What Is Sportsbook Vig?

The vig — short for vigorish, also called juice or margin — is the fee a sportsbook builds into its prices. It is why both sides of a coin-flip market are usually -110 instead of +100.

The short answer

Convert both sides of a two-way market to implied probability and add them. A market with no margin totals exactly 100%. Anything above 100% is the sportsbook's margin. At -110/-110, each side implies 52.38%, a total of 104.76% — roughly 4.8% of built-in margin.

A worked example

ExampleYou and a friend each bet $110 at -110 on opposite sides of the same game. The book collects $220 and pays the winner $210. The $10 difference is the vig — the book's fee for holding the market, regardless of who wins.

Why it matters

The vig means you must win more than 50% of even-money bets just to break even — about 52.4% at -110. It is also why comparing prices across books matters: the same bet can carry very different margins at different sportsbooks. Note that vig is an estimated margin built into prices, not a guarantee of the book's realized profit on any game.

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