Definition
Hold percentage - also called margin, overround, vig or juice in a sportsbook, and house edge or RTP complement in casino - is the share of total amount staked that the operator expects to keep as gross gaming revenue over a large number of outcomes. In a sportsbook it comes from pricing all outcomes of an event so their implied probabilities sum to more than 100%; the excess is the theoretical hold.
In casino it is the mathematical house edge of each game (for example, a 96% RTP slot has a 4% hold).
Hold is theoretical and long-run. Actual hold on any day varies with results - favourites winning, a big jackpot hit - but over enough volume it converges to the designed figure.
It is the core lever connecting turnover (total staked) to revenue: GGR is approximately turnover multiplied by hold.
In context
For analytics and affiliate deals, hold is why turnover and revenue are not the same thing and why revenue-share percentages differ so much by vertical and product. A sports affiliate on revenue share is exposed to actual hold: a month where favourites win across the board can push net revenue - and the affiliate's commission - near zero or negative, even with strong stakes volume.
A casino affiliate's revenue share sits on a more stable hold because slot RTP varies little month to month, though a single large jackpot win can still dent a small operator's monthly figure.
Hold also interacts with player behaviour and bonuses. Low-margin bets (elite football match-odds, low-house-edge table games) generate little revenue per unit staked, so operators may weight bonuses, missions and odds boosts toward higher-hold products.
Bonus cost is netted against GGR, so a period of heavy promotion lowers effective hold. Analysts track theoretical versus actual hold to detect pricing errors, arbitrage and bonus abuse (all of which show up as actual hold running below theoretical), and affiliates negotiating revenue share need to understand which products their traffic plays, because the same headline percentage on a low-hold product pays far less than on a high-hold one.
Worked example
A sportsbook prices its football at a 5% theoretical margin. In a month where favourites dominate, actual hold comes in at 1.8%, so revenue-share affiliates for that period earn far less than their turnover would suggest.
The casino side, at a steady 4.2% hold on slots, pays its revenue-share affiliates a predictable amount over the same month.
Related terms
Frequently asked questions
Browse more iGaming terms in our glossary.
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