Betting Terms, in Plain English
The vocabulary behind the tools and the lessons — the terms you'll meet on the board, in the Report Card, and anywhere bettors talk shop.
- Moneyline (American odds)
- A market price on an outcome. A negative number is what you stake to win $100 (−150 → risk $150 to win $100); a positive number is what a $100 stake wins (+130 → win $130).
- Implied probability
- The win chance a price implies. −150 implies 60%. Add both sides of a market and the total exceeds 100% — that excess is the vig.
- Vig / juice / hold
- The book's built-in margin — the reason both sides' implied probabilities sum above 100%. Also called the overround.
- Overround
- The sum of both sides' implied probabilities. 104% is a 4% overround: the vig, stated another way.
- De-vig
- Stripping the vig out of a two-sided line to recover the fair probabilities behind it. The Fair Price tool does this three ways: proportional, power, and Shin. Full guide →
- Fair value / fair odds
- The price with the vig removed — what the market actually thinks the odds are, before the fee.
- Closing line
- The final price a market settles on just before the event starts — the sharpest public estimate of the true odds.
- CLV — Closing Line Value
- The gap between the price you got and the de-vigged closing line. Beat the close consistently and you're picking good prices. It's the fastest, most reliable measure of skill — and what the Report Card grades. It scores the price, never whether the bet won. Full guide →
- Sharp book
- A book whose lines are accurate because it welcomes winners and moves on smart money (e.g. Pinnacle, exchanges). Its price sits close to fair.
- Soft book
- A book that shades lines toward public opinion and limits winners. Its mispricings are where value hides.
- Sharp consensus
- An aggregate fair line pooled across sharp books — the truth benchmark this site uses instead of leaning on any single book. How it's built →
- Edge
- Your advantage: the gap between the true (or sharp) probability and the price a book is offering.
- +EV (positive expected value)
- A price that pays better than fair value. Over many bets it profits on average — regardless of whether any single one wins.
- Kelly criterion
- The stake that maximizes long-run growth given your edge and the odds. Full Kelly is optimal but brutal on a mis-estimated edge; fractional (half or quarter) Kelly keeps most of the growth with far less risk. Full guide →
- Bankroll
- The money set aside for betting. Kelly sizes each bet as a fraction of it.
- Arbitrage (arb)
- Backing both sides at different books so you profit whoever wins. Real but rare — and taking these prices repeatedly gets your account limited. Arbs surface on the Live Board as a signal, not a separate tool. Full guide →
- Limit / getting limited
- The most a book will let you stake — and what happens to winning accounts: books cut their limits or ban them outright. The reason CLV, which survives being limited, matters more than a hot streak.
- Line movement / steam
- How a price shifts as money and news arrive. A move toward your side after you bet is a good CLV signal.
- Push
- A tie against the line: your stake is refunded — no win, no loss.