What Is a Sportsbook?

A sportsbook is a specialized online gambling service that offers a variety of different sports and events to bet on. Typically, it also features a full horse racing service and a wide range of casino games such as slots and table games. A good sportsbook will have high-quality data and a strong partnership with reputable leagues to provide the most premium betting experience possible for players.

One of the biggest differences between market making and retail sportsbooks is that the retail book never knows what their competitors are up to on a given event. That doesn’t mean that they have no inside information at all–it just means that the knowledge they do have isn’t public, and it doesn’t go to the sportsbook’s customers. The best way to get this type of information is to make the markets yourself, but that is very hard to do in the United States, where only Nevada and Oregon were legally allowed to operate sportsbooks before a Supreme Court decision in 2018.

One thing that all bookmakers share is that they have certain biases that they have to work into their lines in order to be profitable. For example, some teams perform better at home than they do on the road. This is factored into the point spread and moneyline odds for each game, so that bettors can see what they are up against when making their selections. Additionally, bettors tend to favor favorites over underdogs, and that is a bias that the sportsbooks have to account for when pricing their odds.