What is the handle in sports betting? What is revenue? – The Athletic

The handle is a specific term to sports betting that can be foreign to outsiders but a fundamental concept. Simply, handle is the amount of money wagered by bettors. It is the amount of money in play across online and in-person sportsbooks.

A sportsbooks revenue is different from its handle. The revenue is determined after bets are settled, the winners get their profits, and the losers lose the money wagered.

Handle can be shown as the amount bet over a certain period of time at a sportsbook or in a state or country. For example, sports betting in New Jersey had more than $996 million in handle in Dec. 2020. That means almost $1 billion was wagered in bets during that month in every sports bet from every sportsbook in New Jersey. As a result, the revenue New Jersey sportsbooks made during that same period was over $66 million.

Handle is also used as the percentage wagered on each side of a single bet, like a Carolina Hurricanes-Tampa Bay Lightning game. In sports betting coverage and analysis, you may see something like, The Lightning moneyline bet has 65% of the handle and 59% of the tickets. In this usage, handle is all of the money bet on that game, and the Lightnings 65% is how much of that money is on the Lightning side of the bet.

Ticket percentage is the raw number of bets. That means a $5 bet on the Lightning counts the same as a $1,000 bet on the Lightning. So they are each one ticket.

Handle percentage is weighted on how much money each bet was placed for. That means 20 $5 bets on the Lightning would be valued the same as one $100 bet on the Hurricanes.

Comparing handle percentage and ticket percentage can show where big money is going. In the example above, the Lightning has 65% of the handle with only 59% of the tickets. Therefore, for the handle percentage to be higher than the ticket percentage, the average bet amount on the Lightning has to be higher.

Trying to make actionable conclusions from this is tricky. It doesnt mean pro bettors are betting on the Lightning. It could just be average skill-level bettors with more money to bet are betting on the Lightning.

The handle isnt something readily accessible for every event. For example, some sportsbooks will boast about how much money was bet during the Super Bowl or March Madness. Likewise, the ticket and handle percentage numbers arent always widely available, although sometimes they will be given to the media to present interesting headlines or tidbits of information. Generally speaking, the handle isnt useful information for bettors trying to find an edge.

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What is the handle in sports betting? What is revenue? - The Athletic