What books would have taken
The Shadow Line is a counterfactual estimate. The hold rates come from published state reports. The player totals come from graded calls. Nothing here is a savings account.
Updated September 11, 2026
Published state reports show sportsbooks keep a share of every dollar wagered. Nevada held about 7.1 percent of sports handle in May 2026. New Jersey held about 11.4 percent in November 2025. Ledger's Shadow Line is the counterfactual: what that take would have been on your graded calls, in dollars, understated on purpose. Nothing was charged.
The public fact
A sportsbook’s product is, in part, the gap between what betting feels like and what it costs. Hold is the share of handle the book keeps. Every regulated state publishes handle and revenue. The ratio is the hold. Ledger does not invent a national average. It cites two mature public series already used on how sportsbooks make money.
Sources: Nevada Gaming Control Board monthly revenue reports; New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement monthly gross revenue reports. Figures are the reports’ published handle and revenue, rounded. We do not invent a third state or a live odds feed.
How Ledger applies those rates
The landing-page calculator uses three flat estimates drawn from that published range and from parlay arithmetic: 8 percent for straight bets, 14 percent for a mixed slip, and 20 percent for parlay-heavy play. They are estimates. The calculator labels the rate it applies. A player’s own Shadow Line is not those percentages applied to a guess. It is added up from stored, graded calls: losing Float translated into dollars at the stakes the player actually chose. Public record and the collective counter leave parlays and simulated losses out, so that number can sit lower than the running tally on the desk.
What this is not
It is not a verified audit of a person. It is not a profit-and-loss of winning calls. It is not financial advice. It answers one narrow question: what would a book have kept on these losing, reality-graded calls. Nothing was taken. That sentence is the whole feature.