What is a Low Hold Bet? How and Why You Should Place Low-Hold Bets Using OddsJam

The Low-Hold tool on OddsJam is one of the most useful tools at your disposal to maximize your profits over the sportsbooks, as well as accumulate rewards and benefits.

What is a Low-Hold Bet?

Low-hold bets are when a bettor places a bet on both sides of an outcome for an extremely low (ideally 0%) loss.

It’s the same idea as an arbitrage bet, except you don’t quite profit on the low-holds, so there are more opportunities available.

Let’s take a look at an example (using one slightly worse than 0% to illustrate a “low” hold rather than a “no” hold).

You can see here that DraftKings and FanDuel have a line set at 22.5, but they aren’t in agreement about the odds. DraftKings has the over at +125, while FanDuel has the under at -126. Take a look at that top left corner, and you can see that works out to a 0.2% hold.

If I place $100 on DraftKings, the calculator icon on the far left of the bet will show me how much to put on FanDuel to lose as little as possible, in this case, 44 cents. So, why would I ever be ok with losing 44 cents?

Why Low-Holds are Your Friend and How to Benefit from Them:

Although in the above I would lose 44 cents, I would do that for a few possible reasons:

Reason #1: Rollover Requirements

This is most common in offshore sportsbooks, but exists in some legal regulated books as well. For some sportsbook promotions, when you deposit and earn bonus funds, you have to play through all your deposit money (or even your deposit amount multiplied by more than one) before you can withdraw.

For example, a sportsbook might have a deposit match up to $500 but you have to play through it 10x before withdrawing. That means you have to place $5,000 of bets before you can withdraw. For bettors that wouldn’t be betting that much usually, doing low-holds is a great option to churn through that requirement.

Reason #2: Rewards Points or Tier Goals

Another popular reason for using the low-holds page is for progress towards rewards points or tier status at sportsbooks. For example, Caesars has a great rewards program where you can earn redeemable rewards credits AND tier credits that get you status with Caesars.

Caesars has lots of properties around the country and world, especially in Las Vegas, so those who get themselves to a high tier can earn free nights, dinners, travel, and other experiences. Low-holds, especially 0% holds, can be a great way to reach a higher rewards tier while not risking any losses.

Reason #3: Moving Money Around

Finally, Low-Holds can be a great way to balance your account values across multiple sportsbooks.

Of course, you never know which side of the low-hold will win so this doesn’t always go exactly as planned, but if you want to essentially “transfer” funds from one book to another without going through the withdrawal and deposit process, you can place a 0% hold bet on two different books and hope that the one you want more money in wins.

If not, then you can double the amount with the winnings from the book you want to transfer over and try again. Worst case scenario, that book keeps winning and you eventually have to withdraw and then deposit as normal.

Using the Low-Hold Page to Find Profitable Bets

Another way I like to use the low-hold page is to find profitable, positive expected value bets that may not quite qualify to show up on the positive expected value tool. Here’s a great example:

The low-hold that shows up here is between Caesars and Pinny, and when I open the odds I can see that Caesars is more of an outlier.

Now, -195 to -220 range at most books isn’t a huge difference for most bets in terms of creating positive expected value, but NFL moneyline markets are extremely tight so in this case it is enough for me to want to place this bet.

If you have any questions about how I use the tool or how you should best use the tool, please feel free to reach out by email to [email protected].