Explainer
Vigorish
The fee inside the price ยท also called the vig, the juice, the overround
Vigorish is the bookmaker’s fee. It is not added at checkout and it is not listed anywhere. It is built into the odds themselves, which is why the probabilities of a market add up to more than 100%.
A two-way market priced 1.91 on both sides implies 52.4% each — 104.8% in total. The extra 4.8% is the vigorish. You pay it whether you win or lose.
What it costs, match by match
The vigorish is not a fixed rate. It moves with the market, the competition and the time of day, and on a small league it can be three times what it is on a big one. We publish the figure for every football match on the board today, next to the corrected probabilities.
Free tier covers a fifth of each day’s matches, mixed across major and minor competitions. No card needed.
Where the word comes from
From the Russian vyigrysh, meaning winnings or gain, carried into American English through early-20th-century bookmaking. In Britain the same thing is usually called the overround; in American betting slang it is the juice; in the trade it is simply the margin.
How to work it out
Convert every outcome of a market to a percentage by dividing 1 by its decimal price. Add them up. Subtract 100. What remains is the vigorish:
1 ÷ 1.91 = 52.36%
1 ÷ 1.91 = 52.36%
Total: 104.71% → vigorish 4.71%
The no-vig calculator does this for any market and shows the corrected probabilities alongside it.
The number that gets quoted wrong
A market at 104.71% is usually described as carrying 4.71% vig. What it actually costs you per unit staked is 4.71 ÷ 104.71 = 4.50%. The difference is small on one bet and not small over a season, and it is why our calculator prints both.
Why it varies so much
Vigorish is the price of the bookmaker’s uncertainty and of their market power. On a heavily traded league it can sit near 2%; on an obscure division the same operator may charge 8% or more for the same bet type. Two bettors staking identical amounts on identical-looking markets can pay wildly different fees without ever seeing a figure.
That is the whole reason this site exists: the fee is real, it is measurable from public prices, and almost nobody is shown it.
Vigorish and parlays
A parlay multiplies the odds of each leg, and the fee compounds with them. Four legs at 4.8% each leave roughly 17% of the stake with the house rather than 4.8%. The odds calculator shows the combined figure.
One thing vigorish is not
It is not a prediction, and knowing it does not tell anyone what to bet. It is a cost, like a spread or a commission. Measuring a cost is useful; it is not a strategy, and this site sells none.
Questions
What is vigorish?
Vigorish is the fee a bookmaker builds into their odds instead of charging separately. It is why the implied probabilities of a market add up to more than 100 percent, and it is paid whether a bet wins or loses.
How do you calculate vigorish?
Convert every outcome to an implied probability by dividing 1 by its decimal odds, add them together, and subtract 100 percent. Two sides priced at 1.91 give 104.71 percent, so the vigorish is 4.71 percent.
What is a typical vigorish?
On heavily traded markets it can be near 2 percent. On small competitions the same bet type from the same operator may carry 8 percent or more. It is not a fixed rate.
Is vigorish the same as the overround?
Yes. Vigorish, vig, juice, margin and overround all name the same thing: the amount by which a market's implied probabilities exceed 100 percent.
How much does vigorish actually cost per bet?
Slightly less than the headline figure. A market at 104.71 percent is quoted as 4.71 percent vig, but the cost per unit staked is 4.71 divided by 104.71, which is 4.50 percent.