What is Hedging Your Bets in Gambling?

The increased popularity and availability of online casino and betting games is providing everybody with an opportunity to experience and enjoy some casual betting. For some, betting is a sort of pastime, while for others, it is an avenue to earn some extra money. And for people who are good at betting and gaming, the tournaments and world championships conducted by some of the online casino websites are allowing them to make gaming their profession and thus become professional gamblers.

Whether it is a pastime or a vocation, everyone who is familiar with casino games and betting would have heard the term “hedging your bets”. It has become so popular in the gaming industry that it slowly transitioned to normal vocabulary too, so much so that anyone familiar with the English language would have heard the term being used at least once! Loosely used to mean “protecting yourself from loses”, hedging your bets means something similar in the world of betting too. Incidentally, it is one principle that any gaming enthusiast should know if he/she is interested in maximising their profits and winning in any and every situation!

Understanding the phrase “hedging your bets” in relationship to betting

The term hedging your bets is relevant to betting as well as casino games. But here we will be solely discussing how one can maximize profits and minimise losses using this concept, especially in relation to sports betting. Basically, hedging your bets or hedge betting as it is more commonly known can be seen as insurance for your bets; simply put, it is a way to protect your existing bets. To protect your existing bets what you do is you bet on all the possible outcomes (even those that are opposite to your original bets) so that whatever the outcome you might win.

Looking at the simple explanation it might seem that hedge betting is a very simple concept and one might be tempted to try it the next time around. But as with any other tool or skill, the worst type of knowledge is limited knowledge. Using a concept without knowing completely about it is a sure-shot way to lose, especially when it comes to sports betting and casino games. Hence, before you are excited about using the concept the next time around, read further to totally understand what hedge betting entails, the similarities and differences between hedge betting and arbitrage betting and the various circumstances in which to use this concept of hedge betting to get the best benefits.

Hedge Betting and Arbitrage Betting – Similarities and differences

When talking about hedge betting, it involves placing bets on all the odds to ensure that the player wins regardless of the outcome. But when we talk about arbitrage betting it involves finding discrepancies between the bookmakers’ bets and placing bets on the discrepancies simultaneously. So, with you actually bet against the changes in bookmakers’ bets while with hedging you bet to avail profits or reduce risks even if there are changes over time.

When to use hedge betting

There are two ways to use hedge betting – like insurance and to increase profits.

The basic idea behind insurance is to spend a little sum of money over time to avoid spending a large sum of money at once. In the same way, hedging your bets can help you avoid a big loss if you are willing to spend a small sum of money over the opposite outcome. This concept is especially useful when you bet on a decision win but consequent changes have now reduced the changes to a great extent. For example, you might have bet on the season’s favourites in the beginning but their chances of winning have gone down over the period of time because of bad luck or injuries. Another situation where the concept of hedging your bets is useful is when you aren’t sure anymore that your bet will win; this can be because of a drastic change in circumstances (or if the bet is a result of drinking). Conversely, hedge betting can be used to maximise profits too if you bet on all the possible positive outcomes when your team wins!