Hedged betting tools are designed to make complex strategies like arbitrage betting, matched betting or middles betting, a lot more efficient. The time consuming and arithmetic-heavy aspects of hedged betting are done automatically with hedged betting software, thus you spend less time hunting average offers, and focus instead on higher ROI hedged bet pairings.
These tools make hedged betting accessible for bettors of all levels. You don’t need to learn complex mathematical equations or spend hours of your time scanning odds for possible openings, something that made it difficult for entry level bettors to start before. But these tools are not just for beginners either. In the hands of an expert, they can enhance the quality of ROI wagers and give arbitrage bettors a broader selection of hedged betting combos to pick from.
Hedged Betting 101
When you hedge bets, you place two contrasting bets on the same betting market. For example, in a moneyline, this would be a bet on the Home Team to win, and then another bet on the Away team to win. You will win 1 of the bets, regardless of who wins the game. But the point is to find discrepancies in the odds to make this profitable.
Hedged betting cannot be done at one sportsbook, you need to sign up to at least 2 books, and for the ROI to be positive, there must be a large discrepancy in the odds. All sportsbooks apply juice to their lines, making it more difficult to flip that edge in your favor, and this is also why hedging your bets requires line shopping and careful calculations.
Step by step, you are:
- Line shop at different sportsbooks for positive ROI hedged bets
- Look at market averages on different bets, and find bigger outliers
- Calculate Juice and find a hedged betting combo with positive ROI
- Calculating how much to stake on either bet (proportionate to the size of the odds)
- Stake your bets and confirm
Then, there are the practicalities to observe – like the fact that sportsbooks don’t like hedged bets, and if they suspect you of hedging your wagers – they may limit or suspend your betting account. If you are staking bets with irregular amounts, it may flag up.
So when hedging your bets, you have to spread out your wagers across different books and round your stakes (when possible), to stay under the radar.
How to Hedge Bets with Tools
The labor-heavy aspects of hedging your bets are looking for preferable odds at different sportsbooks and calculating stake sizes according to these odds. Essentially, you are constantly calculating ROI and potential stakes based on the odds provided, and you have to jump tabs (or switch betting apps on mobile devices), to look for potential hedged bets.
Betting tools simplify the entire procedure drastically, by presenting an odds screen with potential hedged betting pairings and their resulting ROI. You can browse the results, filter them to find more relevant hedged bets, and even change the hedged bets to compare how they would fare if you swap one of the chosen sportsbooks.
The process is the following, at a top hedged betting tool.
- Open hedged/arbitrage odds screen
- Filter by: sport/betting market/sportsbooks/ROI %
- Select a hedged bet, and enter your budget for the back/lay bets
- Click on the bet – it directs you to the book, where the bet has been filled on your slip
- Confirm bet
You are not calculating or recalculating any of the betting odds/stake sizes. Just look at the different bets, basing your decision on the ROI %, sportsbooks used, and stake weights (opting for stake sizes as close to round numbers as possible).
Argument for Hedged Betting Tools
The biggest argument for using betting tools to hedged bets is that the majority of Americans use them. There are just so few cons to using these tools, and if you stick to doing all the calculations manually, you lose time and efficiency that the rest of the market is using.
Instead of comparing pros, let’s look at the cons. It is easiest to plan ahead when you know what can go wrong, and where the weaknesses are in either hedged betting strategy.
Quality of the Odds
The biggest con with hedged betting tools, based on experience and user feedback, is that the tools are slow to update the hedged betting odds. Or that they don’t show REAL arbitrage betting odds. The two problems are correlated. If the tool is slow or requires you to manually refresh odds screens, you can get outdated prices that don’t apply anymore.
Doing this manually, you will always get real time odds, but you need to keep tabs on the different sportsbook prices. In the minutes spent during calculating ROI or stake sizes, the odds may change. On the subject of REAL odds, we will also point out that while some tools are slow, they never make mistakes. The last scanned odds prices are the ones you see, and all the calculations are done automatically. There is no human error – something that even the best arbitrage bettors may make.
Sportsbooks Relevancy
Another reported con is that some hedged betting tools show sportsbooks that you wouldn’t use or don’t have access to. It is annoying if 90% of the arbs come from European books, or use blacklisted books odds. However, we would argue that it also gives you a better idea of the market averages.
To avoid getting irrelevant bets, filter by sportsbook and choose the books you use. But for analysis, using data from offshore sportsbooks and alternative betting sites can give you an idea of which sports or markets tend to have larger outliers.
1 Click Bet Integration
And finally, one of the most common complaints we see a lot of is that the 1-click betting doesn’t work, or the sportsbook links do not load. We have reviewed plenty of arbitrage, middles, and alternative hedged betting tools, and unfortunately, some do have issues with links, or limited sportsbook bet slip integration. However, there are tools with automatic sportsbook syncing, which will not just automatically populate your hedged bets, but also track your bankroll and give you recommendations for stake sizing.
The argument here is that if a tool’s 1-click bet integration doesn’t work, you would have to open a new tab (tab/app for mobile), sign into your betting account, and place the bet yourself – just like you would if you were hedging manually. You don’t lose any time here, no matter whether you are using a tool or not. But we would also suggest to read our reviews and keep an eye on our User Feedback column, where we highlight key issues users have with the tool. If there are bad links or limited syncing, we will mention it there.
Ultimately, if you subtract the calculations, odds comparison at different books, and the possibility of human error, you are saving loads of time and resources using betting tools.
Hedged Betting Cheatsheet
Hedged betting is all about speed; you must be quick to locate good openings and then pounce on them while the odds are favorable. Because the market odds tend to converge as a game draws nearer, and so any bigger ouliters are bounds to adjust and move towards the consensus. In other words, positive ROI arbitrage betting odds don’t tend to stay up for long.
Trained arbitrage bettors can train themselves to more or less spot these straight away – memorizing approximate odds ranges to win precious time when scanning the odds. The arbitrage betting cheat sheet below gives you approximate Lay Bet prices based on the odds of the initial bet (back bet), and the desired ROI.
| Hedged Betting Odds Cheat Sheet | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Back Bet American Odds (Decimal) | 1% ROI Lay Bet Min. Odds | 3% ROI Lay Bet Min. Odds | 5% ROI Lay Bet Min. Odds |
| -400 (1.25) | +426 (5.26) | +488 (5.88) | +567 (6.67) |
| -300 (1.33) | +320 (4.20) | +358 (4.58) | +405 (5.05) |
| -250 (1.4) | +263 (3.63) | +291 (3.91) | +324 (4.24) |
| -200 (1.5) | +209 (3.09) | +230 (3.30) | +253 (3.53) |
| -150 (1.67) | +156 (2.56) | +169 (2.69) | +185 (2.85) |
| -110 (1.91) | +114 (2.14) | +124 (2.24) | +134 (2.34) |
| +100 (2) | +104 (2.04) | +113 (2.13) | +122 (2.22) |
| +150 (2.5) | -145 (1.69) | -133 (1.75) | -122 (1.82) |
| +200 (3) | -192 (1.52) | -175 (1.57) | -161 (1.62) |
| +250 (3.5) | -263 (1.42) | -217 (1.46) | -196 (1.51) |
| +300 (4) | -286 (1.35) | -256 (1.39) | -233 (1.43) |
| +400 (5) | -370 (1.27) | -333 (1.30) | -303 (1.33) |
Of course, you could make similar cheat sheets of your own, but you have to do the following:
- Pick your starting odds (-300, -250, -200, etc)
- Convert American odds to decimal odds
- Convert Decimal odds into IP (take reciprocal)
- Calculate Favorable edge based on ROI
- Favorable edge = 1 – ROI. For 1% or 2%, you get 0.99 and 0.98 edge
- Subtract Decimal odds IP from Favorable edge for Lay Bet IP
- Calculate Decimal Odds from Lay Bet IP
In the example of -300, it works the following way:
- +300 / 100 + 1 = 4.0 Decimal Odds
- IP = 1/4 = 0.25
- For 5% ROI, Favorable edge = 0.95
- 0.95 – 0.25 = 0.70 Lay Bet IP
- 1 / 0.7 = 1.43 Lay Bet Decimal Odds
- 100 / (1 – 1.43) = -233
And then you can build your table – and memorize the values. Of course, with a betting tool there is no need to memorize lines and go through the strenuous calculations (remember, you would do it for each and every lay bet). It is all done automatically, and in the blink of an eye.
Main Hedged Betting Strategies
When talking about hedged betting, most bettors associate it with arbitrage betting. But the two are not synonymous. Arbitrage bets are a type of hedged bets, and arguably the most well known. There are plenty of other hedged betting strategies out there to explore.
Arbitrage Betting
The classic hedged betting strategy, you pick back one bet, and counter it with a lay bet. Arbitrage betting works with 2-way betting markets, although you can also extend it to 3-way markets, but it gets a lot more complicated. For example, in soccer, where you have 3 possible outcomes (Home win, away win, draw), you can build a 3-pronged arbitrage betting strategy. But then it is far more work, in shopping lines, calculating ROI, and splitting your bankroll 3 ways.
Arbitrage betting works best on 2-way markets, and out of all the hedged betting scenarios, it is one of the easiest to execute.
Low Hold
Low hold bets are like arbitrage bets, but the ROI is very low, nearly 0, or even slightly negative. Instead of focusing on ROI, these bets revolve around you climbing up to VIP status at a sportsbook by betting in higher frequency and volume. While not as common as arbitrage or middles, there are several tools that cover low hold hedged bets.
The low hold bets will target wagers at your chosen sportsbook, like Caesars, and look for low hold hedged wagers elsewhere, so you can bet bigger sums of money and rack up those loyalty points. As you ascend the loyalty tiers at Caesars, you will get more bonuses and benefits, and finally, with the right spending volume, you can break into the VIP program.
Middles
Middles requires bets with alternate lines, such as totals or possibly spreads (but most commonly, totals). You also back a bet and lay it with a hedged bet, covering all possible outcomes, but you leave a small interlap between the hedged bets. For example, you bet on an NFL game ending with Over 22.5 points, and lay it with an Under 23.5 points. The overlap here is 23 points – and if the game ends with that many points, then both your hedged bets win.
The ROI is generally smaller for middles (compared to arbitrage bets), but you are not playing for the 1 win. Instead, you place middles in the hope that once every 5, 10, 15, or 20 times, the middle will land, and you will get a massive ROI.
Matched Betting
Also called promo conversion, matched betting is similar to arbitrage betting, but your initial bet is staked with a bonus bet. The goal is to hedge your staked bonus bet, and unlock as much cash from it as possible. Matched betting strategies can therefore yield a much higher ROI – because you are just staking 1 bet with real money. Subtract the bonus bet from the returns (because you only play this, the bonus stake itself is not included in the payout), and you can get ROIs of 50%, 60%, and higher.
The top matched betting tools don’t just find you hedged bets for your bonus bets, but some also have bankroll management tools and promo finders – to help you locate more bonus bets and create a long term strategy on these. Bonus bets, contrary to popular belief, are not just issued to newcomers – top US sportsbooks can dish these out on a regular basis.
Dutching
It is one of the least known betting strategies, and can only be used in wagers with numerous feasible outcomes, Dutching is a combo of hedged bets that don’t cover all outcomes. It is most widely used in horse race betting. In a horse race where you have 12 contestants, a Dutching strategy would have you place separate hedged bets on the top 3, 4 or 5 horses. You don’t cover every horse, but just enough to get a good ROI in the most likely event that one of your chosen horses wins.
The conditions for dutching, where you need a bet with multiple likely outcomes, makes it a pretty rare hedged betting strategies. Outside horse racing, it can also be used in golf tournaments or motorsports like NASCAR and F1. You can always get creative, and use dutching for futures on Championships/League winners, or in game props like Correct Score in soccer. But it is a rare hedged betting strategy, and a lot of tools don’t even cover dutching.
Hedging with Line Movements
A lot of the more advanced betting tools do not stop at pregame arbitrage bets. They give you tools through which you can monitor historical line movements, and project future market prices based on the data at hand. Whilst it is a theoretical science, as it is impossible to predict the exact future line movements, the tools help use AI driven algorithms and calculate patterns based on demand and sentiment patterns, to gain an idea of the CLV.
Using these more flexible arbitrage betting strategies comes with higher risks, but it can also create much larger ROI openings. The tools in question are the ones with CLV analysis, live arbitrage odds, and futures simulators.
Hedging Futures
By simulating futures and using futures line movements trackers, you can get projections on how the lines may change, and open the possibility for long term futures hedged bets. This is where Dutch hedged betting can come in handy, as you can pin the best odds on the most likely league or cup winners, and then make a huge ROI, in theory.
It comes with lots of risks, but many futures and open contracts on prediction markets can be cashed out – giving you opportunities to cut your losses if you think the bets are going sour. With the right tools, you can pick up all the signs and indicators early, and plan your futures hedged bets accordingly.
Live Bets and Cash Out
Live arbitrage betting tools are more expensive than pregame ones, and for good reason. They need to be much quicker at scanning odds, and premium tools tend to have state of the art bet intregration – so you don’t lose valuable seconds when cashing in on a live arbitrage bet. Again, this strategy can make much larger openings, with users claiming as much as 3x, 4x, or 5x higher ROI than pregame arbitrage bets. You can preplan by setting the filters by market, odds ROI, and sports game – and then use the tool to track arbitrage betting opportunities and catch them when they arise.
That is, if you are planning to place your arbitrage bets at the same time. You can always place 1 at the start of the game, and then wait to see whether you want to hedge that bet or not. These tools can help you find good opportunities if they arise, but be careful not to wait to the last minute to place the bets.
Hedging with CLV
You can apply that same logic to pregame wagers, in that you place a bet at the start of the week and then hedge it later on if the odds become suitable. Here, CLV trackers and monitors are crucial to understanding how odds movements work and where the odds are heading towards. In normal scenarios, you will find bigger outliers at the start of the week, and they will gradually converge to the market averages before the markets close. Odds drops on one line generally mean the opposing line will have to rise, to keep the balance. And then you can pick out the perfect time to hedge a higher ROI arbitrage bet.
But that is all theory. Bear in mind that there are real world impacts that can change the odds, and these cannot be premeditated. Stay up to date with any news, injury reports, and other insights, and keep an eye on the line movements. Using these tools, you can also plan your bankroll to cut risks and make smarter decisions.
Finding the Tool For You
Finding the right hedged betting tool is a personal choice. We have seen some users opt for simpler tools to perfect their hedged betting strategies. Others prefer the tools with more automated features, and less hands on input required, so they can spend more time assessing the options, or place hedged bets in higher volume.
Your budget, sports betting preferences, and how much you want to do manually are the crucial aspects to factor in when picking a hedged betting tool. We have reviewed tools with all in one subscriptions, with many high ROI arbitrage bets, but they tend to be more than a casual bettor can afford. But then there are tools with subscription tiers, and arbitrage bets can be a lot cheaper, albeit without premium line trackers (or with ROI limits, in some cases).
The best place to start is by reading our different toplists for arbitrage betting, middles betting, and matched betting, to find the best tools in those respective areas of hedged betting. Then, read the independent reviews of different tools to get an idea of their core strengths and any shortcomings. When you have settled on a tool, sign up through our links or using our promo codes to get a discounted first subscription, or a limited free trial, and you can test the tools for yourself.
