What is Juice (Casino)?

In casino contexts, juice is the commission or fee the house charges on certain bets, the mechanism by which it builds a margin into otherwise fair-looking payouts. The clearest example is baccarat: a winning Banker bet is paid at even money minus a 5% commission, because the Banker hand wins slightly more often than the Player hand under the drawing rules. In sports betting the same concept is called the Vig or Vigorish. Whatever the label, juice is how the operator extracts its edge. Worked example: you bet 100 on Banker and win. Without commission you would receive 100 profit, but the 5% juice reduces this to 95, so your payout is 195 total (100 stake plus 95). Over many hands this commission is precisely what gives the Banker bet its roughly 1.06% House Edge; without the 5% charge, betting Banker every hand would actually favour the player. The juice converts a player-favourable raw outcome into a house-favourable one. Juice matters because it is often invisible at the moment of betting — the odds or table look fair until you notice the deduction. The common mistake is ignoring it when comparing bets: a Tie bet in baccarat carries no commission but a punishing 14.4% edge, so avoiding juice is not the same as finding value. Understanding juice helps you rank wagers by their true cost rather than their headline payout. In every form, juice rewards the operator for hosting the action, and recognising where it sits lets you choose the lower-cost bets and protect your Bankroll.