Sportsbooks provide customers with a variety of betting options. Some offer different types of bets, including straight bets, moneylines and Over/Under totals. They also allow bettors to construct parlays, combining multiple event or outcome selections in one wager. Parlays can result in large payoffs if all of the selections are correct.
Regardless of the type of bets, most sportsbooks make money by charging a commission, known as the vig or juice. This is typically 10% but can vary. The sportsbook then uses this money to pay bettors who win their wagers. In theory, sportsbooks set odds that attract a balanced amount of betting on both sides of an event, guaranteeing them a profit even if they lose a significant number of bets. In reality, the flow of bets is rarely perfectly balanced, so sportsbooks must manage their risks in a variety of ways, from adjusting the odds to offsetting bets to limiting individual patrons directly.
As legal sports betting continues to grow, leagues and sportsbooks work to educate fans and develop tools meant to prevent addiction. Many of these are designed to help sportsbooks identify problem play, with some operators now tying responsible gambling more closely to customer relationship management (CRM). For example, FanDuel began adjusting push notifications and marketing messages for a small sample of customers who have shown early indications of troubled behavior. This could include removing promotional offers and replacing them with links to responsible gambling content, such as reminders about self-imposed limits or budgeting tools.