What is the bookmaker's margin?
Bookmakers do not make money by guessing right. They make money by offering odds that, taken together, pay out slightly less than is staked. The difference is called the margin. You will also see it called the "overround" or the "vig".
How to calculate the margin
Convert each odds figure to an implied probability by dividing 1 by the odds. Add up the probabilities for every outcome in the market. The total comes to more than 100 percent, and the excess is the margin.
The total in the example is 105.6 percent. So the margin is 5.6 percent, and the payback to players over time is 100 divided by 1.056, which is 94.7 percent. Try a match of your own in the margin calculator.
What the margin means for you
The margin is an average over many bets. On a single bet you win or lose the whole stake. But the higher the margin, the less players as a group get back. A margin of 5 percent means that of every SEK 100 staked, SEK 95 is paid back on average.
Different markets, different margins
- Major football leagues often have a low margin, roughly 3 to 6 percent, because many operators compete on the same matches.
- Smaller leagues and niche sports have higher margins, sometimes above 10 percent.
- Accumulators multiply the margin. Three selections at 5 percent each give roughly 14 percent in total.
- In-play betting often carries a higher margin than pre-match betting.
How we measure
On each bookmaker page we show an average margin. It is based on a sample of 1X2 odds in Allsvenskan on a stated date. It is a snapshot of one market, not a rating of the operator.