Glossary

What is hold in sports betting?

Last updated 2026-07-04

Hold is the percentage of total money wagered that a sportsbook expects to keep, determined by the vig baked into its prices. A market whose implied probabilities sum to 104.8% carries a 4.8% theoretical hold. Lower hold means better prices for bettors.

Hold and vig describe the same margin from two angles: vig is the tax on a single price, hold is the book's expected keep across a whole market. Comparing hold across books tells you where the efficient prices live: a 2.5% hold book is structurally cheaper to beat than a 5% hold book.

Hold also varies by market type at the same book. Mainline spreads run the lowest hold, player props and same-game parlays the highest, which is why professional volume concentrates on mainlines and why prop edges persist longer.

To find the tightest book on any given event programmatically, the market-analysis endpoint reports hold and efficiency per event; manually, the no-vig calculator gives the same number one market at a time.

Compute it with the API

curl "https://api.theoddsapi.com/intelligence/market-analysis?sport_key=baseball_mlb" \
  -H "x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY"

Returns hold %, efficiency, and tightest/widest book per event. Business tier. Free key in minutes.