This is the hold calculator where you can see how much theoretically a sportsbook may hold on any given wager. This is useful to you because it gives you an idea of how much the deck is stacked against you in a given market.
Let’s walk through a couple examples.
What is the theoretical hold% on a wager against the spread where each side is -110? Well, you’d enter -110 in the first field, and -110 in the second field and the calculator informs you that the hold% is 4.55%. This means the sportsbook, if they took balanced action, would profit 4.55% of all the money wagered on the event.
You can also use our hold calculator to find the value of an arbitrage event. Suppose you have one sportsbook dealing a line of +260 and you find another sportsbook offering the other side of the match at -245. The calculator would return a negative number, meaning the theoretical hold % on this market would be -1.22%, which as you can see, is very good for the player. That means you, the player, have a POSITIVE 1.22% edge and would profit 1.22% of whatever you wagered assuming a balanced wager.
You can also use the hold calculator in multi-way markets. For instance, a soccer match with the option of a draw. +120 on one side, +220 on the other side, and +200 on the draw. That market would have a theoretical hold of 9.12%. While on the subject of soccer, it’s important to note the hold calculator can support decimal odds as well. 2.2, 3.2, and 3 reaches the same 9.12% hold. Our hold calculator also supports fractional odds. You can even mix all three odds types and the Hold Calculator will auto-recognize the odds type.
You can also use our hold calculator to price the theoretical hold on a futures market. Just enter in all of the available lines and the calculator will return the theoretical hold. It will take as many different prices as you can feed at it.
Go ahead and give it a try…