As much as we may not want to admit it, we can’t predict the future when it comes to sports betting. Even the people who can successfully beat the sportsbook still lose plenty. The best sports bettors in the world win somewhere between 55-60% of their bets, and you can be on the right side of a wager and lose consistently.
That said, there are ways to mitigate some of the potential losses associated with sports betting. One of the biggest is hedging.
Essentially, hedging your bets is sort of like buying insurance. It provides a bit of safety when combined with your initial wager, and it is often used to guarantee a profit regardless of the outcome. There are certain situations where hedging your bet is more powerful than others.
Let’s dive into everything you need to know about hedging, when to utilize it, and the best ways to do so.
What is Hedging in Sports Betting?
Hedging your bet only occurs after you have already locked in a previous wager. Let’s look back at Super Bowl LVII as an example. If you were interested in grabbing the Eagles, you could’ve got them as roughly two-point underdogs when the line first came out. However, the line moved pretty drastically in the Eagles’ favor after that, and they got as high as 2.5-point favorites before kickoff.
After locking in your initial wager on the Eagles, perhaps you decided that you weren’t very comfortable with it. Maybe you remembered how good Patrick Mahomes was at football. Maybe you decided you didn’t want to bet against Andy Reid. Maybe your psychic told you that the Chiefs would win the game.
If you wanted to change your position on the game, you could consider hedging your bet with the Chiefs.
In that scenario, hedging with the Chiefs would involve placing a wager on them as small underdogs. Now you have a ticket on both the Chiefs and Eagles as small underdogs, so regardless of who wins the game, you’re going to win at least one of those tickets. It also opens up a very small window where you can potentially win both bets (called a middle).
If you made both bets for the same amount, the only loss you would incur would be the vig. If both bets were listed at -110, the worst-case scenario would be a loss of 0.1 units. You would be guaranteed to win one of those bets – locking in a win of +1.0 units – while your loss would be for -1.1.
Of course, this is just one example of hedging, and it’s not a particularly good one. While it does limit your downside to -0.1 units, there also isn’t much upside. There are plenty of better ways to use hedging that can guarantee you lock in a significant profit.
Feb 12, 2023; Glendale, Arizona, US; Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes (15) celebrates with tight end Travis Kelce (87) after winning Super Bowl LVII against the Philadelphia Eagles at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports
Why Should You Hedge Your Bets?
It’s all about the insurance, baby. As a sports bettor, protecting your bankroll is arguably your most important mission. Without your bankroll, your ability to generate new funds is diminished.
Think of it this way. Most of us have 9-5 jobs, which provide us with a steady paycheck. That gives you the ability to buy food, pay for your housing, and handle all of your other expenses during the month. Eventually, your job rewards you with a new paycheck, which keeps the cycle going.
That is not the case in sports betting. If your bankroll diminishes, the only way to build it back up is by putting more money in. That should be your No. 1 enemy in sports betting.
Hedging your bets allows you to continue nurturing and growing your bankroll responsibly. When you have the opportunity to lock in a guaranteed profit, you should strongly consider taking advantage.
As the old saying goes, you can’t go broke taking a profit.
Hedging your bet can also provide you with a way to react to breaking news. In sports like the NBA and NFL, one player can be worth plenty of points towards the spread. If a star basketball player or quarterback is ruled out after you have already placed a wager, hedging allows you to adjust for this new information.
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How to Hedge Your Bets
The most straightforward way to hedge your bet involves placing a wager on the opposite side of your original bet. You can do this via a point spread bet in the NFL or NBA, or with a moneyline wager in all sports. The best way to do this is when it allows you to lock in a guaranteed profit or open up a significant “middle” opportunity.
The most logical time to hedge your bets is during the game. In-play betting has opened up tons of hedging opportunities for sports bettors who are paying attention to take advantage of.
Let’s say you bet a 7.5-point underdog during the NFL regular season, and they take a seven-point lead into halftime. That gives you a 14.5-point lead on the spread. There’s no guarantee that you’re going to win your initial wager, but overall, you’re in pretty good shape.
By hedging, you can look to lock in a guaranteed profit without sacrificing all of your upside. Let’s say the team that was initially favored is now listed as a 2.5-point underdog on the live line. If you grab them at that number, you now have two separate bet tickets: Your initial +7.5 on Team A and your new +2.5 on Team B.
That opens up three different outcomes for the remainder of the game. Let’s assume that both bets were for the same amount at the standard -110, although often live betting will come with slightly more vig.
Scenario 1: Team A wins by three points or more
In this case, you would win your initial wager, but you would lose the bet you placed as a hedge. In that scenario, you would lose only the vig on your second wager.
This is probably the worst-case scenario. Essentially, you turned what was a winning pre-game bet into a very small loss.
Scenario 2: Team B wins by eight points or more
In this case, your hedge allowed you to salvage your first bet. Your pregame wager is a loser, but the second bet came through to win. Once again, you would be looking at a loss of 0.1 unit.
Scenario 3: Team A wins by less than three points or Team B wins by less than eight
This is when you really see the power of hedging. Now you’re not only winning your original wager, but you’re also winning the second wager that you placed at halftime. You’ve essentially taken your pregame bet, sprinkled some fairy dust on it, and turned it into a two-unit payout.
In-game hedging isn’t always the correct answer, but it can be a great sports betting strategy to take advantage of an edge that you get early in games. If your pre-game side gets off to a good start, it can mitigate your downside without severely hindering your upside.
You can also hedge with a pre-game wager, but that is much more difficult to execute. You typically only want to consider that when there has been an injury or something else that has caused the line to move significantly. The goal in that scenario is to open up as large of a middle opportunity as possible before the game even starts.
One good example of this was the second matchup between the Cowboys and Eagles last year. There were some whispers circulating that Jalen Hurts would not play in that game, and you could get the Cowboys as 2.5-point favorites early in the week. After the whispers started to get louder, the Cowboys shot all the way up to -7.0.
That type of occurrence is a great opportunity to consider a middle. Not only are you getting 4.5 points of spread value, but you’re also getting three key numbers: 3.0, 4.0, and 7.0. If you took the Cowboys at -2.5 and the Eagles at +7.0, you would win both wagers if the Cowboys won by three or four points, while pushing with the Eagles if they won by seven. The Cowboys ultimately won that game by four, and those who took advantage of the middle opportunity were rewarded handsomely.
That isn’t always going to happen, but the important thing to remember is that your downside in that situation is minimal. Your worst-case scenario when hedging properly is that you’re going to win one bet and lose the other. You could potentially win both, but you should never hedge in a way that you can lose both. If you’re opening up a situation where you can lose both wagers – even if it’s just one very specific scenario – you’re not hedging correctly.
Jan 16, 2023; Tampa, Florida, USA; Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott (4) runs with the ball against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the second quarter during a wild card game at Raymond James Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Nathan Ray Seebeck-USA TODAY Sports
Ways to Hedge Your Bets
The most common ways to hedge are those described above: a straight wager on the opposite side of your initial bet with a spread or moneyline bet. However, those are not the only times to consider hedging.
In fact, some of the best times to hedge are on long-shot wagers. Hedging can be a great way to ensure a profit on a parlay or a futures bet.
Let’s look at a few different examples. Say you locked in a five-leg parlay at +2200, and your first four legs are all in the door. You’re now left with one team needing to win to secure a big payday.
Hedging in these scenarios can be a bit more complicated, but it can lock in a significant profit.
Let’s say your final team is listed at exactly +100 on the moneyline in their individual contest. You can then lock in a bet on the other team at -120 to guarantee a big win. You have 22 units of profit to potentially play with, so how much you want to wager on the other side is entirely up to you. You can wager just enough to potentially cover your parlay bet if it loses, you can look to hedge it so that you’re going to win the same amount in either scenario, or you can do anything in between.
Hedge Calculators can be a really powerful tool in that scenario.
In this specific example, if you were looking to hedge so that you’d win the same amount in either scenario, you would bet approximately 12.5 units on the other side. That’s going to guarantee that, regardless of who wins, you will lock in a profit of approximately 9.5 units.
Obviously, the betting odds in those scenarios are going to be vital to consider when pricing your hedges, which is why the hedging calculator is necessary. Sometimes the math is pretty straightforward, but other times, it’s good to get some help.
It works very similarly in futures betting. For example, the Eagles were available at +2500 to win the Super Bowl before the start of the 2022-23 NFL season. If you were fortunate enough to lock them in at that number, you could guarantee a win just by them reaching the big game.
In that scenario, you would have looked to lock in a moneyline wager on the Chiefs. Again, how much you choose to hedge in that scenario is a personal choice. It depends on your confidence in your initial wager and your overall risk tolerance.
You also didn’t necessarily need to wait until the Super Bowl to hedge your Eagles ticket. When they got to the NFC Championship game, you could’ve also looked to hedge with the 49ers' moneyline. You wouldn’t want to try a full even split in that scenario, since the Eagles would still need to win the Super Bowl if they got past the 49ers, but you could’ve bet enough on San Francisco to cover the cost of your initial wager. In that instance, you would be dropping your exposure on the Eagles to +2400 to win the Super Bowl, while removing the downside of losing your initial bet should they fail to get there.
That is why longshots tend to be the best option in futures hedging. Since the Eagles were +2500, you had plenty of opportunities to hedge along the way. If you got them later in the season at +500, you didn’t have nearly the same flexibility.
Jan 29, 2023; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Deebo Samuel (19) looks for room to run against the Philadelphia Eagles during the first quarter in the NFC Championship game at Lincoln Financial Field. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports
Is There a Difference Between Hedge Betting and Arbitrage Betting?
Hedge betting and arbitrage betting are like second cousins: they’re technically related, but they don’t have all that much in common. Both strategies are worth knowing as a sports bettor, but they’re employed in vastly different ways.
With hedging, you’re looking to provide insurance and mitigate risk on a previous bet. With arbitrage betting, you are looking to make two wagers at the same time to guarantee a profit. This is possible when different sportsbooks are offering different lines on the same event.
To give an example, let’s say that Sportsbook A and Sportsbook B both have Kevin Durant’s scoring prop set at 28.5 points. However, Sportsbook A has the over at +105, while Sportsbook B has the under at +105. In that case, you could bet both of those numbers to guarantee a small win. That’s arbitrage betting to a tee.
Essentially, in arbitrage betting, you do not care about the individual result. You are simply looking for opportunities across the different sportsbooks to lock in small profits at different numbers.
Downsides of Hedging
The biggest downside of hedging is that you are going to limit your potential profit on good wagers. Let’s go back to the Eagles’ example. If you got them at +2500 to win the Super Bowl, you made a fantastic bet. However, if you over-hedge your wager, you’re going to lose a ton of value.
Let’s say you put $100 on the Eagles in that scenario. If you bet $500 on the Giants moneyline and $500 on the 49ers moneyline in their first two playoff matchups, your bet is now down to +1500 by the time the Eagles make it to the Super Bowl. Yes, you did create a scenario where you would have still made a profit if the Eagles lost in either of those contests, but it came at a pretty significant cost.
The same can be said for in-game hedging. If you’re not opening up a significant middle window – preferably, one that covers multiple key numbers – you’re likely giving away value in the long run. Remember, you liked the side that you bet before the game for a reason. Unless you see a scenario where you’re getting good value or something like an injury changes things, you shouldn’t be rushing to give back all the good work that your preferred team did to start the game.
Additionally, hedging could get your bets limited if you’re only using one sportsbook. If they see that you are consistently looking to middle your wagers, they could choose to limit how much you’re allowed to bet on games. I personally prefer to hedge at a different sportsbook than the one where I made my initial wager whenever possible. Even if you’re not getting as good of a price tag, it’s often the correct decision long-term. This is another reason why having multiple betting sites is so important.
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Summary
Being able to properly hedge bets is a vital strategy for a profitable sports bettor. When done properly, it’s going to lock in a good result for you, or at a very minimum, it’s going to limit your downside. When you’re working with a limited bankroll, protecting what you have is just as important as growing it. A good hedge calculator can help you in these situations, and how much you decide to hedge is ultimately a personal preference.
However, hedging can also be done improperly. If you’re hedging to a point where you’re taking away most of your value or opening up a reverse middle situation where you can lose multiple wagers, you should not be hedging.
Like most things in sports betting, hedging is more art than science. The more advantageous situations you put yourself in, the easier it is to navigate hedging properly.
