Glossary
Hold
The hold is the percentage of all money wagered that a sportsbook expects to keep after paying out winners. It reflects the margin, or vig, built into the odds across a market. A higher hold means the book has priced in a larger edge for itself.
Hold is the book's expected slice of the action. It comes directly from the vig, the margin folded into every price. When you add up the implied probabilities of all outcomes and they total more than 100 percent, that overage is what the hold captures across the market.
There is a difference between theoretical and actual hold. Theoretical hold is what the pricing would yield if action were perfectly balanced on both sides. Actual hold is what the book really keeps once real bettors, who rarely split evenly, are done. The two can differ game to game.
Hold and handle
Hold is a rate, while handle is the total amount wagered. The book's expected revenue from a market is roughly the handle multiplied by the hold, which is why both figures appear together in reporting.
Why it matters to bettors
A market with a lower hold gives back more to bettors on average, because less margin is priced in. Comparing hold across books and bet types is one way a literate bettor sizes up how expensive a given market is.
Hold is the clearest single number for how much edge a book has built into a market.