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Sports Betting Hold Calculator 2025: What Is The Actual Sportsbook Hold Percentage?

How to Use the Sports Betting Hold Calculator

Last Updated on 02/05/2025
Fact checked by: Mark Lewis

Welcome to our guide on how to use our sports betting hold calculator. In this guide, we teach you everything you need to know about working out the hold percentage that sportsbooks put on your bets.

While there is no guarantee with any bets in the world of online sports gambling, there are things you can do to give your bets a better chance for success. Our guide will show you why our sports betting calculator is the best around and how it can give your bets the boost that they need.

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What is a sports betting hold calculator? – What you need to know

Before we get to what our sports betting hold calculator is and what it can do for you, let’s quickly touch on what the premise of the term “hold” is. When you bet with any of the online sportsbooks in the US, big or small, the sportsbook needs to hold a percentage of the total wager. The bookie needs to earn a commission on wagers on the site, and of course the book owner needs to take home profits as well.

Most bookmakers will take anywhere between 10% and 20% commission off wagers. To give you a very basic example, if you bet $100, the sportsbook will take $1 and the book owner will take about $4. These numbers will vary greatly in terms of the average number of users on the site, wins and losses by players and many other variables.

The premise of sports betting hold calculator

Our sports betting hold calculator works very simply but we’ll explain its function shortly. The idea of our sports betting hold calculator is to make your life easier when you are trying to figure out how much an individual sportsbook is holding per set of odds on a fixture. All you do is enter in each set of odds for the favorite and the underdog and our sports betting hold calculator shows you the percentage that the sportsbook holds on the bet.

Why you need a sports betting hold calculator – Running the numbers for you

You now know what the term “hold” means and why sportsbooks employ it. You should now be a little more familiar with what our sports betting hold calculator is. With that said, let’s take a look at some of the benefits that our effective tool can do for you.

Finding the best odds

Our sports betting hold calculator online is the best in the business and for good reason. All you have to do is enter in the odds from a certain match you want to bet on, and our sports betting hold calculator online will show you exactly how much hold is being placed on the bet and its outcome. From there, you can quickly discern whether or not the sportsbook is treating its players fairly with some of the odds they are offering on the matches.

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Why you need to use a sports betting hold calculator – Ensuring fairness

While our sports betting hold calculator online is great at determining what hold is being put on your wagers, it serves players in other ways too. Aside from running the numbers for you and saving you time on working out the implied probability yourself, it can also show you what sportsbooks treat their players more fairly.

Know who is treating you fairly

Not every sportsbook in the US was created equally and not all of them will place the same hold percentage on your wagers. As such, it can be difficult to know which of these sportsbooks are giving the fairest deal. Our sports betting hold calculator online can lift the doubt of unknowing by running the numbers of you. From there, you can clearly see which of these online sportsbooks are putting too big of a hold percentage on your wagers and which of these sites are operating more fairly.

Top tips for using the calculator for the first time – How to use the sports betting hold calculator

Before we wrap up our guide, let’s take a closer look at a few handy tips for you to keep in mind when using our sports betting hold calculator:

Take your time

When you are entering in the odds for either team, make sure that you double-check the numbers. If you enter in the incorrect moneyline odds, the hold percentage given to you by our sports betting hold calculator will be incorrect. Make sure you always take your time and double-check the figures once you have entered them in.

Learn the ropes

Be sure to play around on our sports betting hold calculator for a while. Test some different odds from different sportsbooks before committing to one set of odds. This way, you will learn how the calculator works and you will give yourself more time to find the very best odds with a fair hold percentage out there. 

Look out for odds boosters

This is something that your average punter may forget to do but we highly recommend looking out for the best odds boosters in the industry. Odds boosters can almost make a hold percentage irrelevant if it is generous enough. Look out on the promotions pages of the best US sportsbooks for offers like these. 

Other calculators we offer at TheGruelingTruth.com

We are by no means a one-trick pony here at TheGruelingTruth.com. Our team has put together plenty of the best sports betting calculators that you are ever likely to find. From tricast bet calculators to simply figuring out what bookmakers are giving you the most value odds with our sports betting odds calculator, we have got you covered with our extensive range of tools.

Conclusion to using our sports betting hold calculator

That brings our guide to an end. You should now have a decent idea about how our sports betting hold calculator works and how you can go about effectively using it. We can give you all the tips in the world on how to use all the sports betting calculators on our site but at the end of the day, it’s going to take some practice to really get the hang of it. Don’t be afraid to play around with our calculator, remember that it is free. From there, you will be picking out value bets in no time.

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Sports Betting Hold Calculator 2025 FAQ

✊What does it mean to “hold” a percentage of a bet?

If you are unfamiliar with the term then you may find it difficult to understand, at least at first. However, our guide on using our sports betting hold calculator will explain why sportsbooks hold a certain percentage of your bets in great detail. Read our guide to learn more about it – you can even make use of our other online calculators, including a parlay calculator and a useful betting odds converter.

❓Do all bookmakers hold percentages of wagers?

Almost all sportsbooks in the US will hold a percentage of a bet but not all of them will hold the same amount. Our guide on using our sports betting hold calculator will shed light on the differences between these sportsbooks and how you can tell which of them are going to be the best to use for your betting endeavors.

💯What is a sports betting hold calculator?

Once you understand what the term “hold” actually means you will begin to understand what our sports betting hold calculator can do for you. Once you read our guide, you’ll know exactly why you need to be using our sports betting hold calculator for almost all of your future bets.

👀Where do I find the best sports betting hold calculator?

Right here of course! Here at TheGruelingTruth.com, we have the best sports betting hold calculator in the business. There are plenty of other betting sites that will offer you the same thing but after you read our guide you’ll know for sure why our sportsbetting odds calculator is the best around. We also provide a number of other helpful tools, such as our hedging calculator.

✅Can a sports betting hold calculator ensure success?

There is never any guarantee when it comes to online sports betting. This is just the truth. With that being said, you can give yourself a much better chance for success when you use our sports betting hold calculator. Check out our guide to see just how effective our betting calculators can be in your pursuit of betting glory.

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