What is Juice?

Juice, also called vig or vigorish, is the commission the sportsbook builds into its odds. It is the mechanism by which a book guarantees a profit margin regardless of which side wins, provided it balances the money taken on each outcome. The juice is not charged as a visible fee; it is baked into prices that sit slightly worse than the true probability would justify. Worked example: at the standard American price of -110 on both sides of a point spread, a bettor risks 110 to win 100. If the book takes one 110 bet on each team, it collects 220 in total, pays the winner back 210 (their 110 stake plus 100 profit), and keeps 10. That 10 retained from 220 wagered is a 4.55% hold, the juice on a -110 market. Expressed another way, -110 implies a 52.38% probability, yet a fair coin-flip line should price each side at 50% — the extra 2.38 points per side is the margin. Why it matters: juice is the single biggest long-run cost a bettor faces, and shopping for reduced-juice lines (for example -105 instead of -110) measurably improves results over time. Removing the juice from both sides of a market reveals the no-vig implied probability, the book's honest estimate of the outcome. A common mistake is to ignore the price and focus only on picking winners; even a profitable tipster can lose money if they consistently bet into heavy juice. See also vig, implied probability and closing line.