The table below is our running record of the lowest bookmaker margins in British football. It covers every match-result market we captured across seven competitions, ranked by each betting site’s median margin, exchanges included after commission. Lower numbers mean more of each stake comes back to punters. Further down are the Premier League, League One, goals markets and the exchanges.
| # | Betting site | Median margin | Average | Markets priced |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  exchange, commission included | 2.14% | 2.22% | 169 |
| 2 |  exchange, commission included | 3.05% | 5.58% | 219 |
| 3 |  exchange, commission included | 4.38% | 4.68% | 181 |
| 4 | sportsbook | 5.90% | 5.93% | 138 |
| 5 |  | 5.92% | 6.74% | 226 |
| 6 |  | 6.33% | 6.36% | 199 |
| 7 |  | 6.59% | 7.27% | 221 |
| 8 |  | 7.10% | 7.34% | 194 |
| 9 |  | 7.27% | 7.89% | 227 |
| 10 |  | 7.27% | 7.87% | 227 |
| 11 |  | 7.31% | 7.75% | 200 |
| 12 |  | 7.35% | 7.67% | 194 |
| 13 |  | 7.54% | 7.24% | 196 |
| 14 |  | 7.71% | 8.42% | 221 |
| 15 |  | 7.99% | 8.58% | 204 |
| 16 |  | 8.87% | 8.99% | 219 |
| 17 |  | 8.88% | 8.95% | 224 |
| 18 |  | 9.15% | 9.38% | 204 |
| 19 |  | 9.28% | 9.41% | 219 |
| 20 |  | 9.54% | 9.32% | 204 |
| 21 |  | 10.81% | 10.36% | 226 |
What bookmaker margins are
Every bookmaker builds a cut into its prices. If the odds on a football match were perfectly fair, the implied chances of a home win, a draw and an away win would add up to exactly 100%. Bookmakers shorten each price, so the total comes out higher. That excess is the margin, also called the overround or the vig.
The margin is how a bookmaker earns its living. A firm pricing football at a 5% overround expects, across a large enough book, to keep close to five pence of every pound punters stake. The number says nothing about who wins any single bet; it describes the average cost written into the prices before a ball is kicked.
Bookmaker margins vary far more than most punters expect. Two licensed firms can price the same Premier League fixture with margins a few percentage points apart, and the gap usually widens in smaller leagues and side markets. The odds themselves rarely make that difference obvious at a glance, so the sums have to be done for you or by you.
One dial, 21 prices.
Every spoke of the market dial, straightened into one ranked list: lowest margin at the top, the same lengths, one scale.
From 2.14% to 10.81%.
Matchbook builds the least into its prices and BoyleSports the most. In our first 13 days of odds, the highest margin is about 5 times the lowest.
Our first 13 days of odds.
Every figure here comes from our first 13 days of odds. Margins enter the rating, and we name a cheapest place to bet, once 21 days are recorded. Exchange figures already include the standard commission.
Median margin on English and Scottish football match-result markets, odds recorded daily over the last 13 days.
Why charge one at all? A bookmaker carries risk on every market it opens, pays duty on its gross profits, buys data and pictures, and employs traders. The margin funds all of that. A firm that set fair prices and balanced its book perfectly would pay back every pound it took, and it would not stay in business for long.
Writers use the terms in slightly different ways. In our tables, the margin is the overround itself: the sum of the implied probabilities minus 100%. Some calculators divide that excess by the book total and report a slightly smaller figure. Both describe the same edge, and if one method runs throughout, the order of bookmakers does not change.
Bookmaker overround: a worked example
Take a made-up match where a bookmaker offers 2.20 on the home side, 3.30 on the draw and 3.40 on the away team. Each decimal price converts to an implied probability when you divide one by the odds. That gives 45.5% for the home win, 30.3% for the draw and 29.4% for the away win in this example.
Add the three and the book totals 105.2%. The bookmaker overround on this market is therefore 5.2%, the amount by which the prices promise less than fair odds would. Strip the excess out by dividing each probability by 1.052 and the fair prices emerge at roughly 2.31, 3.47 and 3.58, all a little longer than the quoted odds.
In money terms, a punter who spread £100 across all three outcomes in line with those prices would get back about £95.10 whatever the result. The missing £4.90 is the price of the bet. At a bookmaker pricing the same match at a 9% overround, an identical £100 spread would come back as roughly £91.70 instead.
Two-way markets follow the same rule. Over/under 2.5 goals priced at 1.85 and 1.95 implies 54.1% and 51.3%, and the book totals about 105.3%, a bookmaker overround of roughly 5.3%. The method works for any market whose outcomes cover every possible result, from tennis to a three-horse match bet, as long as all the prices come from one bookmaker.
The cut is rarely shared out evenly. Comparing quoted and fair odds outcome by outcome often shows a bookmaker taking more from the draw or the outsider than from the favourite, where punters watch the price most closely. A margin figure for the whole market hides that detail, so the individual price on your selection still deserves a look.
Fractional odds hide the bookmaker overround better than decimals. The prices in our first example read 6/5, 23/10 and 12/5 on a British coupon, and few people convert those mentally. To check a market, turn each fraction into a decimal by dividing and adding one, then run the sums above, or let our betting margin calculator do it for you. Our guide to how bookmakers set odds goes further.
A moving version of this arithmetic sits in our margin explainer, built on one real Premier League match. It shows the same three steps with the prices of every site we track: price to chance, chances to total, and total to margin, then what a £100 split across all three results returns at the dearest and the cheapest books.
Over a season the difference adds up. Two hundred bets of £10 is £2,000 staked. At a 7% margin the prices keep about £130.84 of that on average; at 3% they keep about £58.25, using stake × margin ÷ (1 + margin). The roughly £73 between them buys nothing extra. The short video below runs the same sums.
Read the narration
Every price a bookmaker offers has a small cut built in: the margin.
Take a football match with three possible results. Turn each price into a chance, and the chances add up to more than 100%.
At a 7% margin, they add up to 107. The extra 7 is the bookmaker's share.
Now bet £10, 200 times in a season. That is £2,000 staked.
On average, a 7% margin keeps about £131 of it.
At a 3% margin, the same bets cost about £58.
Roughly £73 kept, for exactly the same bets.
Football margins differ widely between betting sites. Our tables measure them every day, exchange commission included.
A lower margin never turns betting into income. Set a deposit limit before you start.
Please gamble responsibly. GambleAware.org 18+
Premier League: where prices are tightest
| # | Betting site | Median margin | Average | Markets priced |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | exchange, commission included | 1.96% | 2.01% | 30 |
| 2 | exchange, commission included | 2.42% | 3.06% | 31 |
| 3 | exchange, commission included | 4.02% | 4.62% | 31 |
| 4 | | 4.59% | 4.89% | 31 |
| 5 | | 5.07% | 4.88% | 30 |
| 6 | sportsbook | 5.09% | 5.31% | 28 |
| 7 | | 5.54% | 5.63% | 31 |
| 8 | | 5.63% | 5.71% | 30 |
| 9 | | 6.28% | 6.58% | 30 |
| 10 | | 6.54% | 6.45% | 30 |
| 11 | | 6.73% | 6.73% | 30 |
| 12 | | 6.75% | 7.02% | 30 |
| 13 | | 6.83% | 6.94% | 31 |
| 14 | | 6.97% | 7.03% | 31 |
| 15 | | 7.12% | 7.22% | 29 |
| 16 | | 7.16% | 7.19% | 30 |
| 17 | | 7.36% | 7.57% | 30 |
| 18 | | 7.51% | 7.54% | 31 |
| 19 | | 7.51% | 7.54% | 31 |
| 20 | | 7.72% | 7.48% | 31 |
| 21 | | 7.96% | 7.97% | 30 |
The Premier League draws more attention from punters and rival traders than any other British competition, so its prices tend to be the sharpest a bookmaker offers. In our data the spread between firms is still visible here, though narrower than in the lower divisions. A cheap Premier League price is the minimum standard, not proof of value elsewhere.
Watch for firms that sit near the top of this table and much lower in the all-football table above. That pattern points to a bookmaker that sharpens its headline fixtures and recovers the difference elsewhere. If your bets are mostly on top-flight matches, it barely matters. If you follow the Championship or League Two, it matters a great deal.
League One and the cost of lower leagues
| # | Betting site | Median margin | Average | Markets priced |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | exchange, commission included | 2.28% | 2.36% | 44 |
| 2 | exchange, commission included | 2.70% | 2.82% | 44 |
| 3 | exchange, commission included | 4.42% | 4.50% | 44 |
| 4 | | 5.75% | 5.83% | 44 |
| 5 | sportsbook | 5.94% | 6.04% | 37 |
| 6 | | 6.34% | 6.40% | 44 |
| 7 | | 6.46% | 6.56% | 44 |
| 8 | | 6.46% | 6.56% | 44 |
| 9 | | 6.58% | 6.57% | 44 |
| 10 | | 6.66% | 6.81% | 44 |
| 11 | | 7.00% | 7.00% | 44 |
| 12 | | 7.58% | 7.60% | 44 |
| 13 | | 7.62% | 7.53% | 43 |
| 14 | | 7.86% | 7.89% | 44 |
| 15 | | 8.66% | 8.56% | 44 |
| 16 | | 9.32% | 9.35% | 44 |
| 17 | | 9.52% | 9.56% | 44 |
| 18 | | 9.75% | 9.26% | 44 |
| 19 | | 10.41% | 10.47% | 44 |
| 20 | | 10.49% | 10.61% | 44 |
| 21 | | 11.25% | 11.19% | 44 |
League One shows how margins behave once the television spotlight fades. Fewer people bet on these matches, so a pricing mistake costs a bookmaker more relative to the money it takes. Traders protect themselves by building in a bigger cushion. In the current tables most bookmakers price League One wider than the Premier League, though a few do not.
Casumo: 5.07% → 10.55%
The steepest rise we record. LiveScore Bet is close behind, at 6.75% in the top flight and 11.73% three divisions down; Ladbrokes hardly changes.
| League | Median of 21 |
|---|---|
| Premier League | 6.73% |
| Championship | 7.36% |
| League One | 7.00% |
| League Two | 7.11% |
Each line is one site, the thick line is the median of all 21; match-result markets, odds recorded daily over the last 13 days.
Information is the other reason. A Premier League team sheet is picked apart by thousands of people within minutes; a League One injury may surface late or not at all. Bookmakers price that uncertainty in. Punters who know a lower league well may feel they understand it better than the traders, yet they pay a higher margin each time.
The Championship, League Two and the Scottish Premiership feed into the overall table at the top of this page. Cup ties are noisier still. An early FA Cup round brings plenty of fixtures and a later one only a handful, and a bookmaker drops out of a competition’s figures whenever it has priced fewer than five ties in the window.
Over/under 2.5 goals
| # | Betting site | Median margin | Average | Markets priced |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | exchange, commission included | 2.52% | 2.94% | 133 |
| 2 | | 7.14% | 7.37% | 155 |
| 3 | | 7.53% | 7.40% | 167 |
| 4 | | 7.60% | 7.95% | 219 |
| 5 | | 7.91% | 7.88% | 164 |
The goals market is a two-way book, so its margin reads differently from the match result. Fewer bookmakers appear, because the feed carries the 2.5 line for only some of them and a firm needs at least five priced fixtures to qualify. Treat this table as a second opinion on a firm’s pricing, not a ranking of its own.
For a punter, the goals line is often the simplest way to compare two bookmakers on the same match. There are only two prices, so the overround takes seconds to work out by hand. If a firm is generous on the match result and stingy on goals, the totals figure will show it once enough matches have been priced.
Exchanges, with commission included
| # | Exchange | Median margin | Average | Markets priced |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | | 2.14% | 2.22% | 169 |
| 2 | | 3.05% | 5.58% | 219 |
| 3 | exchange | 4.38% | 4.68% | 181 |
Exchange prices are set by other customers, and the exchange takes its cut as commission on net winnings in each market. To compare that cost fairly with a bookmaker’s margin, we adjust every exchange price first: the odds after commission equal one plus the original odds minus one, multiplied by one minus the commission rate. Then the usual sum applies.
With a 2% commission, a back price of 2.50 becomes 2.47, because only the profit part of the price is reduced. Run all three outcomes of a match through that formula and the result is the true cost to a backer. In our data, exchanges sit at or near the bottom of the margin range once commission is counted.
The exchanges differ from one another as well. Betfair’s standard Market Base Rate is 5% of net winnings, Smarkets charges 2%, and Matchbook applies a low per-market rate on net winnings set out in its own terms. A cheaper rate only helps if the market is deep enough to take your stake at the price shown on the screen.
That last point matters. Thin exchange markets can show wide gaps between the back and lay prices, and the odds on screen may be available for a small amount only. Our tables use the back prices captured at each snapshot, so liquidity is a separate question, covered in detail on our betting exchanges page.
Lowest bookmaker margins versus the biggest offers
Sign-up offers grab attention, but they are paid once. The lowest bookmaker margins keep paying on every bet placed afterwards. A typical welcome deal hands out free bets for a qualifying stake, and those free bets return only the winnings, not the stake. Their real worth is well below the headline figure, while a price difference keeps adding up quietly.
Here is the arithmetic with round numbers. A punter staking £15 a week puts £780 through an account in a year. At a 5% overround the built-in cost is about £37; at 10% it is about £71. That gap of around £34 a year is in the same range as many welcome offers, and it comes back every year.
None of that makes offers worthless. A free bet has value if you would have bet anyway, and the terms box on each listing sets out minimum odds, expiry and qualifying payment methods. The point is the order of decisions: choose a bookmaker whose prices you can live with, then take its offer, never the other way round.
Concessions sit somewhere in between. Best odds guaranteed on racing or acca insurance on football can be worth more to a regular punter than any welcome deal, and neither shows up in a margin table. Our ranking of UK betting sites weighs price, offers and extras together, with price carrying the largest single share of each bookmaker’s score.
What the tables show right now
The tables are young and the odds history is still building day by day, so we describe broad shapes. In our data so far, exchanges with commission included sit at the cheap end, most firms price the Premier League more tightly than the lower divisions, and the gap between the cheapest and the dearest bookmaker shows in every competition.
Some names move between tables in ways worth noticing. A bookmaker can be among the cheapest on the Premier League and middling across all football, or the reverse. Shared ownership offers a clue but not a rule. Ladbrokes and Coral, both licensed through LC International Limited, are a pair worth comparing whenever you are choosing between the two.
Coverage is the quieter column. The markets-priced figure shows how many fixtures each firm quoted in the window, and some bookmakers price nearly everything we track while others skip whole divisions. A firm with a low count may look cheap on a narrow sample. Market coverage also feeds into our ratings as a criterion of its own.
Margins shift around team news and kick-off. We use the last price before a match starts, the moment the market holds the most information. Early prices can be looser or tighter depending on how a bookmaker manages its risk, so a figure captured days ahead would tell a different story from the one these tables show.
UK rules, tax and bookmaker margins
No UK rule caps bookmaker margins. The Gambling Commission regulates how firms treat customers, from identity checks to safer-gambling tools, but it does not set prices. A bookmaker may price a match as it chooses, and it may also decline a bet or limit a customer’s stakes, which the Commission treats as a commercial matter outside its remit.
Tax is built into every price. Operators pay General Betting Duty on fixed-odds bets, currently at 15%, and the rate is the same for shop and online bets. From 1 April 2027 a new 25% rate applies to remote betting, although online bets on UK horse racing stay at 15%. Punters themselves pay no tax on their winnings.
Whether that rise reaches customers through wider prices remains to be seen, and our tables are built to answer it. If online football margins drift upwards after April 2027, a comparison with the figures recorded today will show the change plainly, competition by competition and bookmaker by bookmaker, without anyone having to guess at it.
Knowing the price is no substitute for limits. A low margin reduces the cost of betting; it does not turn betting into income. Every licensed bookmaker must prompt you to set a financial limit before the first deposit, a rule in force since 31 October 2025, and GAMSTOP blocks all GB-licensed online operators with one free registration.
Using bookmaker margins as a punter
Start with the competition you bet on most and read the table closest to it, not only the overall one. A bookmaker that ranks well across all football may be ordinary on the league you follow. If you hold accounts with two or three firms, the tables tell you which to check first before a bet.
Check the individual price too. Margins are medians across many fixtures, so a firm with a wide average can still offer the best odds on a particular selection, often the favourite. Comparing the price you want across your accounts takes a minute, and it turns a long-run average into a sensible decision about one specific bet on one specific day.
Expect side markets to be dearer. Bet builders, correct scores, first goalscorers and accumulators all carry larger margins than the match result, and an accumulator multiplies the margin of every leg. A four-fold built from markets at 6% each carries a combined overround of roughly 26%, a number worth knowing before you chase a long-odds slip.
Keep a simple record. Note the odds you took and the best price available elsewhere at the time. After a few months you will know whether your main bookmaker is costing you money compared with its rivals, and by how much. That personal figure is more useful than any table, because it reflects the markets you actually bet on.
If a firm starts limiting your stakes, the margin table loses some of its meaning for you, since the best price is little use at £2. Our account restrictions guide explains how stake factoring works and what the Gambling Commission’s own figures say about how many accounts were restricted in 2024.
How each figure is built
Our collector saves a daily snapshot of the odds a commercial feed lists for UK bookmakers across seven competitions, from the Premier League down to League Two plus the Scottish Premiership, FA Cup and EFL Cup. Only two markets are used, the full match result and over/under 2.5 goals. Each fixture counts once per bookmaker, at its final pre-kick-off snapshot.
For each bookmaker and competition we take the median margin across fixtures, so one strange price cannot drag the figure around; the mean and the number of markets sit beside it. The window is a rolling 28 days. A cell needs at least five priced fixtures before it is published, and smaller samples stay out of the tables altogether.
Any single price set implying a margin below minus 1% or above 30% is discarded as a stale or broken quote. Those limits are wide enough that ordinary pricing is never trimmed. Exchange prices have each exchange’s standard commission on net winnings deducted, using the formula described above, before their margin is calculated and compared.
Limits, sources and refresh
These figures describe English and Scottish football only. Horse racing, darts and snooker prices are not measured, so nothing here rates a bookmaker on those sports. bet365 is not carried by the odds feed and is reviewed on its other criteria. The tables, and the ratings built on them, are refreshed weekly from the latest snapshots.
The stamp below records how many fixtures and days of odds sit behind the current tables. As the history grows, the medians will settle and the cup figures will fill in. Every number on this page can be reproduced from the method on how we rate, using nothing more than the quoted prices and a calculator.
243 fixtures · 13 days of odds · updated 2 November 2026Frequently asked questions
What are bookmaker margins?
Bookmaker margins are the cut built into a set of odds. The implied probabilities of every outcome add up to more than 100%, and the excess is the margin, also called the overround. It is the average cost of a bet before any result is known.
How are bookmaker margins calculated?
Convert each decimal price to an implied probability by dividing one by the odds, add the probabilities for every outcome, and subtract 100%. Prices of 2.20, 3.30 and 3.40 sum to about 105.2%, a margin of 5.2%.
Which UK bookmaker has the lowest margins?
The tables on this page rank licensed bookmakers by their median football margin, with the lowest at the top. The order moves as new odds come in, so check the table for the competition you bet on before relying on a name.
What is the bookmaker overround?
The bookmaker overround is the amount by which the implied chances in a market exceed 100%. In our tables it is the figure we call the margin. A book totalling 106% has an overround of 6%.
Why do bookmakers build a margin into their odds?
The margin covers the firm's costs, its risk and its profit. Without it, a bookmaker that balanced its book perfectly would pay out every pound it took and earn nothing.
What is a typical margin on UK football?
Main markets on the Premier League are the most keenly priced in British football, while lower divisions and cups usually carry more. The tables on this page show the current medians for each firm instead of a single typical figure.
Are bookmaker margins regulated in the UK?
No. The Gambling Commission regulates how bookmakers treat customers, including identity checks, complaints and safer-gambling tools, but it does not set or cap prices. Each firm decides its own margins.
Why are lower-league margins higher?
Fewer people bet on lower-league matches and less information reaches the market, so a pricing error costs a bookmaker more. Traders protect themselves with a wider margin.
Do exchanges have a margin?
Exchanges charge commission on net winnings in each market instead of shading prices. Once that commission is deducted from the odds, exchange prices can be compared directly with bookmaker margins, which is how our exchange table is built.
How do margins affect my returns?
A margin is a long-run cost. If you spread £100 across a market priced at a 5% overround, the prices return about £95 whatever happens; at 10% the same spread returns about £91.
Is it always better to bet with the lowest-margin bookmaker?
On price alone, yes, but the cheapest firm overall may not have the best odds on your selection, and concessions such as best odds guaranteed are not part of a margin. Compare the individual price before each bet.
Why do accumulators cost more?
An accumulator multiplies the margin of every leg. Four selections from markets at a 6% overround each carry a combined overround of about 26%.
Do you measure horse racing margins?
No. Our odds records cover English and Scottish football only, so racing, darts and snooker prices are not part of these tables.
Why is bet365 missing from the margin tables?
The commercial odds feed we record does not carry bet365 prices. Its review rates it on the criteria we can check directly.
How often are the tables updated?
Odds are captured every day and the tables are refreshed weekly from a rolling 28-day window. The data stamp at the end of the page shows the current number of fixtures and days of odds.
Do margins change before kick-off?
Yes. Prices move with team news and the weight of money, and margins can tighten or loosen as a result. We use the last price before kick-off for every fixture.