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

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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