How much the margin changes between leagues

A single bookmaker's margin changes enormously from one league to another: in a reading taken on 14 September 2026, Betsson holds back 5.70% on the full-time result in the Premier League and 10.59% in Ligue 1. Same operator, same market, same instant, almost double.

The number that gives all the others their scale, though, is a third one: across its whole football listing — 565 matches not yet started — Betsson's median is 9.88%. Which means the leagues everyone talks about cost roughly half the average listing, and the choice of competition weighs more than the choice of operator.

The measurement

Median margin on the 1X2 full-time result, read on 14 September 2026 at 16:19 Italian time, in a single pass over the listing. In brackets, the matches each median is calculated on: the seven competitions in the table account for 82 matches, the rest of the listing for the other 483.

The three columns don't share a base, and that needs saying: Betsson prices all 565 matches, Betflag 428, Netwin 385. Where a column covers fewer matches we haven't discarded data — that operator simply doesn't price that competition. A book enters the count only if it publishes all three outcomes: with two odds out of three the margin can't be calculated.

Four things this table says

First: the major leagues cost far less than the listing as a whole. On Betsson, the Premier League, Bundesliga, LaLiga, Serie A and the Europa League sit between 5.70% and 6.59%, against 9.88% for the entire listing. The listing holds hundreds of matches from minor competitions, and that is where the margin widens.

Second: the width of that spread is an operator's choice, not a property of the league. Betsson runs from 5.70% to 10.59%, close to doubling; Netwin sits between 4.03% and 6.02%; Betflag between 6.44% and 7.71%. On the same matches, three books behave in three different ways.

Third, and the most useful in practice: between Betsson and Betflag the order flips. In the Premier League Betsson is a point and a half cheaper than Betflag; in Serie A, Ligue 1 and Serie B it is Betflag that is cheaper than Betsson, in Ligue 1 by almost three points. Asking «which bookmaker has the lowest margin» is the wrong question: the answer changes with the competition.

Fourth: Netwin is the cheapest in all seven competitions, without exception — but across the whole listing its median is 8.20%, not far from the other two. Its advantage, in other words, is concentrated precisely on the big leagues, and thins out elsewhere.

Where the number doesn't hold, and we say so

The Serie B row rests on three matches. Three isn't enough for a median to be a measurement: that 10.13% is an indication, not a figure, and we write it rather than let it look as solid as the rest. The same applies in part to Ligue 1, which rests on eight.

And a temptation to avoid: it is convenient to explain everything with liquidity — the more money flows through a market, the tighter the prices. It is a reasonable hypothesis and we haven't measured it. Against it stands a fact visible in the table itself: Ligue 1 is one of Europe's five major leagues and sits above 10% on Betsson, while the Bundesliga sits at 6.44%. Whatever explains that gap, it isn't only how many people watch the league.

What it means in practice

The margin doesn't say who will win: it says what it costs to play that market with that operator. Between Netwin's 4.03% in Serie A and Betsson's 10.59% in Ligue 1 there are more than six and a half points, and that difference is paid on every bet, whatever the match does.

It is also why an overall bookmaker ranking says very little. An operator that is cheaper on the English league can be the dearest on the French one: the useful question is always «on this competition, and on this market, who holds back least today».

How we calculated it

For each match and each operator we take the three full-time-result odds, turn them into implied probabilities (1 divided by the odd), add them up and subtract 1. What's left is that operator's margin on that match; for each competition we then take the median.

The median rather than the mean, because a handful of matches with very long odds would move the mean without saying anything about the ordinary listing. And matches in play stay out — live, the feeds are captured at different instants, and the comparison would measure the lag between them rather than the difference between prices: of the listing's 573 matches, 8 were in play and the base is 565.