Reduced Juice Sports Betting Promotions

Juice is a necessary evil in sports betting. It’s what keeps sportsbooks in business and is why most bettors lose money over the long term.

Otherwise known as vigorish, the juice is a commission collected by sportsbooks on every winning wager. It’s the reason sportsbooks price coin-flips at -110 (bet $110 to win $100) instead of +100 (bet $100 to win $100) and explains the gap in moneyline prices (e.g., +160 / -180).

Reduced juice promotions are special offers that bring the odds closer to their fair market value. They may not be as glamorous as other promos, but they are often more valuable than “flashy” offers.

Read on to learn more about how they work and recommendations for reduced juice online sportsbooks.

Reduced Juice Sportsbooks

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Reduced Juice Explained

Serious sports bettors are always on the hunt to trim or completely mitigate the house edge. Reduced juice promotions provide a clear path to doing exactly that.

They are among the easiest promotions to understand, rendering them perfect for beginners. There is rarely any fine print and certainly no expiration dates or wagering requirements to contend with. Put simply, reduced juice betting sites take their commission for a game or even an entire market and slashes it.

For example, a book that regularly posts -110 lines on NFL point spreads may run a promotion offering -105 NFL lines. That doesn’t seem like a big difference, but it’s monumental in the long run.

Of course, sportsbooks never do anything without purpose. Reduced juice promotions are a means of attracting more customers to their product. Line shoppers will see the difference and be more likely to wager at the book posting better odds. Eventually, the lines will return to normal, but the newly acquired bettors may become loyal customers.

Reduced juice promos pose little risk to the book. Betting apps will still theoretically break even or post a smaller win. They can mitigate liability even further by only offering reduced juice on extremely efficient markets like NFL or NBA spreads and totals.

Bettors also incur little risk from taking advantage of reduced juice promos. They’re simply getting a better line on a wager they might normally make. This stands in stark contrast to other promos, like risk-free bet offers, where bettors are actively encouraged to bet a large amount on a single wager.

In short, reduced juice promos are no riskier than handing a coupon to a cashier at a local grocery store.

The Impact of Reduced Juice

It is easy to demonstrate the impact of reduced juice odds on bettors’ bankrolls using NFL point spreads.

Imagine an online sportsbook runs an offer reducing its NFL spread lines from -110 to -105.

First, it’s important to understand what this means. At -110, a bettor will have to wager $110 to win $100, equating to a house edge of 4.55% and a break-even point of 52.38%. That doesn’t sound like an incredible hurdle to overcome, but don’t be deceived. Even top professionals only win around 55% of their even-money predictions.

At -105 odds, the bettor now only has to wager $105 to win $100. The change reduces the house edge to 2.38%, and the break-even point drops to 51.22%. Over the course of a few games or even an entire weekly slate, this won’t amount to a tremendous amount of savings. But what about over an entire season?

Assume a bettor places an average of four $50 NFL spread line wagers each week. One particular book has decided to be extra generous and offer reduced juice spread lines (-105) for the entire season. Getting reduced juice lines for a whole NFL season may seem like an extreme example, but it’s certainly not unheard of.

There are 17 weeks in the NFL season, which works out to 68 wagers and $3,400 in total handle. On average, the bettor will win 34 bets and lose 34.

• At -110 odds, the bettor is expected to lose $154.55 throughout the season.
• At -105 odds, the better will only lose $80.95.

At reduced juice sportsbooks, the bettor saves $73.60. That’s nearly 1.5 units. Again, it doesn’t seem like a lot, but consider this: Over a 68-game sample size, running 1.5 units above expectation is the difference between being an Average Joe and very close to crossing the line into profitable sports betting territory.

Another clear advantage of reduced juice promos is that books are less likely to impose betting restrictions. With other promos like risk-free bets, parlay insurance, and profit boosts, bettors can only wager up to a certain amount. There may even be odds restrictions like “only tickets with odds of -200 or shorter are eligible”.

With reduced juice, sportsbooks usually allow bettors to wager up to the house limit. Again, this is because they typically apply reduced juice promos to efficient markets, and the book wants to offset its lower margin with higher handle.

Which Sportsbooks Offer Reduced Juice?

Reduced juice promotions are rare. Despite their incredible value, they lack that “wow” factor and therefore don’t immediately appeal to recreational bettors.

A few US online sportsbooks do run with them, however.

Circa Sports is the most prominent example, although its reduced juice lines aren’t really promotions so much as standard operating procedure. Instead of random bonus bets and deposit bonuses, Circa Sportsbook offers low-vig lines every day for every sport it covers.

Over the long term, Circa’s reduced juice betting lines provide significantly more value than the typical promos most other betting sites offer. For that reason alone, bettors should add Circa Sports to the list of betting sites they check when line shopping for the best odds.

Is Reduced Juice the Same as An Odds Boost?

Odds boosts and reduced juice promos produce similar results, but their approaches differ.

Like reduced juice, an odds boost shifts the line in the player’s favor. For instance, if the line on a particular quarterback throwing for over 260 passing yards is -120, the sportsbook may boost it to -110 or -105.

Reduced juice, by definition, will never result in the house edge flipping in the bettor’s favor. At best, the vigorish will approach zero, allowing bettors to play a break-even game.

Odds boosts are more variable. In some instances, an odds boost is significant enough to turn a negative expectation positive. Other times, it’ll only mildly cut the house edge. There have even been instances where so-called boosted odds offer less value than equivalent non-boosted odds found on competing sites.  That’s just another reason bettors should always shop around.

Whereas sportsbooks usually reserve reduced juice promos for high-volume markets, odds boosts cover more obscure bets like player props, game props, derivatives, and parlays.

It’s much more difficult to calculate the value of an odds boost for several reasons:

• Books may not display the original line, only the boosted odds.
• The boosted odds may originate from a one-way market, which is a market where bettors can only bet on the YES side of a wager. For one-way markets, there is no direct comparison point that bettors can use to gauge the value of a line.
• Books love to boost multi-leg and same game parlays. Not only do these wagers have a high organic house edge, but it requires a decent amount of legwork to calculate the fair odds.

Another big drawback of odds boosts is that they’re subject to strict betting limits. Usually, it’s just $25 or $50 per boost, although some Caesars Sportsbook promos allow up to $100. So even if bettors do find a +EV boost, they won’t be able to wager that much on it.

Reduced juice promotions may have a more limited upside, but they’re far more transparent and beginner-friendly. Both odds boosts and reduced juice promos have their place in a sports bettor’s arsenal, but bettors must approach odds boosts with more caution.

Reduced Juice Betting FAQ