Horseracing Hedge Betting, Good Idea or Bad Money Management
There has been a lot of publicity lately about hedge funds and I thought it might be a good idea to take a look at hedge betting. In horse racing handicapping, hedge betting is making several bets that offset each other. An example would be a favorite on top in exactas with the lion’s share of your bankroll, with some smaller hedge bets on the favorite under.
Another example, if the odds permit it, would be betting the favorite to win and several smaller bets on other contenders with amounts that will cover your losses if the favorite runs out. The problem with all of this, for U.S. players who can’t take part in betting exchanges, is that good opportunities rarely present themselves. If they do, it will have to be with a legal bookmaker in Vegas.
Almost all hedge bets are losers. The reason is the same for exotics players. Too many combinations and trying to cover as many as possible. For instance, just playing a four horse trifecta box means you have just bought 23 losing combinations, or 23 losing tickets.
That is why, when they were first introduced, exotic bets were called gadget bets or sucker bets by old time horse players. They couldn’t believe that horse players would actually buy so many losing tickets on every race, just for the possibility of cashing one winning ticket.
You have to remember that this was occurring at the same time that odds were often fixed and Dutching was still a very attractive possibility. Dutching made much more sense, if you were going to bet on more than one possible outcome. But whether you were Dutching, hedging, insuring, backing, or whatever you want to call it, one thing remained the same, there is no substitute for handicapping and good money management.
Handicapping is work, even with a good system, and so is money management. That is why suckers continue to buy into progress betting schemes and other gadget bets that just don’t pay in the long run, but seem to offer the possibility of not having to work for the money. If you think you’ve found a good hedge bet or betting scheme to conquer the pari-mutuel pools, good luck, but be sure to go easy at first and give it a good long test run. Or you might want to just bite the bullet and learn a good system, then tweak it for your own style and uses.