Hedging is betting on both sides of an event to ensure you make a profit, regardless of the outcome.

Hedging Bets for Profit The principle of placing bets on various outcomes to produce a result that pays out to the bettor regardless of whether the original bet wins or loses. This is what all bettors aspire to find when employing their own betting strategy. Hedging a bet is only possible as we see a shift between opening and closing odds. To hedge a bet synonyms, To hedge a bet pronunciation, To hedge a bet translation, English dictionary definition of To hedge a bet. To bet upon both sides; that is, after having bet on one side, to bet also on the other, thus guarding against loss. The Hedging Technique: A Betting Strategy for Risk Management. It’s likely that you’ve used the phrase “hedging your bets” at some point in your life. At the very least you’ve surely heard the phrase before, or some version of it. This is a widely used phrase, and not just in the context of sports betting. Hedging Calculator If you've had a bet and it's shortened in price, use this calculator to see how you can guarantee yourself a profit using the betting exchanges - win or lose. Simply fill in the boxes with your back price, stake and lay price then click the recalculate button to see how much you should lay (shown in red) at the specified.

Say you took a futures bet and picked the Andy Murray to win the Australian Open at a price of 9.00 at the start of the tournament. You put down 100 on Murray, which turned out to be a smart bet! Murray is in the final against Djokovic with the following prices:

Djokovic – 1.40
Murray – 3.00

If Murray wins, you are golden! You come out ahead 800! However, Murray is still a steep underdog, so you may prefer to hedge your bet and guarantee a profit.

To hedge your bet, you place a bet on Djokovic which will cover your stake that you made on Murray at the start of the open. Say you bet 300 on Djokovic, so in total you are out 400:

300 on Djokovic
100 on Murray

If Murray wins you get 900, less the 400 you bet for a profit of 500

If Djokovic wins you get 420, less the 400 you risked for a guaranteed profit of 20

As you can see, you still win big if Murray pulls off the upset, but you are covered in case he doesn’t!

What Is Hedging A Bet

To see how to calculate how much you should bet to win the maximum amount no matter what on a hedge, check out our hedging formulas or, skip the math and use our simple hedge calculator.

Should I Hedge My Bets?

What Is Hedging A Bet Meaning

It depends. Statistically, no, you should not. Each time you place a bet you pay the oddsmaker’s margin, cutting into your profits every time you hedge. However, if you stand to make a great profit and are risk averse, hedge away!