Hedging sports bets: What is Hedging a Bet in Online Singapore & Malaysia Casino

Hedges in sports betting is a useful strategy, although betting on all sports isn’t the same. Futures wagers use money lines and are long-term bets. People may use a point spread, while many of them involve money lines. But before we begin with this, let us first understand what is hedging bets.

A hedge is a technique to reduce risk and lock the winnings for a specified bet. Hedges in sports betting, it simply means betting the opposite side of your original wager to either try to even out the bet or reduce the downside exposure of the original wager.

What is Hedging Bets?

In betting, hedging a bet is a strategy where a bettor places a second wager against the original bet when they don’t know which wager outcome will be a win.

Even if a bettor thinks they can win, they can decide to hedge a bet just to play safe and assure they walk away as a winner. The win amount won’t be as large. However, the additional wager can create some kind of insurance if the original wager loses.

A bettor can hedge against any type of wagers. This strategy lets the bettor walk away as a winner or less of a loser. But it’s important to remember to place a second bet on a hedge; you’ll need to pay the sportsbooks again and reduce your potential profit ceiling.

How to Hedge a Bet Online Singapore & Malaysia Casino?

Hedging a bet isn’t that hard. However, the concept isn’t at the priority of everyone’s mind while placing a wager. Hedging a bet is like protecting some kind of profit that was — or still may be — possible from an original wager.

You can hedge a bet by placing a second wager against the original one that will guarantee the bettor sees some profit at the end of the event.

A bettor might hedge a future bet or individual games.

Here’s an example of how to hedge bets for futures:

Original wager: a bet of $100 futures on the New York Jets (bets win the Super Bowl at 60-1).

Potential win: $6,000 + original $100 wager.

Hedge: $1,000 wager over Los Angeles Rams (win the Super Bowl at 2-1) once they face the Jets in the Big Game.

Best result: Jets wins the Super Bowl, and the bettor wins $6,000. The $1,000 hedge safety bets on the Rams is a loss. The total win is $5,000 instead of $6,000.

Hedge win result: Rams win, and the bettor earns $2,000. After all, the $1,000 hedge minus $100 original wager gives out the final win of $900.

Worst result: No hedge, and Rams win. The potential $6,000 win and the $100 wager are entirely lost.

This example tells that a hedge on a futures bet is a profitable wager. The hedge protects the bettor from losing all the potential profit from the wager.

Hedging a bet simply means the original bet isn’t as profitable as it could be. However, winning something is still better than losing it all. That’s the main purpose of hedging a wager.

This example also tells that everything risked ($6,000 potential win with the original $100 wager) is lost without hedging.

Some bettors don’t even mind losing the $100 wager with potential profit. While there are other kinds of bettors that prefer to walk away with some profit after waiting an entire season.

When to Hedge Your Bets in online Singapore & Malaysia Casino

Now that we know what is hedging bets, let’s talk about when to hedge the bets. This is a complicated question, as the answer relies on the situation, the money you’ve risked, and how that win could affect your life, along with your willingness to take risks.
Also, do you care about making the correct mathematical decision?

Let’s talk about that last part.

When making a bet — whether on a game, a future, or a hedge, always ask yourself if you believe or not the outcome you’re predicting has a better probability of happening than the odds.

For instance, to justify a -110 bet, you should think that your bet has a 52.4% chance of winning. Whereas, for a +1,000 bet, you must think it has at least a 9.1% probability.

So in this Kansas example, the mathematically correct decision would depend on if you thought there was at least a 71.4% chance (this is the implied probability from -250) that the next team would win the championship.

Other Times for Hedging Sports Bets

Previously, hedging was only used on futures bets. But the trends in sports betting have been changing rapidly, and so is the way to use this strategy.

In-Play, wagering makes it easy to hedge against the existing pre-game wager. Before, bettors had to wait till half of the game to place a halftime wager.

Also, Parlay betting continues to be more popular every year. Bettors now use the hedging strategy to catch a win. A bettor can place a hedge on a multi-leg parlay’s final game to ensure some positive result from a wager.

Based on the original wager amount, a bettor can decide to hedge a little so he can mitigate a loss. Losing is never good, but losing less is better than losing everything.

Hedging a bet is useful for any sports bettor. However, gambling in sports is not always about winning or losing a wager. There are numerous strategies where a bettor can guarantee a profit on certain wagers.

Types of Hedge Betting Explained : Online Singapore & Malaysia Casino

Before diving into the strategy of how to hedge a bet, let’s first discuss the types of hedge bets you can place, and why you might want to place them.

Hedging for guaranteed profits –

What is hedging bets if not for profit? Such a type of hedge bet is placed when your initial bet’s odds have increased substantially in your favor, but you still have a gut feeling the initial bet could lose. When such a scenario arises, the odds belonging to the opposite side of your initial bet swing a lot higher in your favor. This lets you to risk less money on your hedge bet and get a higher payout than you wager.

Usually, the hedge bet amount is to win more money than the original bet amount. This lets you cover your original wagered amount of money at a bare minimum. The hedge bet won’t cost you as much at this point. This is because the odds are much worse now compared to when the event started.

With this method, you walk away a “winner” regardless of which outcome wins.

Remember: you don’t need to place a hedge bet. You can let your original bet ride if you are sure about the outcome, especially when an event starts and runs in your favor.

Hedging a bet due to changes in an event –

Has a star player been ruled out? Has the weather forecast for an outdoor game drastically changed late in the week? Whichever the reason may be, if there are enough factors that can change your outlook on an event outcome, it can be worth placing a hedge on your original bet. For example, you could either bet the other side for greater money – erasing the original bet – or you could place your hedge bet as similar to the original bet as possible, to reduce losses and break even overall.

What is hedging bets in play/live in-game –

Such a hedge bet comes handy with the guaranteed profit hedge bet.
With the progress of events in real-time, the probability of the two possible outcomes changes.

In case the odds of winning an initial bet become significantly better, placing a bet on the opposite side during the event will guarantee profits. One more situation to place an in-game hedge bet is when the superstar on the team of your original bet gets hurt in the middle of the game. The timing of injury affects the outcome of the game, and most probably you would not have wagered on that team initially if you knew their star player would be out.

This strategy lets you either lock in profits or mitigate losses right in the middle of a game.

Note: Always shop for the most favorable odds. If an event is at halftime of a football game – the odds can be sometimes different for the 2nd half-lines compared to the live game lines, however, these are essentially the same bet.

Hedging to mitigate potential losses –

As with the in-game bet, sometimes hedge betting is great to mitigate your potential losses when the probability of the original wager cashing is less likely to happen than when the event started. Rather than letting it ride to a probable loss, you can bet on the other side to compensate for your losses.

Hedging future bets –

This is among the most important types of hedge bets, as this can win serious money. Some main props to bet are the conference winner, division winner, and championship winner in the playoffs for every sport. Each future bet is typically going to pay out at favorable odds. For instance, in the NFL – if your wagered team actually makes it to the Super Bowl, you get an opportunity to hedge the futures bet even before the game starts.

Hedging parlay bets –

This is similar to hedge betting as discussed while wagering on futures. In a parlay bet, all elements should be correctly wagered on for the parlay to cash. When you add an event to a parlay, it’s less likely for the odds to hit and cash. Each piece of a parlay is termed a leg. When you approach the final leg of a parlay, you get the same hedge opportunity as presented in the futures scenario.

If you want to hedge on a parlay bet, learn to correctly wager on your first bets within the parlay. If the parlay is 7 legs, and you have correctly wagered on at least the first six bets with one event left, you get an opportunity to hedge the final leg of the parlay to gain some potential profits. However, the risk takers are more than welcome to let it ride!

Conclusion

Hedging a wager is a personal preference. Some people are fine with a little positive payout and prefer not to risk much, which is when a hedge makes sense. And for those keen on the original wager and are fine with losing money if the other side wins, there’s no reason to hedge. If you want to play safe, check out other games in your comfort zone at Asaa88 – Online Malaysia & Singapore betting casino.

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