Hold & results · 3 min read
Your book won $6,000. How much did you actually keep?
Calculate hold, subtract costs, and combine two weeks correctly without letting the headline percentage hide the dollars.
Start with settled wagers
Say your book settles $100,000 in stakes and earns $6,000 after paying winners. Realized hold on that group is $6,000 ÷ $100,000 = 6%. These are hypothetical figures.
That answers how much of the settled handle the book won. It does not answer how much cash you collected or how much remained after operating costs. Keep open wagers out of this calculation until their outcomes are settled.
Move from wagering win to the weekly result
If that week also has $800 in software charges and $1,200 in other operating costs, the $6,000 wagering win leaves $4,000 before any remaining expenses. Record the actual expenses your operation incurs.
Review collections separately. A customer balance owed to you is not cash already received. Keep unpaid balances visible alongside the wagering result so a profitable report does not hide a cash shortage.
Combine dollars before percentages
Now suppose the next week settles $50,000 in stakes and loses $2,000. That week’s hold is −4%. Across both weeks, the book has $150,000 in settled handle and $4,000 in wagering win: combined hold is about 2.67%.
Averaging 6% and −4% gives 1%, which is wrong for the combined period because the two weeks took different amounts of action. Add the wagering win and handle first, then divide.
Make the weekly review useful
Keep settled handle, wagering win, operating costs and collections beside one another. Then review the wagers that drove the result: a few large payouts, a middle or a player with an unpaid balance may deserve more attention than the percentage alone.
HeadCount’s wager history and weekly win/loss reports can support that review. Ask for a demo of the records you need, and keep your expense and collection records alongside them.