Insurance?

[Robert Fischer]

There are also ways to bet multi race wagers where you design the wager for the purpose of hedging on the last leg.

[acorn54]

i second cj's observations. you probably are not wired to be a gambler if you have to seek out "insurance".

[JimG]

Insurance underscores the need of a horse player to win a race as opposed to winning at the races.

Jim

[Light]

Using a broad brush to paint hedging as negative is kind of narrow minded.

I gave an example of how hedging with bombs on win bets can be quite profitable.

In a pk4,when alive in the last leg,the only reason I hedge is because I overlooked a horse for one reason or another that I did not include and now really like him. Nothing wrong with that. It's a win-win situation.

But hedging in a the last leg of a pk4 because I either have no confidence in my picks or really have no clue who will win this race will only make things worse.In this case I agree with those against hedging.

But people here are not making the distinction of when hedging is a good thing and when it's not.

Eating is a good thing. But sometimes it's not. It's not always one way. Nothing in horse racing is set in stone either.

[classhandicapper]

I think this is simpler than it's being made out to be.

If you can hedge with bets that are profitable in their own right, then it's mathematically OK to do so but may not be ideal for maximizing profits.

If you are hedging with bets that are unprofitable in their own right strictly for the mental satisfaction of cashing a bet, then you are costing yourself money over the long haul.

You should rarely if ever do the second one.

[castaway01]

Originally Posted by JimG

Insurance underscores the need of a horse player to win a race as opposed to winning at the races.

Jim

Eh...maybe. However, if hedging gets you $4000 back when it would otherwise be $40,000 or $0, it's not necessarily a bad move. We're not machines and bad beats can put us on "tilt", as they used to say, so if you can prevent that it's not the worst idea. There are a lot more damaging things that gamblers do than this one, and it's not as cut and dried as it might seem.

[castaway01]

Originally Posted by thaskalos

I agree with you, it can be psychologically damaging, at least for a short while, to narrowly miss out on a huge super-exotics payoff.

Here is what I have experienced from my own adventures in this aspect of the game:

When you get to the last leg of the aforementioned pick-4, and you are only alive to one or two of the horses in the field...then, in most cases, you have quite a lot of ground to cover in your attempt to "secure" a profit in the race, in the event the pick-4 goes wrong.

After all...are we trying just to recoup the cost of our bet...or are we trying to make a decent profit overall?

If we make a calculated effort to secure a decent profit overall in this case...then we have to be prepared to lose BOTH the original pick-4 bet AND the supplemental "insurance" bet...and that can be even more psychologically draining.

If, on the other hand, we have half the field covered with our original pick-4 bet in the last race...then I have to say that hedging in this spot is based on unreasonable fear.

The regular pick-4 player faces this situation pretty often...and soon learns to deal with it.

The infrequent pick-4 bettor gets an education on the heartache that is the super-exotic bettor's constant companion...

Can't argue with you---it's a fine line. I am just saying it's not ALWAYS dumb or a bad move, but sure, you have to be able to handle that if you're going to spend your life betting Pick 4s (not to mention Pick 5 or Pick 6).

There's a reason that I have switched to mostly win betting, and I think those near-miss Pick 4s might be it. I went through years where everything I did seemed to break right, but then the next year when I had a bunch of near misses, I figured it was better to change what I was doing. However, that's why I advocated the occasional insurance---I am human and I know that the near misses were affecting my judgment.

Also, and I know this might be a foreign concept to top-of-the-line gamblers, but there were tracks where I had a decent but not perfect feel for what was happening. I could get to the last leg and be alive with two horses but then the glaring third option would be sticking out and seemed logical to "insure". Again, it's probably best to ignore these, but if $200 to get back $1000 also kept me from getting frustrated and throwing away $1000 the next day, I deemed it worth it. Stronger and wiser gamblers wouldn't, but that's why they're pros and I work full time.

[maddog42]

Hedging usually dilutes your profit. If I have a horse that is 15-1,and should be 6-1, then a straight $2 exacta from the favorite to my horse is still an overlay, usually. Cramer calls this the "exacta as place" bet. He says it has proven better than a place bet over the long haul. I agree.

[Light]

Hedging only dilutes your profit in a utopian world where everything you bet either wins or is out of the money.Otherwise in a real world it can increase your overall ROI since our choices run 2nd more than win which we all know is a fact.

Here's the math.This only applies in betting "bombs". Using $10 to win and $5 in exacta hedging bets to cover my bomb in case he runs 2nd.

Lets say I hedge 100 of my bombs to run 2nd @$5 each hedge. Investment $500. Lets say 20 of them run second, (only 10 winning). The minimum payout I would expect is $50 for $1. That's with one of the first 2 chalks winning in a modest size field. But lets stay conservative and say our payout is on average $50. $50*20hits =$1000. Investment is $500. Profit is $500 from hedging.It has taken nothing away from my win bets. It has only increased my overall ROI and my sanity because now I am not hitting only 10% to win but 30% to win or place.

The point is as long as you make a profit from the type of bet you make, even if it is betting against another bet you made,it is NOT hedging,it is a form of Dutching. And there are ways as described above that it does NOT DILUTE, but INCREASES profit.Yes,the world is not flat.

[sovereign]

I don't like hedging. It means you are second-guessing yourself. If you are second-guessing and/or indecisive, then the bet should not have been made in the first place.

[Jeff P]

Are you keeping records? If you are - and if you have put some thought into the way your records are set up - chances are answers to the types of questions raised in this thread aren't that tough to come by.

One piece of my own wager history is a data field designed to capture the reason I have for making each bet. (In JCapper, this is called a short description.) The shortDescription field in the WagerHistory table stores a user defined string of text characters. The player has the ability to set up unique short description codes ahead of time - one short description for each reason the player has for making a bet. Then during record keeping, the player can tag each bet with the appropriate short description code.

This enables generation of wager history reports that allow the player to evaluate performance of the reasons each bet was made. (The player can evaluate wager history with the data broken out by the many other data points captured in the WagerHistory table as well.)

Bets made for like reasons can be reported on separately. Once sufficient wager history has been amassed, strong reasons for making a bet are readily identified (as are weak reasons.) From there, corrective action can be taken as needed.

I discovered (at least as relates to my own betting) that hedge or insurance bets were costing me money. Once I began analyzing my own wager history this fact became clear to me. I cast the psychological reasons I had for hedging aside and stopped making hedge bets. From that point forward, the bottom line saw noticeable improvement.

For me that was the right move to make.

Another player structuring p3, p4, p5 etc. tickets differently than myself - and structuring insurance tickets differently, and doing record keeping differently too - might very well arrive at a completely different conclusion about hedging than I did.



-jp

.

[cj]

Originally Posted by Jeff P

I discovered (at least as relates to my own betting) that hedge or insurance bets were costing me money. Once I began analyzing my own wager history this fact became clear to me. I cast the psychological reasons I had for hedging aside and stopped making hedge bets. From that point forward, the bottom line saw noticeable improvement.

I think the vast majority of people will find the same exact thing you did if they keep accurate records. I've also never found that hedging by playing your choice in exactas in the two hole was any better than betting the horse to place long term, UNLESS you could confidently throw out a few low priced horses on top. I find those situations pretty rare.

[Maximillion]

Originally Posted by cj

I think the vast majority of people will find the same exact thing you did if they keep accurate records. I've also never found that hedging by playing your choice in exactas in the two hole was any better than betting the horse to place long term, UNLESS you could confidently throw out a few low priced horses on top. I find those situations pretty rare.

I agree with this...... but if your bet is a potential "bomb" (as a previous poster mentioned) imho that calls for either a back-up place bet or some kind of "insurance" exacta play.....

Would be painful to have insights on a 25-1 shot and collect nothing.....
(runs second)

[acorn54]

in my research betting to place on "bombs" returns a negative r.o.i.
plus the fact in the place pool you will almost always be sharing with a lower odds horse thus getting the short end of the stick.

[Maximillion]

Originally Posted by acorn54

in my research betting to place on "bombs" returns a negative r.o.i.
plus the fact in the place pool you will almost always be sharing with a lower odds horse thus getting the short end of the stick.

I guess it would all come down to the % of these "bombs" you have running second and how you felt about the favorite in the given race......

(whether to place bet or exacta play)