it sets the return Its complement is the return to players. A 4.0% hold is the same statement as a 96.0% return on turnover, and both are measured on stakes rather than on deposits. This is the figure a reader should substitute wherever a claim says a game "pays back" a percentage.
Hold Desk / The hold
Figure 02
The hold is an average of a whole book of play, not the edge on a game
The hold is the percentage of everything staked that the operator keeps. It is calculated once per period across every product and every customer, which is why it is not the same thing as the house edge on any single game - and why a claim that a game "has a 4% hold" is a category error worth unpacking.
Figure stub
- Sheet
- HD-58-03
- Subject
- The hold
- Calculated from
- gross win / turnover
- In the sample
- 4.0%
gross winWhat was kept: everything staked minus everything returned to players
the holdThe gross win divided by turnover, measured over a period and a whole book of play
net revenueWhat survives the bonus line, and the definition a reader should check first
Direct answerThe hold is gross win divided by turnover over a period: the share of everything staked that the operator kept. It is an average across every product, stake size and customer in that period, so it is a property of a book of play rather than of a game. The house edge on one game is a separate figure, and on a small sample the two diverge.
Gross win over turnoverOne figure per periodProduct mix moves itVariance moves it too
How the hold is calculated
There is no more to the calculation than a division, and the useful work is in knowing what was divided.
Worked example - the hold of the sample operator (illustrative)
Turnover in the month: 100,000,000.00
Winnings returned to players: 96,000,000.00
Gross win: 100,000,000.00 - 96,000,000.00 = 4,000,000.00
Hold: 4,000,000.00 / 100,000,000.00 = 4.0%
Read it the other way round: 100.00 staked - 96.00 returned = 4.00 kept
Suppose the same operator held 5.5% instead: gross win 5,500,000.00, and the difference of
1,500,000.00 is what the customers paid for that 1.5 points of hold.
The five things that move a hold
- Product mix. A book of play is a weighted average of the products in it. Games with a higher built-in edge pull the hold up; competitive sports margins and large-stake play pull it down. The mix page works this through.
- Stake size and customer behaviour. The hold is on turnover, and turnover depends on how much is staked, not on how much is deposited. A customer who stakes a small balance many times contributes more turnover per pound deposited.
- Variance, on a small sample. In a short period the hold can be anything from negative to several times the underlying edge, because a single large win is deducted from the whole period's turnover.
- The period. A day, a week and a year of the same book produce three different holds. Reports almost always use a period long enough for the average to settle, and the short ones are the ones that mislead.
- Definition. A hold calculated on gross win, on net revenue and on cash handled are three different numbers with one name. Which base was used is the first thing to check on the checklist.
The same edge, four different sample sizes
The bars below are the point of the page: the underlying edge does not move, and the measured hold does, because a short sample is dominated by which way the big results fell. Each bar is the hold a book with an identical 4% edge would be expected to show on that much turnover.
One day
One week
One month
One year
the range the measured hold can span on that sample, around the same 4.0% edge
Read the bars as a spread rather than a value. On a single day a book can hold nothing at all, because one customer's win cancels it; over a year the measured hold has to sit near the edge, because the contributions of many results have averaged out. That is what "the hold is 4%" means and does not mean.
Why the hold is worth knowing at all
one
two
it is the tax base Most gambling duties are levied on the gross win. The hold is therefore not only an economic figure but a fiscal one: the same number determines what the operator keeps before duties and what a government takes from it. The pound-of-stakes page carries that line.
three
it is not profit A hold of 4% does not mean a margin of 4%. In the sample, 15% of the gross win reaches operating profit, which is 0.6% of turnover. The gap between the two figures is the subject of this desk.
The mistake this page exists to prevent. "The casino has a 4% house edge" and "the casino's hold is 4%" are not the same claim. The first describes the arithmetic of one game over a long run of play. The second describes what a whole book of play, across every product and every customer, retained in a period. They often sit close together over a year, and they are different quantities.