with close to or more money than you had when you woke up. So how can we use what we know about the hold to change a good day of betting into a great day of betting? 

Take the parlay example above. If we simply bet those three games on the left individually, we only need to win 2 out of 3 to come out ahead. But the profit is a function of the hold, so if we win the Colts spread at -115 and the Baltimore spread at -110, we would earn less than if we won the Baltimore game at -110 and the Eagles game at -110. When you set your bets for the day, understand that hitting just one positive hold game can keep a bad day from being worse.

So why does the hold percentage vary from game to game? It’s a function of the oddsmakers confidence in their line, and also a reaction to the public betting market. Lines and odds are dynamic, and sportsbooks are always making adjustments to protect themselves from big payouts. If that Colts game opens at -7 and 75% of the bets come in on the other team, that line will move down a few points, and the hold will probably increase too. 

This is called Reverse Line Movement, and you should pay attention to it. Professional gamblers know their best chances of finding value is immediately after betting lines are released (typically Sunday evening before the next week’s games) when they can pounce on favorable lines and odds before the books have a chance to react. If you see that Colts opening line move down, it could mean their opponent will eventually represent a better bet. But if you liked the Colts at -7, you would love them at -6 right? Of course, but that may also come with a higher hold percentage…so while you have less points to cover, your profit will be less as well.

Review the basics of the hold percentage, and how it impacts your sports betting strategy.

Hopefully this introduction to the hold percentage in sports betting has been enlightening for you. You don’t need to be a mathematician to make smart bets, but understanding how the hold impacts your potential payout and distinguishes good bets from bad. It’s as simple as paying attention to all the information provided on your betting market. Recognize how the more negative a hold is, the more likely you are to win that bet, but the less it will payout. And conversely, the more positive a hold is, the less likely you are to win the bet, but the more it will payout. 

As always, have fun, enjoy yourself, and don’t forget to bet with your head (and not over it)!

This is how you calculate a hold and how often you must win to consider yourself profitable. Linked is an article surrounding the idea of arbitrage and betting between books. Give them a read and happy betting!