What is vigorish (vig/juice)?
How sportsbooks make money and why that matters to you
Vigorish, commonly shortened to “vig” or “juice,” is the commission that sportsbooks charge on every bet. This built-in fee is how sportsbooks guarantee profit over time, regardless of which side wins. Understanding vig is critical because it directly affects which bets are profitable.
What is vig?
Vig is the margin sportsbooks build into the odds to ensure they profit regardless of the outcome. When you bet, you’re not just competing against the event’s true outcome—you’re also paying a fee to place that bet.
The most common example is the standard -110 line on point spreads and totals. At -110, you risk $110 to win $100. If you win, you receive your $110 stake back plus $100 profit, for a total return of $210. But notice: you risked $110 to win $100, not $100 to win $100. That extra $10 is the vig.
If two bettors place opposing bets on a game at -110 odds, the sportsbook collects $220 in total wagers. It pays out $210 to the winner (their $110 stake plus $100 profit) and keeps the remaining $10. This $10 is the sportsbook’s commission.
Why -110 is so common
The -110 line is the industry standard for spreads and totals because it balances customer appeal with guaranteed sportsbook profit. From the bettor’s perspective, -110 feels close to even odds. From the sportsbook’s perspective, it locks in roughly a 4.5% profit margin on balanced action.
Sportsbooks generally don’t care which side wins. Their goal is to attract roughly equal money on both sides so they can collect vig from the losing side and pay winners with the losers’ money, pocketing the difference.
The cost of vig
The most important consequence of vig is that it raises the win rate you need just to break even. At -110, you must win 52.38% of your bets to break even over time.
Here’s the formula for any odds level:
At -110, you risk $110 to win $100:
Contrast this with a fair coin flip at even odds (+100). At even money, you risk $100 to win $100, and the required win rate is exactly 50%. The vig at -110 forces you to win an extra 2.38 percentage points just to stay even.
Over time, this difference compounds. Winning 50% of your bets at -110 means you’re losing roughly 4.5 cents per dollar wagered.
Vig varies by market
Not all bets carry the same vig. Sportsbooks charge different amounts depending on the market, the sport, and the book itself.
Mainlines (spreads, totals, moneylines on major markets) generally contain the least vig. Sportsbooks are most confident pricing these markets, and they take high volume.
Game props are harder to price accurately and are thus a higher risk to the book. Sportsbooks charge more vig to compensate for this.
Player props depend on fewer predictable factors than other bet types. Sportsbooks charge even more vig to account for this uncertainty.
Parlays compound vig with each leg. A two-leg parlay at -110 on each side has an effective hold percentage far higher than a single -110 bet. Sportsbooks love parlays because bettors underestimate how much vig they’re paying.
Same-game parlays (SGPs) carry the most vig, often 20% to 30% or more. These bets combine correlated outcomes within a single game, and sportsbooks price them with wide margins because the true probabilities are tricky to calculate.
Line shopping
Not all sportsbooks charge the same vig on the same bet. A game priced at -110 at one book might be -108 or -105 at another. Line shopping—comparing odds across multiple sportsbooks before placing a bet—allows you to consistently pay less vig on the same wager.
For example, if you want to bet the Chiefs -3, one book might offer -110 while another offers -105. Betting at -105 lowers your required win rate from from 52.38% to 51.22%. Over hundreds of bets, these small differences compound into real profit.
Line shopping requires accounts at multiple sportsbooks and checking each one before betting. It takes extra time, but the math is clear: paying less vig directly increases your profit margin on every bet. Apps like Pikkit make this process easy.
Your edge must beat the vig
To make money betting sports, your edge—your ability to predict outcomes better than the market—must be large enough to overcome the vig you pay on every bet.
Winning 52% of your bets at -110 is not profitable. You’re losing money because 52% doesn’t clear the 52.38% threshold. To profit, you must win more often than the required rate, and the margin above that rate determines how much you earn.
The next article covers how these thresholds vary across different odds levels, and why profitability is entirely about getting the right price—not about having a winning record.