Enter every decimal price in the market, all three on a 1X2 and both on a two-way. The calculator converts each one to a probability, sums them, and reports the overround and the hold percentage. Overround is how far past 100% the book sits; hold is the share of turnover the bookmaker expects to keep.
What Hold Measures
Bookmakers make money by pricing every outcome slightly short and letting the excess accumulate. Add up 1 ÷ odds across a full market and the total lands above 100%. That surplus is the charge, and this calculator puts a number on it.
Two numbers come back, and they answer different questions. Overround measures how much probability the book has sold beyond 100%. Hold converts that into the fraction of every dollar staked the bookmaker keeps, using 1 – (1 ÷ market total), and it is the figure that compares cleanly against other markets.
Removing the charge to get fair prices is a different job, handled by the No-Vig Calculator. Converting one price on its own belongs to the Implied Probability Calculator. This page measures the cost of doing business with a given book.
A Worked Example
A 1X2 market priced 2.50 for the home win, 3.40 for the draw and 2.90 for the away win.
- Implied probabilities: 40.00% + 29.41% + 34.48%.
- Market total: 103.89%.
- Overround: 3.89%.
- Hold: 1 – (1 ÷ 1.0389) = 3.75% of turnover.
Set a two-way market at 1.90 on each side next to it. Each price implies 52.63%, the book totals 105.26%, the overround is 5.26% and the hold works out at 5.00%. Fewer outcomes, and a higher charge: the number of prices in a market tells you nothing about what it costs, and only the arithmetic does.
Comparing Two Bookmakers
The same match priced by two firms gives you a direct read on which one is cheaper to bet with. A book holding 3.75% and a book holding 5.00% differ by 1.25 percentage points of every stake, which compounds across a season of bets in a way that no single slip makes obvious.
Hold is the version to use for that comparison because it is expressed against turnover, so it lines up with the way your money moves. Overround is the more common figure quoted, and it always reads slightly higher than the hold on the same market.
Where you see hold drop is worth noting: high-turnover leagues, main markets rather than corners and cards, and the hours immediately before kick-off when the money that shapes prices arrives.
A Low Hold Can Still Come With a Bad Price
Hold is a market-level average, and it says nothing about the outcome you want to back. A bookmaker running 3.75% across a 1X2 can be top price on the home win and bottom price on the away, because compilers do not spread the margin evenly across the outcomes. Backing the away win with the cheapest book on the board is a losing habit if that book has loaded most of its charge onto the away price.
The practical use is comparison between books rather than choosing a bet. Hold tells you which bookmaker to open an account with and which one to check first, and the price on the specific outcome tells you where to place the bet. Those two answers disagree more often than the hold figure suggests.
A second limit: hold measures what the bookmaker expects to keep from balanced action, and books rarely take balanced action. It describes the design of the market, not the profit the firm made on that match.
Measuring the Charge, Pricing the Match
Knowing a book runs 3.75% tells you what you are paying, and it stops short of telling you whether the price on the home win was generous. Gecko Edge covers the second question, generating win probabilities from Poisson goal models with a Dixon-Coles correction, blended with market and league priors, across 130+ leagues, then testing each price against them.
Further Reading
- All betting calculators: the full library of 34 free tools
- Why your betting lines move and where the expected value hides
What is the vig in betting?
Vig, also called juice or margin, is the amount a bookmaker builds into a market’s prices as their charge. Convert every price to a probability and the total exceeds 100%, and the excess is the vig. A 1X2 market at 2.50, 3.40 and 2.90 sums to 103.89%, so that market carries 3.89% of overround.
What is the difference between overround and hold?
Overround is how far the market’s implied probabilities sit above 100%. Hold restates the same charge as a share of turnover using 1 – (1 ÷ market total). A market summing to 103.89% has an overround of 3.89% and a hold of 3.75%. Hold is always the lower of the two figures.
How do I compare two bookmakers using hold?
Price the same market with both, convert each set of prices, and compare the hold percentages. A 1X2 at 103.89% costs 3.75% of turnover, while a two-way at 1.90 each side costs 5.00%. Compare like markets on like fixtures, since hold varies by competition and by how far out from kick-off the prices are.
Does a lower hold mean better odds?
On average across the market, yes. On the outcome you want, not reliably. Bookmakers distribute margin unevenly between outcomes, so a book with a 3.75% hold can still show the worst price on the away win. Use hold to choose where to bet in general and the individual price to decide each bet.