A Guide to Football Hedge Betting

Quick answer: if you’re looking to get into hedge betting, football is one of the best sports out there. It’s important to be aware, though, that hedge betting involves risk, and is best suited to experienced sports bettors.

Football is the most popular sport in the world, and Brits are particularly ardent fans - there are about 25 million of them in the UK.

But for smart bettors, football matches don’t just represent a fun (or often desperately disappointing) way to spend their time - they represent the possibility of profit.

And hedge betting is one way that you can improve your prospects if you’re Value Betting or otherwise trying to optimise your sports betting.

In this article, we’ll take you through how hedge betting works, how it can be applied to football specifically, and other strategies you can employ to get the most out of your betting.

Hedge Betting In A Nutshell

Hedge betting is a sports betting technique, which involves placing an opposing bet to counter an earlier bet in order to improve your position. This might only involve limiting potential losses, but sometimes you can lock in a profit no matter the result of the event.

In most cases, successful hedge betting relies on the movement of odds over time, ideally resulting in more favourable odds on a selection that opposes your original bet, which makes it possible to improve your position.

For all the details on the mechanics of hedge betting, take a look at our dedicated guide - for now, we’ll run you through a quick example of a hedge bet to illustrate exactly how and why you might hedge a bet in practice.

An example of a hedge bet

At the start of the football season, as a dedicated Liverpool fan, you bet £10 on your team to win the FA Cup at odds of 29, not particularly expecting to make anything from it.

Liverpool do surprisingly well and manage to make the final against Arsenal, who have been the favourites to win all season.

You’re optimistic about Liverpool’s chances, but you can’t help worrying that Arsenal will overpower them, given how strong they’ve consistently been.

Having checked the odds available now on each team to win the cup, you realise you’ve got the perfect opportunity for a hedge bet. You bet £35 on Arsenal to win the final at odds of 1.8, which allows you to emerge in profit regardless of who ends up winning.

As you can see from the above table, you’ll still make the greatest profit from a Liverpool win, with an overall profit of £245 (a £290 total return, minus your stakes of £10 and £35), but even an Arsenal win will make you a small profit of £18.

Alternative Ways to Hedge a Bet

Most people’s idea of a hedge bet involves placing each bet with a different bookmaker - this is a form of Dutching, technically speaking.

However, this isn’t the only way you can hedge a bet. Simply using a lay bet at a betting exchange, in the same way as you would when Matched Betting, is perhaps the easiest way of hedging a bet - even if it might not be the method that comes to mind when you think of hedging.

This has the advantage of ensuring that your lay bet directly opposes your back bet, so long as you can find the appropriate market with a betting exchange, and you can work out your stakes with a straightforward Matched Betting calculator.

One final alternative, if you truly no longer have any confidence in your original bet, and you just want to limit the amount of money you’ll lose, is to consider cashing out, or partially cashing out, your original bet.

This should only ever be considered as a last resort, though, as bookies’ margins on cashed out bets are particularly high, meaning you’ll lose a disproportionate amount of money by cashing out.

What’s The Best Way To Hedge Bet On Football?

Hedge betting is quite an opportunistic strategy, so the best way to hedge bet will always be dependent on how the odds happen to shift on any of your existing football bets.

That said, there are certain types of bet you can place, and hedging strategies you can aim to follow, that will maximise your chances of finding good hedging opportunities.

Expert Insight

‘The strongest football hedges usually come from having a clear exit point before you place the original bet. If you wait until the market is moving rapidly and then decide what profit you want to protect, emotion can take over and you may accept a much poorer price than the market was offering moments earlier.’

Futures and outrights

Because hedge betting relies on the shift of odds, betting on events whose conclusions are some way in the future, such as the outright winner of a tournament or championship, has the potential to be a successful strategy for hedging. If your selection starts off at relatively high odds and then does well, you’re likely to find a good hedging opportunity. On the other hand, if your selection’s chances fall away as time goes on, you’re unlikely to be able to capitalise on your position with a hedge bet.

In-play betting

In-play betting is fast-paced and exciting, due to the frequent swings of momentum over the course of a match. Those swings of momentum can also be useful if you’re hoping to hedge a bet. If you’ve placed a pre-match bet on a team and at some point during the match things seem to be going their way, it’s the perfect time to hedge your bet and, ideally, lock in a profit.

Data Insight

‘A 2025 study of 1,224 German Bundesliga matches found that, after an equalising goal, stakes on the team that scored were 61.8% higher than stakes on the team that conceded. However, the researchers found no evidence that the equalising team was actually more likely to win.’

- Economic Inquiry

Accumulator hedging

This is a particularly high-risk strategy, and we wouldn’t recommend it to new hedge bettors or anyone without a good bankroll. However, if you’re an existing fan of accas, a hedge on your accumulator can allow you to lock in an excellent profit in the right circumstances. For example, if you’ve placed a 4 leg acca and three of the matches have already gone your way, you’re likely to find an extremely favourable hedge on the final match, allowing you to make a solid profit no matter what happens.

Middling

This strategy is more commonly found in the US, and isn’t exactly what we’d consider a standard hedge bet in the UK, but it has the potential to be a profitable strategy in the right circumstances. It involves betting on an Over/Under market, such as number of goals, and placing two separate bets with different bookmakers in such a way that it’s possible for both bets to win. For example, you might bet that there will be Over 1.5 and separately that there will be Under 2.5 goals in a match. No matter what happens, you’ll win at least one of those bets - and if you’re very lucky, you could win both bets if there are exactly 2 goals in the match.

What Are The Risks Of Hedge Betting On Football?

Hedge betting on football isn’t inherently riskier than hedge betting on any other sport - but it’s important to be aware that it does involve risk, especially if you choose your initial bet poorly.

Some of the most significant risks of hedge betting on football are as follows:

• Hedging opportunities may not materialise. Hedging opportunities usually appear due to odds changing over time; if the odds move in your favour, making your original bet more likely to win, you’re likely to have a good hedging opportunity. But if the odds move against you, there may be no chance to hedge at all, and no choice but to accept that you’re down by the amount of your original bet.
  
  You should therefore never rely on the possibility of a future hedge when placing a bet - there’s always a reasonable chance that the hedge you’re looking for won’t be possible.

Expert Insight

‘A common mistake is judging the quality of a hedge solely by whether it produces a profit. Sometimes taking a smaller guaranteed loss is the better decision if the alternative is leaving a large, exposed position running purely because the bettor is reluctant to accept that the original bet has gone wrong.’

• You may be unable to cover all outcomes profitably. If you’re betting on the winner of a football match, you have to cover three outcomes (Team A win, Team B win, draw) rather than two if you want to account for all possible outcomes. The more eventualities you have to cover, the harder it is to lock in a profit no matter the result of the match.

• Human error. Especially if you choose to hedge in-play, the risk of human error can be significant. If you’re rushing to get your hedge bet in before the odds change, you’re more likely to make a mistake and end up hedging the wrong amount, which could spell disaster for your profitability. If you’re just getting started with hedge betting, it’s wise to avoid fast-paced environments like in-play betting and stick to longer term bets, where it won’t be necessary to rush to get a hedge on.

Data Insight

In-play betting is hugely popular; research by the UK Gambling Commission found that 60% of online bettors had participated in in-play betting during the previous four weeks, with 30% having done so in the previous seven days. Among 18–24-year-olds, four-week participation was as high as 77%.

- Gambling Commission

• Losing money. Hedge betting will always involve the possibility of losing money, because there will always be a period of time between placing your initial bet and hedging it (otherwise you’d simply be Matched Betting or arbitrage betting). There is therefore always a risk of losing some money on your initial bet - potentially your entire stake. You should therefore do your best to place your initial bets wisely, and never stake more than you can afford to lose.

Are There Any Other Strategies You Can Use When Betting On Football To Maximise Your Profits?

Hedging can be a highly effective strategy, but it’s not the best strategy for everyone. If you’re a new sports bettor, it’s likely to be a bit too risky for you, and if you’re a highly experienced bettor you may even find hedging to be over-cautious.

Happily, there are other sports betting strategies that may suit you better if you decide that hedge betting isn’t the best option for you.

Matched Betting

Our first recommendation would always be Matched Betting, especially if you’re new to sports betting. At Outplayed, we’re the experts in Matched Betting, and we’ve helped thousands of people make money using this technique, plenty of whom have no experience of sports betting at all.

Like hedge betting, Matched Betting involves placing bets on opposing outcomes, the first with a bookmaker and the second with a betting exchange as a lay bet. But unlike hedge betting, making money from Matched Betting hinges on earning and using bookie rewards like free bets in what is most often a two-step process.

1. You place what we call a ‘qualifying bet’, which unlocks a reward such as a free bet. You match your qualifying bet with a lay bet at a betting exchange, typically making a small loss of just a few pence, known as a qualifying loss.

2. You then place a second matched bet with the free bet you’ve unlocked, which is what allows you to turn a profit.

Matched Betting is fantastic for beginners as it involves very little risk, requires zero knowledge of sports, and can allow you to build up your bankroll pretty quickly as you move through sign up offers.

To find out more, take a look at our Beginner’s Guide to Matched Betting for a full breakdown of the strategy and how to get started.

Arbitrage Betting

Arbitrage is another extremely similar technique, involving placing two bets on opposing selections.

With arbitrage betting, though, you look for pairs of odds that lock in a profit with every single set of bets you place.

It’s easiest to arbitrage bet between a bookmaker and a betting exchange, just as you would when Matched Betting. With arbitrage betting, however, you look for back odds with a bookmaker that are higher than the lay odds with the exchange - if this is the case, you’re able to lock in an immediate profit.

To find out more, take a look at our dedicated guide to arbitrage betting for all the details about how this strategy works.

Value Betting

For experienced sports bettors, whose bankroll and temperament can withstand a level of risk, Value Betting can be a sound strategy.

You don’t lock in a profit with your bets, but in some respects Value Betting is quite similar to arbitrage betting, because it relies on locating favourable odds from bookies. Specifically, odds that are higher than the true probability of a win would imply.

If you bet only on selections with disproportionately favourable odds, there’s a statistical likelihood that you’ll profit overall, even though any individual bet you place may well end up losing (hence this strategy involving more risk than arbitrage betting or Matched Betting).

Value Betting also has the advantage of combining well with hedge betting, which can mitigate some of the risk involved - though we wouldn’t expect most value bettors to wish to hedge every bet, as this will remove some of the value from that bet.

To find out more about how Value Betting works and how you can get started, check out the dedicated Outplayed guide.

Summary

Hedge betting can be a very useful technique for the keen football bettor to employ - but it’s best suited to experienced bettors with a good bankroll, who are comfortable with the risk involved.

If you’re newer to sports betting, or you’d rather stick to lower-risk strategies, Matched Betting is the ideal choice, and can be used to make £300 - £1000+ in profits each month.

To find out more, take a look at the Outplayed Beginner’s Guide to Matched Betting for all the information you need to get started.

Or if you’ve heard enough and are ready to get stuck in, take out our free trial and start making your first profits.

FAQs

1. Can you hedge football bets?

You certainly can! Not all football bets will produce a good hedging opportunity, but given the frequency and popularity of football it’s definitely one of the better sports for hedge betting.

2. Should I hedge bet in-play on football?

It’s one possible strategy, but it does have a couple of downsides. Because it’s so fast-paced, you’ll have to move fast to take advantage of odds shifts while they’re in your favour, so there’s a risk of making mistakes. In-play betting is also particularly associated with problem gambling, so be sure not to let yourself get carried away if you do decide to hedge bet on in-play football matches.

3. Is hedging betting on football suitable for beginners?

If you’re new to sports betting, we’d recommend a lower risk strategy, such as Matched Betting, to build some experience and your bankroll before you move on to higher risk strategies like hedge betting or Value Betting.

4. Is hedge betting on football legal?

Absolutely! Bookmakers aren’t keen on hedge bettors (which is why you should always place your opposing bets between different bookmakers), but there’s nothing illegal about this strategy.

5. What do I do if I can’t find a way to hedge my bet?

You’ve got a couple of choices. You can either let the bet play out - you presumably had a good reason for placing it originally - or, as a last resort, you can cash it out with the bookie.