Free Hold Calculator & Odds Converter: Find Your Betting Edge

How to Use a Hold Calculator

The hold calculator shows you the spread between both sides of a game using the best available sportsbook odds. Sports bettors should always be looking to wager on markets with a low hold. Nothing is better than a market with 0% hold, which is referred to as a “pick ‘em” market.

An example of a 0% hold market would be +150 moneyline odds on the Broncos on one sportsbook and -150 moneyline odds for the Chiefs on another.

Hold depends on a variety of factors, such as the betting market. Less wagered on markets, such as the KBO (Korean baseball), typically have much higher hold than commonly bet on markets, such as the NBA. This is why making money betting on niche leagues is very difficult for sports bettors.

Finding Your Edge: Calculating Every Bet

To use the hold calculator, simply enter the best possible odds for both sides of the market. For example, if Book A is giving the best price on the Boston Celtics moneyline at +120, and Book B is giving the best price on the Golden State Warriors at -125 odds, enter these two numbers into the calculator. The sports betting calculator will show you that this market currently has a hold of 1%!

You can also use this tool as a reliable Odds Converter tool. It seamlessly handles American Odds, Decimal Odds, or Fractional Odds, converting them instantly into implied probability behind the scenes to find the theoretical hold on the market. This gives you an idea of how much the deck is stacked against you.

What is Hold in Sports Betting?

In sports betting, the term “hold” refers to the percentage of money that a sportsbook or bookmaker retains after all bets have been settled on a particular market. It’s also known as the “juice,” “vig,” or “vigorish.”

In a perfect world for sportsbooks, they would have even money on both sides of a game, and then simply collect the hold. The hold represents the bookmaker’s margin of profit. For instance, if a sportsbook has a hold of 5% on a specific market, this means that for every $100 wagered on that market, the sportsbook will theoretically profit $5, regardless of the outcome.

Why Does Hold Matter to Bettors?

Hold matters because the lower the hold, the less you’ll lose when you’re wrong. Finding the best price across sportsbooks is called line shopping. Using the best prices you find on either side of a line creates the lowest possible synthetic hold. The lower the synthetic hold, the less of an edge the sportsbooks have over the bettor, regardless of bettor skill.

Calculating and Removing Hold

To understand hold, you first need to understand implied probability. An event in the real world with two outcomes, like a coin flip, has 50/50 odds. Those probabilities add up to 100%. But in sports betting, it’s different.

Once you convert odds to probabilities and add them together, you’ll get a number greater than 100%. That’s because a sportsbook charges you a tax on every bet. Hold is really just the probability of all the outcomes of an event added together, minus 100. Whatever is leftover is the hold.

How to Remove the Hold

Removing hold from a sportsbook’s odds can give you a clearer picture of how your projections match up. Simply divide one team’s implied probability by the sum of all implied probabilities to create true odds.

• Let’s say you are betting the Yankees at +150, and your book is dealing the Red Sox at -175.
• The implied probability for the Yankees is 40%. For the Red Sox, 63.65%. Add those together to get 103.65%.
• Divide 40 by 103.65 and you arrive at 38.6%, which is the true probability of the Yankees winning based on these odds.

Frequently Asked Questions