Vigorish is easiest to see where it is charged openly. Craps buy bets pay true odds but charge a 5% commission - that commission is vigorish, and it is the entire house edge on the bet: 5.00% per unit wagered, computed here. Baccarat's banker bet works the same way: without its 5% commission the bet would favour the player by 1.24%, so the commission is the whole price.
In sports betting the vig hides inside the odds. A coin-flip market priced at -110 each way asks you to risk 110 to win 100 on both sides; the missing value is the book's cut. Nothing about the game changed - the price did.
The practical habit: whenever a bet's payout differs from its true odds, the difference is vig, whether or not anyone calls it that. Our computed tables state that difference exactly instead of hiding it in the price.
Where the numbers come from
Related terms in odds & money
- Commission, A percentage charged on winning bets that would otherwise favour the player.
- House edge, The average share of each bet the casino expects to keep over the long run.
- Rake, The house's cut of each pot, or the fee on a tournament entry.
- True odds, The payout that would make a bet exactly fair, with no advantage to either side.
Where an entry quotes a number, that figure comes from the computed sections of this site rather than from another glossary, so the definition and the derivation cannot drift apart. Each entry links to the page where the number is worked out.