House Advantage in Sports Betting
Written May 17, 2008 by Jack Jones
When you go to the casinos in Las Vegas, a lot of players want to try to take advantage of the local sportsbooks in order to win a little bit of cash based of their knowledge of certain games. We think sports betting is a skill game, and thus can be beat. That is why we have thousands of articles on this site detailing sporting events, how to handicap them, and even list certain handicappers that will assist you in winning money over the long haul. However, if you just “flipped a coin” and didn’t have any skill then there would be a set house advantage in sports betting. Let’s take a look.
Typically when you make a sports wager on the point spread you will have to lay $11 to win $10. This means that if you want to win $50 you would have to bet $55 and so on. It doesn’t matter if you are taking the favorite or the underdog, the juice is the same. If you team wins the bet then you will collect $105 from the pay window, your $55 bet plus the $50 in winnings. The additional $5 is the juice, or vigorish, that the casino requires as compensation for taking the action. There are casinos and online sportsbooks out there who charge only 5% instead of the standard 10% on wagers, so just how much does this matter? Well it can add up fast because the standard house advantage is 4.55% when you lay 10% and is reduced to 2.38% when you are only laying 5%. So take advantage of these special offers and you increase your chances of winning over the long haul.
