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Money, Accounting & Payout Terms

Handle

Handle refers to the total amount of money wagered on a specific game, market, or across an entire sportsbook over a given period.

SportsBettingSite.org glossaryUpdated Sep 20263 min read
Handle sports betting glossary illustration

What Handle means

Handle refers to the total amount of money wagered on a specific game, market, or across an entire sportsbook over a given period. It's a figure commonly referenced in sports betting news and industry coverage - "the Super Bowl generates the highest handle of any single sporting event annually" is a typical usage - and it's distinct from hold or profit, since handle measures total volume bet, not what the sportsbook actually kept.

Key points

  • Handle refers to the total amount of money wagered on a specific game, market, or across an entire sportsbook over a given period.
  • It's a figure commonly referenced in sports betting news and industry coverage - "the Super Bowl generates the highest handle of any single sporting event annually" is a typical usage - and it's distinct from hold or profit, since handle measures total volume bet, not what the sportsbook actually kept.

Example and context

In practice

It's a figure commonly referenced in sports betting news and industry coverage - "the Super Bowl generates the highest handle of any single sporting event annually" is a typical usage - and it's distinct from hold or profit, since handle measures total volume bet, not what the sportsbook actually kept.

Related glossary terms

These terms sit in the same part of the betting vocabulary and are useful to read next.

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