The Vig – What It Is and How to Use It in Sports Betting

The vig. The juice. The house edge. The margin. The take. There are many different names for it, but it all comes down to the same subject. What is vig, and how does it apply to betting? That’s what we’ll dive into in this blog.

The vig – short for “vigorish” – is simply the house edge in sports betting. The term isn’t used to refer to the house edge in casino games.

It’s simple to understand. If you bet $50 with your friend, the winner would take home $50. In other words, if you won the bet, they’d pay you $50. If they won, you’d pay them $50.

It’s different when betting against the sportsbook. They’re willing to cover whatever bet you want. You can take Team A, Team B, over, under – or, whatever it is. As a result, they charge a small commission. It’s also how they make money.

How to apply the vig in practice

Let’s take a look at a basic example to help understand. If you bet on Team A to cover the spread at -110, you’d have to bet $55 to win $50 and not $50 to win $50 as in the previous example. That’s a $5 difference in this case, and that margin – the house edge – is what’s known as the vig.

The sportsbook’s goal will be to get even action on both sides of the match. Let’s say there’s $11,000 in bets on Team A to cover at -110 and $11,000 on Team B to cover. If Team A wins, the sportsbook wins $11,000 from Team B (for everyone who lost that bet) and pays out $10,000 to the winners.

And if the other team wins, the same math is true. Either way, in this case, the house keeps $1,000. That’s what the vig translates to in this case.

While this is a small-scale example, you can understand how the sportsbook then makes money if they’re taking that vig over hundreds and hundreds of bets each day.

How To Minimize the Vig and Lose Less Money

If you’re looking to minimize the vig, your best bet – pun intended – is to shop around for the best prices. That means having accounts at multiple sportsbooks. While a sportsbook isn’t going to change their vig from one game or day to the next, having access to various lines can ensure that you get the best price.

For example, let’s say you’re betting on baseball. Here’s a line at two different sportsbooks:

Sportsbook A

• Boston Red Sox +110
• New York Yankees -140

Sportsbook B

• Boston Red Sox +120
• New York Yankees -150

As you can see, the vig is about the same in the two sportsbooks. However, you can improve your odds and payout depending on where you bet. If you only have an account at Sportsbook A, you have no options. However, if you have accounts at both, it’s clear that betting the Boston Red Sox at Sportsbook B is better value for you, and betting the New York Yankees at Sportsbook A is better as well.

You’re not necessarily minimizing the vig here – both sportsbooks have their own vig that’s not changing – but you’re shopping around to get the best price. This helps your money go farther in sports betting, as you constantly want to minimize losses and maximize profits.

How much money can the vig really cost you?

A lot of casual sports bettors just blindly bet their favorite team at their favorite sportsbook, and don’t think twice about it. Unfortunately, that can prove to be costly over time. Think about the Red Sox/Yankees example from above.

Let’s say you’re a bettor who wagers $100 per game (roughly speaking) and you bet once a day. That means that a 10-cent difference in the vig or the price of a line (Yankees from -150 to -140 or Red Sox from +110 to +120) equates to a $10 difference per bet.

Let’s say you win 50% of the time and lose 50% of the time. That means getting a worse line cost you $5 per day. Flesh it out over the course of a full year and that’s $1,825.

Now imagine you are a bettor who wagers more per game. That’s how much a 10-cent difference is. And in many sportsbooks, the vig can be much more than just a 10-cent difference. Now that you see the math, you see how important it is to pay attention.

The vig is something that’s always going to be there in sports betting. It has to. That’s how the house makes its money. However, as a bettor, what you can do is limit some of that pain by shopping around for the best prices.

Always try to play at low-vig sportsbooks and get yourself the best betting line. If you do that, the math shows you’ll lose less money on these betting fees and win more of it over the long run.