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The bettor's vocabulary — vig, juice, hold, line, EV, ROI

Sharp Editorial Team
Sharp Editorial Team
Every field has its language, and sports betting's is denser than most. Skip the vocab and the rest of the academy reads like noise.

Every field has its language, and sports betting's is denser than most. Skip the vocab and the rest of the academy reads like noise. This is the working glossary — the terms that show up in every other lesson, defined the way Sharp uses them.

Money

  • Stake — the amount you're risking on a bet.

  • Vig (or juice) — the book's cut, baked into the odds. A "-110/-110" market on two sides means the book holds about 4.5% on every dollar wagered, regardless of who wins.

  • Hold — same concept, measured at the market level: the percentage the book expects to keep from a fully-balanced market.

  • Payout — what you collect if you win, including your stake back. A +200 bet that risks $100 pays out $300 ($200 profit + your $100 back).

The bettor's vocabulary — vig, juice, hold, line, EV, ROI — inline1

Lines

  • Moneyline — odds on who wins, straight up. Positive number (+150) = the underdog, payout per $100 risked. Negative number (-200) = the favorite, amount you risk to win $100.

  • Spread (or point spread) — handicap added to one side to make the bet roughly 50/50. "Lakers -6.5" means the Lakers must win by 7 or more.

  • Total (or over/under) — combined points scored. You bet over or under the number.

  • Prop — a bet on something inside the game that isn't who wins: a player's points, a quarter's total, the first scorer.

  • Live odds — odds that update in-game as the score and clock change.

Edge

  • Fair odds — what the odds should be based on the true probability of the outcome. You don't actually know these — you estimate them.

  • No-vig odds — the book's odds with the vig stripped out, leaving a fair reference price. How Pinnacle's no-vig odds actually work walks through how this is computed.

  • Devig — the act of converting a market's posted odds into no-vig odds. Different methods give slightly different answers; lesson [#7] compares them.

  • Edge (or EV%) — how much better the offered price is than fair. "+3% EV" means you expect to make 3 cents per dollar staked over the long run, on this kind of bet.

  • Steam — when a line moves sharply because sharp money has hit it. A "steam move" is a signal the market just got smarter.

Performance

  • CLV (Closing Line Value) — the difference between the line you bet and the line that closed. The single best predictor of long-term profit. CLV — the only metric that actually matters is the deep dive.

  • ROI — return on investment, your profit divided by total amount staked. Different from win rate — a 53% bettor can have a higher ROI than a 60% bettor depending on prices.

  • Units — a fixed bet size, usually 1% of bankroll. "Up 4 units this week" abstracts away the dollar amount and lets you compare across periods.

  • Drawdown — the gap between your peak bankroll and the current bankroll during a losing stretch. Even great bettors have ugly drawdowns. Drawdown survival — what a normal losing streak looks like is on surviving them.

  • Variance — randomness. The reason a 55% bettor can lose 10 in a row and still be on edge.

Risk

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