21. Hedge Betting

Hedge betting works by laying out one particular bet, then relaying it under slightly different scenarios. For example, instead of simply placing a double where you expect both matches to result in, say, Home Wins, you could also place another double bet with the weaker of the 2 Home Win predictions being laid out as a Draw. You will then have 2 double bets with 1 unit on each. What this does is to give you 2 chances of winning out of the 9 possible outcomes, not just the one chance. It hasn't necessarily doubled your chances, because the alternative you bet on may be a weak likelihood.

When employing hedge betting, you have to be aware at which point you have to stop laying out extra lines. Otherwise you may be laying out too much money with little chance of recouping it even if one of your lines does come up. It's a tricky business.

So what absolutely must be done is that the payout from each of the most likely results has to be computed to ensure that the cost of the entire amount laid out can be more than fully covered if one of the most likely line comes up. And if can't, reduce the number of alternative lines until it can!

It doesn't matter if the payout from the more unlikely winning lines won't cover the entire stakes, provided that it will more than cover the loss on the primary lines. Those extra lines are there simply so that you can recover something if the most likely results don't materialise.

Employed properly, hedge betting can be regarded as "sensible" betting. Bettors who practise hedge betting recognise that "going for bust" every time is not the wisest of things to do. Having said that, there are many people who erroneously believe that employing some of the fancy hedge bets offering large accumulators will miraculously work for them. That is not the case; all that hedge betting can do, if approached properly, is improve your chances of winning something, but not by such a margin that you can afford to extend the risks. So hedge betting on doubles, especially where Value Bet are identified for the Home and Away Wins and where the fallback position is a Draw, is far more likely to pay dividends in the long-term than trying to do the same thing with quintuples.