No-Vig Fair Odds Calculator
Click Here for our 3-Way No-Vig Calculator
The tool to the left can be used to calculate no-vig odds and no-vig win probabilities. For example, if the moneylines of an NFL football game are NY Giants -160 / Atlanta Falcons +140 novice bettors often make the mistake of assuming the fair odds without juice are Giants -150 / Falcons +150. This is a mistake, enter -160 and +140 into our no-vig calculator and you’ll see the actual no-vig odds are -148 / +148. If you’re thinking okay what’s 2 cents worth… try doing the same for Saints -600 / Lions +450. The novice bettor mistakes the fair odds as -525/+525 while our tool shows the actual no-vig odds are -471 / +471.
The reason this illustration is important is because a novice bettor finding -500 when all other sites have -600 will be overly excited feeling he’s most certainly found a +EV (positive expected value) bet. As shown in this illustration that’s often not the case. On -600/+450 beating the favorite line by 100 cents is still –EV (negative expected value). Meanwhile although still –EV getting +465 when all other sites had +450 would be a FAR better bet, and here he’s only found 15 cents better as opposed to the 100 cents better on the favorite.
How do Bookmakers Add Vig?
At the risk of losing the casual reader I’ll go ahead and answer this question. The bookmaker first decides on how much advantage he wants to add to a betting line. For example if he has the probabilities as 82.5% favorite / 17.5% underdog and he wants to keep around 3.75% of the wagered amount on balanced action he’ll add this to each probability. .825*1.0375=0.8559 (85.59%) and 0.175*1.0375=0.1816 (18.16%). To see what these are in American odds, head over to our odds converter and in the implied probability field enter 85.59% to see this is -594. Next enter 18.16 to see this is +450.66. The bookmaker has a large enough advantage here so with the desire to use round about numbers he’ll most likely set the odds at -600 / +450. The juice is roughly the same on each as remember 6 cents added to a -594 price is peanuts, because the fair price of -600/+450 is -471/+471 (this was mentioned two paragraphs up). In any case notice the gap between -600 and +450 is 150 cents yet the Bookmaker has just a 3.75% advantage here.
To test this out on another line set, let’s say the bookmaker has handicapped the favorite having a 55% chance of winning and wants to add the same 3.75% advantage. The math is .55×1.0375=57.06% and .45×1.0375=46.69%. Using the implied probability field of our odds converter we see this gives us moneylines of -133 and +114 here the bookmaker is likely to round again to -135 / +115. His advantage is still in the 3.75% range of the previous example, yet the gap here is 20 cents instead of 150 cents. Hopefully you’re now seeing why moneylines cannot be averaged to remove juice.
How to Remove Juice from Moneylines
To remove the juice from moneylines the first step is to convert the betting odds to implied probabilities using risk/return=implied probability. For a moneyline of -600, if a bettor risks $600 they win $100 and therefore the return is $700 ($600 stake + $100 win). So here the math is 600/700=0.8571 (85.71%). If the opponent’s moneyline is +450 and a bettor risks $100 it is to win $450 and therefore the return is $550 ($100 stake + $450 win) so the math is 100/550=0.1818 (18.18%). Now note that implied probability represent how often you need to win on average to break even, and here 85.71% + 18.18% = 103.89%. The reasons the probabilities total greater than 100% is because of the bookmaker advantage called juice or vig. To remove this we need to divide each implied probability by the overall percent market (in this case 103.89%). So 85.71/103.89=82.5% and 18.18/103.89=17.5%, you see these now total 100% so the vig is removed. We now know the no-vig win probability of -600 / +450 is 82.5% and 12.5%. You can save doing out this math by using the tool at the top of our article. Perhaps I’ll write another article in the future on converting these percentages to American odds format, but for now you can enter them into our odds converter tool under the implied probability field to solve the answer is -471/+471.
Best Use of this Knowledge
Now that you understand a bit more about moneylines, you can use this information to “handicap the market”. Although they don’t openly accept US players, it is well known Pinnacle Sports offers the highest betting limits and fastest payouts while operating on the lowest margins. For NFL football games point spreads are priced -104 instead of the usual -110, and Pinnacle accepts massive wagers on these ($30,000 and $100,000 per bet limits in some cases). A good idea is to watch their website and compare their prices on moneylines, totals and point spreads to other sites such as www.bookmaker.eu (which accepts US players). If at any time you find a line better at Bookmaker or another site than is offered at Pinnacle you might have a smart bet. The next step would be to return to this page and calculate Pinnacle’s No-Vig price. If the odds you’re getting are better than Pinnacle’s no-vig price chances are you have a +EV (positive expected value) wager.