What does the HoldCrunch Percentage tell me and how do I use it?

The HoldCrunch Percentage indicates whether a Sportsbook is competing on price on the lines and markets where customers put their money. We use a negative percentage number because HoldCrunch is an expression of a Sportsbook’s distance from the leader

We evaluate price as ‘distance from the leader’ because this is what matters to customers. Differences on price are what provide incentives and choice, not any one particular price. Some examples:

If Sportsbook A is ‘-5% HoldCrunch’, a HoldCrunch Percentage close to zero, it will either be the leader or competing with the leader on price
A ‘-25%’ Sportsbook is further away from the leader(s) and a ‘-100%’ book is offering the worst prices pre-game and in-game for all the sports and markets we cover [cover is a link to the coverage table on the pricing page 3 slide]
If a Sportsbook is ‘-0%’ it is offering the best prices in all situations
HoldCrunch Percentages can be viewed in multiple dimensions; within particular sports, pre-game or in-game, by market types
We also provide examples of price and overround data behind the percentage numbers

The HoldCrunch Percentage also does much more than indicate distance to the leader on price. There are certain gaps in price between Sportsbooks that are likely to result in handle share gains or losses and these are reflected in the HoldCrunch Percentage

A HoldCrunch lead of 20% or more, particularly over a key competitor [link to ‘How is the HoldCrunch Percentage calculated’ platform page 8 slide] is an indicator of handle share gains

Here’s an example of this ‘20% gap’ from the 2023 baseball season* [link to insights for the full graphs]

April: DraftKings began the 2023 MLB season competing strongly on price with a HoldCrunch Percentage of -1.35% while FanDuel had a HoldCrunch of -25.12%. DraftKings’ HoldCrunch Percentage was also much closer to zero than other Sportsbooks

Note 1: A percentage so close to zero meant DraftKings was leading on price in almost every situation, pre-game and in-game
Note 2: The large 23.77% difference between DraftKings and FanDuel’s HoldCrunch Percentages indicated significant price gaps between the two books and we were able to see where those were; DraftKings’ biggest leads were pre-game and in-game spreads and in-game moneyline markets

May and June: The 20%+ HoldCrunch gap continued into May and June and DraftKings saw handle share rise to 47.4% compared to its 33% at the start of the season while FanDuel’s share fell, at one point to as low as 9.9%

July and August: DraftKings stopped competing so aggressively on price, at first coming into line with FanDuel’s in-game moneyline prices in July, then their pre-game and in-game spread prices in August. Here’s the HoldCrunch data and what happened to handle share:

DraftKings’ HoldCrunch in August was -8.53%, FanDuel’s -6.11%, hardly a gap at all
The handle share trend reversed as customers moved back to FanDuel
DraftKings’ handle share at the end of August was 35.4% and FanDuel’s 32.5%, almost back to where it was at the start of the season

September and October: Both books remained at similar price/HoldCrunch levels and handle share changes were minor as a result

*In this illustration we’re using straight bet data from Illinois because the granularity of that state’s reporting enables us to more closely align the price data with the equivalent handle data. The competitive dynamics described would have applied to other states. They also affect parlay margins [parlay margins is link to platform page 13]

The HoldCrunch Percentage does more than 1) show competitiveness on price and 2) indicate future handle share movements. It has a third function; it can be used to identify a Sportsbook’s underlying margin performance

In the 2023 MLB season example above, a key question would be ‘what happened to DraftKings’ margins given it competed so aggressively on price for much of the season?’ The answer is they were reasonably robust. Here’s our analysis

Reported hold/GGR for straight bets* in the 2023 MLB season was 3.62% for DraftKings, 5.51% for FanDuel
But reported hold does not take account of price differences. We know FanDuel’s prices were less competitive as an average over the season so how much of FanDuel’s 5.51% margin came from offering higher prices? We don’t want to over-praise FanDuel for higher margins if going beyond a certain distance from DraftKings on price resulted in handle share losses
Put another way, what we’re trying to establish is like for like core margin performance just as we look at NGR rather than GGR when promo spend data is available. We don’t ignore promo spend and say ‘GGR is true profitability’. We shouldn’t ignore price either; less competitive prices can make a big difference to margin, as well as handle share
So how do we factor price into our margin calculations and establish core margin performance? We use this formula: ‘Reported hold minus the HoldCrunch Percentage’. This calculation removes any part of the hold margin that comes from one book being worse on price
This ‘core margin performance after taking price into account’ for DraftKings was 3.42% and for FanDuel it was 4.53% for the season. These numbers were both higher than BetMGM’s 2.91%, PointsBet’s 1.76% and Caesars’ 2.39% when using the same measure; reported hold minus the HoldCrunch Percentage
DraftKings’ margin was therefore reasonably strong despite them being aggressive on price for much of the season
We call this ‘margin after deducting price’ vHold [link to platform page 5], value+hold crunched together
The full table of HoldCrunch and vHold numbers for DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM, PointsBet and Caesars for MLB, NFL, NBA and college sports is available to subscribers
How should you use these insights? Put simply, look for low HoldCrunch and high vHold when comparing Sportsbooks. Two simple numbers that measure the core operational performance of a Sportsbook

If promo spend data is available, then it too can be deducted from vHold to calculate ‘margin after price and promotions’ [margin after price and promos is a link to platform page 5]. This is yet another level of accuracy in establishing core margin performance. We call this vNGR [link to platform page 5], value+net margin crunched together

A note on ‘achieving >10% market share’

The implication of our data is clear for Sportsbooks wanting to achieve >10% market share. A key part of their strategy should be to equal or beat DraftKings and FanDuel on price/HoldCrunch and vHold while keeping to a similar level of promo spend. Only then will they have the operational core of a leading Sportsbook