If you’ve ever placed a sports bet and heard about vigorish then you’re not alone if you’re confused about what people are talking about.
Vigorish is one of those terms that has come to the UK and Ireland in recent years from the flourishing US sports betting industry. Punters (sorry, bettors!) over in America like to know every detail of their sports bets, including the vig.
Even though punters on this side of the Atlantic aren’t as concerned about the vigorish, it’s worth knowing about the term and what it means for your bets.
So, Paddy Power has created this quick guide to vigorish, so you can hold up your end of the conversation next time you’re chatting to US bettors.
Vigorish meaning
Vigorish is the house take that a bookmaker (sorry, we mean sportsbook) earns when you place a bet. You can view it as a sort of commission for the bookie “hosting” the bet.
Every bookmaker has a level of vigorish and most punters won’t even notice it. After all, if you bet £10 on a horse at 5/1 and it wins, you earn your £50 profit and £10 return, no questions asked.
So, where does the house edge come in? Well, vig is factored into the odds, which means over the course of an event, the bookmaker seeks to turn a profit no matter the outcome.
In doing so, the bookmaker can ensure it can operate and host future bets.
Why does vigorish exist?
Think of vig in sports betting like a Las Vegas casino hosting a roulette game. The casino needs to ensure a small base level of income – the house edge – in order to operate properly. So, in roulette, you can bet either Black or Red, but not the green 00 and 0 options. If the ball lands on green, all bets across the board lose.
Now, online sports betting sites don’t have this 00 and 0 option, so they build a house edge into the odds. After all, it costs a lot of money to operate an online sportsbook. So, a horse might be 5/1 to win a race, but its actual chances of winning are slightly wider at 11/2. The difference here is the house edge.
Example of vig in sports betting
The best way to see the vigorish in action is to look at a bet that has a 50/50 chance of going either way: the toss in cricket. The toss is total luck and there’s equal chance of heads or tails. You’d expect both bets to carry Even odds (1/1) because they both have a 50% likelihood.
Well, cricket betting sites don’t offer this because there’s no house edge. Instead, the toss odds are set slightly off the 50% mark, at 10/11. There’s a 2.4% difference here, which is the house edge.
Here’s an example from our cricket odds:
An example of vigorish in betting
Sydney Thunder are slight favourites to beat Adelaide Strikers, but the odds on the toss are naturally the same. Both are priced at 10/11, which means you’ll earn 91p profit for every £1 you bet. The vig, or house take, is therefore 9%.
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