Originally posted on 03/29/2016:

Have you ever watched Deal or No Deal? They would have people on who were supposedly really bad off. I remember a lady was sitting on something like a $100,000 suitcase or maybe it was 50k or 200k, whatever. She had nothing. It was a life changing amount for her and her daughter. But there were maybe 5 suitcases left. 3 were bigger money. 2 were shit. The crowd is yelling for her to go for it. All she can think of is the new house, car etc. She risks it all and she won a shitload...but that's not the point. She risked more money than she's ever had, grocery money, money for a safe car, everything, for the big score because it was +Even. But it really wasn't because she could have lost her new quality of life.

So that's what i usually tell people who ask if they should hedge. Hedge when you are cashing out to put yourself on another level. Otherwise hedging is usually cashing out of the wins that the law of probability says you are due.

If you are betting 3 team parlays you are going to win x% of those by chance. You don't want to lose the full amount of the losers and take only some of the winner payouts because you hedged out. Watching people here hedge out big bets at halftime can make you cringe.

You hedge out when you are winning your March Madness Bracket for 100k and it comes down one pick. Or when you had Syracuse to win $500,000 in future bet to win the NCAA Tourney.