Partial Hedge Calculator

The Partial Hedge Calculator sizes a covering wager as a chosen fraction of a full two-way lock. Leave the four defaults in place: Original Stake $100, Original Odds 3.50, Hedge Odds 1.60, Cover 50%. Decimal odds only. The engine first solves the full-hedge stake that would make both outcomes pay the same, then multiplies by the cover percentage so you can inspect a half-lock, a quarter-lock, or any other slice without rewriting the algebra.

Full hedge equals original stake times original odds divided by hedge odds: 100 × 3.50 / 1.60 = $218.75. Cover 50% therefore places $109.38 on the opposing selection. If the original ticket wins, profit is original payout minus original stake minus hedge: 350 − 100 − 109.38 = $140.63. If the hedge wins, profit is hedge payout minus hedge minus original: 109.38 × 1.60 − 109.38 − 100 = −$34.38. Half cover keeps most of the 3.50 upside and cuts the unhedged −$100 wipeout to a −$34.38 dent.

Slide Cover to 100% and the same inputs lock $31.25 either way, because 350 − 100 − 218.75 = 31.25. At 25% the hedge is $54.69, original-win profit $195.31, hedge-win −$67.19. At 75% the hedge is $164.06, original-win $85.94, hedge-win −$1.56. The three result rows — Hedge Stake, Profit If Original Wins, Profit If Hedge Wins — move linearly with cover. Nothing in the model picks a “correct” percentage; it only shows the two terminal bankrolls.

The hedge must sit on a mutually exclusive outcome: the other side of a two-way moneyline, the opposite of a total, or the opposing spread. A correlated market (same-game parlay, player prop that can push) breaks the identity. Limits, latency, and cash-out buttons are ignored. If the live hedge price has already moved when you click, re-enter the new decimal figure; a stale 1.60 produces a stale $109.38.

Work a second live example without leaving the defaults as a baseline. Suppose the hedge shortens to 1.45 while you still hold $100 at 3.50. Full stake becomes 350 / 1.45 ≈ $241.38 and a full lock is only $8.62. At 50% cover the hedge is $120.69, original-win $129.31, hedge-win −$45.00. Lengthen the hedge to 1.80 and the full stake drops to $194.44 with a $55.56 lock. The calculator is arithmetic for those four fields, not a recommendation to hedge, to leave a ticket naked, or to chase a shortening price.

A partial hedge is insurance with a deductible. Instead of converting a live ticket into a small certain profit, the bettor sells a slice of remaining variance: enough to cap the worst case, not enough to flatten the original thesis. Bookmakers have offered the same geometry for more than a century whenever a client wanted to “get something back” after a price collapsed. Betting exchanges after 2000 made the opposing stake explicit as a lay; sportsbooks later wrapped the identical cash-flow in a cash-out button. The calculator isolates the fraction so the two cash-flows stay visible.

Full hedges are easy to romanticize because both columns print the same number. Partial hedges are how most actual tickets are managed: a soccer accumulator that is three-up at half-time, a futures position that has shortened from 8.00 to 1.90, a tennis set that flipped after an early break. In each case the holder still believes the original side, but no longer wants a binary $0 / $250 ending. Cover 50% on the default ticket is that compromise in dollars: $140.63 if the 3.50 lands, −$34.38 if it does not.

The tool does not estimate probability, implied edge, or Kelly size. A 50% cover on a 3.50 ticket is not “half a Kelly.” It is half of the dollar amount that would neutralize the two outcomes at the quoted hedge odds. If those hedge odds are themselves worse than a true 1 / p, the hedge is a negative-EV purchase of variance reduction, exactly like buying an overpriced put. The calculator will still print the two profits; it will not warn you that 1.60 might be a 1.72 market elsewhere.

History is practical rather than heroic. Nineteenth-century layers laid off lumps with rivals; rails later telegraphed the same lay-off; exchanges after 2000 turned it into a retail button. Cash-out in the 2010s internalized the hedge so the book keeps the margin. A partial hedge on a second book is the older, more transparent version. Comparing the two is what Cash Out vs Hedge is for; this page only scales the hedge leg.

Limitations are structural. Three-way football needs the 1X2 tool; last-leg parlays need the parlay tool; exchange commission needs the lay engine; free bets (stake not returned) belong on the free-bet page. Use this calculator when you have one back at a known decimal, one opposing decimal, and a cover percentage to inspect. Treat the output as a ledger, not as advice to lock, hold, or average down.

A partial hedge is a chosen fraction of the covering stake that would equalise two complementary outcomes. First compute the full covering stake: original stake times original decimal odds, divided by the hedge odds. Then multiply by the cover fraction. Profit if the original ticket wins is original payout minus original stake minus the actual hedge. Profit if the hedge wins is hedge payout minus the hedge minus the original stake. The teaching defaults are 100 dollars at 3.50, hedge odds 1.60, and fifty percent cover. Full covering stake is 100 times 3.50 over 1.60, which is 218.75 dollars. Half of that is 109.375, displayed as 109.38 dollars.

Original-win profit is 350 minus 100 minus 109.375, namely 140.625, displayed as 140.63 dollars. Hedge-win profit is 109.375 times 1.60 minus 109.375 minus 100, namely 175 minus 109.375 minus 100, which is minus 34.375, displayed as minus 34.38 dollars. Ordinary half-up currency rounding produces those two extra cents. Full cover at the same prices locks 31.25 dollars either way, because 350 minus 100 minus 218.75 equals 31.25. At zero cover the original-win column is 250 dollars and the hedge-win column is minus 100.

Linearity in the cover fraction is exact. Moving cover from fifty percent to fifty-one percent subtracts 2.1875 dollars from the original-win column, that is the full stake over one hundred, and adds 1.3125 dollars to the hedge-win column, because the full stake times (1.60 minus one) is 131.25. A seventy-five percent cover almost zeroes the hedge-win loss on these prices: 0.75 times 131.25 minus 100 equals minus 1.5625. Nineteenth-century layers already laid off a fraction of a lump with a rival; the algebra is the same interpolation between a naked ticket and a lock.

Full-lock profit is positive only when hedge odds sit below original odds over (original odds minus one). For 3.50 that threshold is 1.40. Hedge odds of 1.60 sit above it, so a full lock is still plus 31.25 dollars. At hedge odds 1.30 the full stake is about 269.23 dollars and the lock is minus 19.23. Partial cover cannot manufacture a positive lock from a bad covering price; it only interpolates. If the covering price shortens to 1.45, full stake becomes about 241.38 dollars and a full lock is only 8.62; half cover then prints a hedge of 120.69, original-win 129.31, hedge-win minus 45.00.

Assumptions: both bets settle win or lose with no push or void; the hedge is a perfect complement; stakes fill at the typed odds; there is no exchange commission. Commission belongs in a lay denominator of hedge odds minus the rate times (hedge odds minus one). A total that can push adds a third cash-flow and the two-column identity fails. A free original token needs a different numerator because stake is not returned. The interpolation is a ledger, not a claim that the hedge is a positive-expectation purchase of variance reduction.