Glossary

CS2 betting terms, defined without filler.

If you read an article on this site and hit a word you do not recognize, it is here. We linked the first mention of each term to this page.

Vig (or juice): The house edge baked into the price. A line of -110/-110 has about 4.55 percent vig. You need to pick above 52.4 percent to break even at those prices.
Hold: The theoretical profit an operator keeps across all outcomes. Low hold means sharper lines. Sharp markets run around 2 percent on majors, recreational markets closer to 7 percent.
Closing line value (CLV): The difference between your bet price and the closing line. Positive CLV over many bets predicts long-term profit better than win rate does.
Map veto: The sequence of picks and bans that decides which maps get played. Teams with strong veto coaches can swing 60/40 into 50/50 before a shot is fired.
BO3 and BO5: Best-of-three and best-of-five. Playoffs and grand finals usually go BO5. Group stages default to BO3. Single-map BO1s are noisy and best avoided for building a model.
Pistol round: Round 1 and round 13 (after the half). Limited economy. Upsets here swing the full half. Pistol markets tend to be softer than map winner markets.
ADR: Average damage per round. Useful context, but ADR inflation happens on eco rounds. Use it alongside rating 2.0 rather than alone.
Rating 2.0: HLTV composite stat. Good shorthand for form, but it rewards K/D heavier than impact. T-side entries rarely top the rating chart even when they win games.
Stand-in: A substitute player filling in temporarily. Rosters running stand-ins underperform expectation by roughly 3 to 5 percent in the first two weeks.
Anti-strat: Prep aimed at a specific opponent. Shows up most at majors when teams have a week of prep. Less of a factor in weekly leagues.
Force round: A round where one team spends most of their saved money despite being in eco. Often happens after losing pistol. The market usually misprices these.
Eco round: A round where a team saves money for the next one. Losing an eco is fine. Losing an eco by more than 3 rounds on economy is not.
Map pool: The 7 active duty maps. As of 2026: Mirage, Inferno, Nuke, Anubis, Ancient, Vertigo, Train. The pool rotates every 6 to 12 months.
T-side and CT-side: Terrorist and counter-terrorist halves. Map balance is never 50/50. Inferno historically favors CT. Ancient swings T-sided. Track current meta, not old tournaments.
Parlay: A bet combining multiple legs. Breaks even at roughly 4 percent CLV per leg, which is rare. Straight bets remain the higher-EV choice for almost everyone.
Kelly criterion: A staking formula based on your edge. Full Kelly maximizes growth but also maximizes volatility. Most bettors should use quarter Kelly or flat staking instead.
Sharps and squares: Sharps bet based on CLV and model output. Squares bet on vibes and home teams. Not a moral distinction. Sharps just keep better records.