Cash Out and Hedge Calculator
A live ticket is worth its payout times its chance of winning now. A $100 bet at +300 pays $400, so at an 80% chance it is worth $320, and a $300 cash out offer takes about 6% off that. Type your bet, the live odds and the offer to see the cut, and whether a bet on the other side locks in more.
Price the cash out, then the hedge
A cash out offer is the ticket's payout times its chance of winning now, less a cut the book keeps. Type the bet, the live prices and the offer to see the cut, and whether a bet on the other side locks in more.
Your bet
American odds. For a parlay, type its combined odds.
Now
With both sides the book's margin is taken out of the chance. The other side's price is also what a hedge would get.
Cash out, hedge or let it ride
Profit is against your original stake. A hedge is a second bet at the other side's live price, so it pays that market's margin too; a cash out request can also be delayed and rejected if the odds move meanwhile, under DraftKings' house rules. Letting it ride is the average over many such bets at the chance above, not what this one will do.
How is a cash out offer worked out?
Books do not publish their formula, but the guides that have worked it back agree on its shape: the ticket's payout times its current chance of winning, which Boyd's Bets calls fair value, less a margin the book keeps. The chance comes from the live market. Turn your side's live price into a percentage (a minus price: the number over itself plus 100; a plus price: 100 over the number plus 100), do the same for the other side, and divide each by the two added together so they make 100%. That takes the book's margin out, which is what the calculator does when you give it both prices.
The haircut is one minus the offer divided by fair value. BettingUSA calls a haircut under 2% to 3% convenience pricing and anything above 5% to 7% a meaningful cut; its own worked example came out at about 11%.
| Case | Payout | Chance now | Fair value | Offer | Haircut |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Boyd's Bets: underdog up 15 at halftime | $400 | 80% | $320 | $300 | 6.25% |
| The calculator's start: live -400 / +300 | $400 | 76.2% | $304.76 | $280 | 8.1% |
Your own estimate can stand in for the market's: switch the calculator to "My own estimate". If you think the chance is lower than the market does, an offer can be worth more than the ticket to you, and that is the one case where taking a cut still makes sense on the numbers.
When does a hedge beat the cash out?
A hedge is a bet on the other side at its live price. Bet the payout divided by the other side's decimal odds, and you collect the same whichever side wins. In the calculator's example, $100 on the other side at +300 returns $400 if it wins, the same $400 your ticket returns if yours does, so $200 profit is locked in either way, against $180 from the $280 cash out. A hedge pays the live market's margin too, and it needs a second bet placed while the price is still there, but when the book's cut on the cash out is bigger than that margin, the hedge locks in more.
The smaller hedge only saves your stake: bet your stake divided by the other side's decimal odds less one. If the other side wins you are back to even; if yours wins you keep most of the profit.
What else should you know before you press it?
- On DraftKings, a bet that can be cashed out shows an amount under the Cash Out tab on My Bets, per its help center.
- Its house rules allow a delay of a length the book sets on a cash out request, and reject the request if the odds move during it. In a fast game the offer you saw may not be the one you get.
- A partial cash out sells part of the ticket and leaves the rest running. The same check applies to the part sold: what share of the payout it is, times the chance, against the offer for it.
- "Let it ride" in the calculator is the average result over many bets like this one at that chance. A single ticket either pays in full or loses.
The method step by step is in when to cash out an NBA live bet; the chance from your own numbers, in positive expected value and how to find it; why a ticket's value swings, in betting variance decoded; and middles, the hedge's cousin, in live betting vs pregame betting.
Sources: Boyd's Bets; BettingUSA; DraftKings, What is Cash Out and house rules (1 Aug 2024). The calculator works only from what is typed in and nothing leaves the page; it is arithmetic, not advice on any bet. Betting is for adults where it is legal in your state (where live betting is legal). If gambling stops being fun, call or text 1-800-MY-RESET.