A Betfair hedging calculator tells you the exact opposite stake to place so your profit is equal whichever way the market settles — the “green up”. You enter your original back (or lay) odds and stake plus the current opposite price; it returns the hedge stake and your locked profit. Always include your commission rate, or the locked figure will read higher than what actually lands in your account.
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- What hedging means on Betfair
- What a hedging calculator does
- How to use it, step by step
- The formula (so you can check the tool)
- From the desk: greening up a pre-race position
- The commission adjustment
- Partial hedging: not all or nothing
- When to hedge and when to let it run
- Calculators and software
- The verdict
This is a sub of our pillar on Betfair trading tools and calculators, and it's the natural partner to our dutching calculator and lay betting calculator guides. Hedging is the calculation behind the single most satisfying moment in trading — turning a moved price into a guaranteed, all-green profit — so it's worth doing precisely.
What hedging means on Betfair
Hedging means placing an opposing bet to neutralise your exposure, so that instead of an all-or-nothing outcome you lock in the same result whichever way the market goes. If you backed a selection and its price has shortened (your position is in profit on paper), you lay it back at the new, lower price for a stake that spreads your profit evenly across win and lose. The result is the trader's “green screen” — a profit displayed on every runner. It's the same mechanic as greening up, and it's the defining move of swing and scalp trading. You can hedge in either direction — back-then-lay or lay-then-back — and the calculator handles both.
What a hedging calculator does
It answers: given my original bet and the current opposite price, what stake do I place now to make my profit equal across all outcomes? Doing it by eye is possible but error-prone, especially in a fast in-play market, which is why the tool exists. You enter your original odds, original stake, and the current price you can lay (or back) at; it returns the precise hedge stake and the guaranteed profit you'll lock. A good calculator — including the green-up mode in our trading calculator — lets you enter commission so the locked figure is the true net, and trading software does the same calculation instantly with one click.
How to use it, step by step
- Note your original bet. The odds you backed (or laid) at, and your stake — e.g. backed £50 at 4.0.
- Read the current opposite price. The price now available to lay (if you backed) on the ladder — not last traded, the real available price.
- Enter all three into the calculator, plus your commission rate.
- Read the hedge stake and locked profit. The tool gives you the lay stake to place and the equal profit across outcomes.
- Place the hedge at that price. Lay the returned stake at the price you read, and get it matched before the market moves again.
- Confirm the green screen. Your P&L should now show the same profit on every selection. If it doesn't, you part-filled or the price moved — re-run with the price you actually got.
The formula (so you can check the tool)
For a back-then-lay hedge, the lay stake is your original stake multiplied by your back odds, divided by the current lay odds. So a £50 back at 4.0, laying at 3.0, needs a lay stake of (50 × 4.0) / 3.0 = £66.67. Your locked profit (before commission) is the difference between what you'd win and the worst-case outcome, spread evenly — here, the gross green is about £16.67 across all runners. Knowing this lets you sanity-check the tool: if it tells you to lay a stake that's smaller than your original after the price has shortened in your favour, something's wrong. The hedge stake grows as your back odds were higher relative to the current lay price.
The entry: 12 minutes before an afternoon race I backed the favourite for £50 at 4.0, reading steady money coming for it on the ladder.
The move: over the next eight minutes the price firmed to 3.0 available to lay — exactly the downward move I'd anticipated.
The hedge: the calculator said lay £66.67 at 3.0 to green up. (Check: 50 × 4.0 ÷ 3.0 = £66.67.)
The lock: that produced a gross profit of £16.67 on every outcome — whether the favourite won or lost, I banked the same. After 5% commission on the net market win, the real locked figure was £15.83, displayed green across the book.
The lesson: the calculator turned a paper gain into a guaranteed one in seconds, which matters in a moving market where hesitation costs ticks. But note: had I not hedged and the favourite won at 4.0, I'd have made £150 — hedging traded that upside for certainty. That's the real decision the calculator can't make for you: lock £15.83 now, or risk it for the bigger win. The tool does the maths; the judgement is yours.
The commission adjustment
This is the step that trips people up. Betfair charges commission on net market winnings, so the gross green the basic formula gives you is slightly higher than what lands in your account. On the example above, £16.67 gross became £15.83 after 5% — a small haircut, but on tight scalps where you're greening up two or three ticks of profit, commission can be a meaningful slice of a thin margin. Always enter your real rate (use your discount rate if you have one), and be aware that some calculators show gross by default. The “green screen” you see in trading software is usually already net of your set commission rate; a generic web calculator may not be.
Partial hedging: not all or nothing
You don't have to green up evenly across all outcomes — you can hedge partially, leaving some upside on the selection you fancy while reducing risk. Say you backed a horse and it's shortened; instead of a full green, you might lay enough to recover your stake and bank a small profit if it loses, while still keeping a larger profit if it wins. Many calculators and all serious trading software let you choose how to distribute the position — full green, green on one side, or anything between. Partial hedging is how experienced traders express “I'm fairly confident but want to protect myself”, rather than the binary of full hedge or no hedge. It's a more nuanced use of the same tool.
When to hedge and when to let it run
Hedging is right when your edge was the price move rather than the outcome — in scalping and swing trading you're trading the price, so locking the profit the moment the move completes is the whole point. It's also right whenever the guaranteed profit matters more to you than the larger uncertain one, or when you've no strong view on the final result. Letting it run is better when your edge is genuinely in the outcome — you backed the selection because you think it'll win, the price move is incidental, and hedging would throw away the edge you actually had. The mistake beginners make is hedging trades where they had a real outcome opinion (capping their winners) and letting run the trades where they only had a price view (turning small locked profits into losses when the price reverses). Know which kind of trade you're in before you decide.
Calculators and software
For occasional hedging, our free trading calculator with its green-up mode and commission field is all you need, and the free tools list covers the alternatives. For active trading, dedicated software is transformative: Bet Angel and the tools in our software rankings show your green-up figure live on the ladder and let you hedge with a single click at the best available price, which in a fast market is the difference between locking your profit and watching it slip. If you hedge in-running regularly, one-click greening in software pays for itself; for pre-race or occasional use, the calculator is fine.
The verdict
A hedging calculator is a two-minute skill that turns paper profit into a guaranteed green screen, and the only ways to get it wrong are using a price you can't actually get, forgetting commission, or hedging the wrong kind of trade. Feed it real available prices and your true commission rate, and it'll lock your profit precisely. But remember the calculator only does the arithmetic — the judgement of whether to lock in certainty or let a genuine outcome edge run is yours, and getting that decision right matters more than the maths. Start with the calculator and the green-up guide.
Hedging yourself versus using Cash Out
Betfair offers a one-button Cash Out feature that does something similar to hedging — it offers to settle your position for a figure now — and it's worth understanding why serious traders almost always hedge manually instead. Cash Out is convenient, but it calculates the offer using prices Betfair selects and builds in a margin, so the figure you're offered is typically slightly worse than what you'd lock by laying off yourself at the live market price. On a single casual bet that small difference may not matter; across hundreds of trades it's a meaningful, avoidable leak. Hedging manually with a calculator or trading software puts you in control of the exact price you green up at, lets you choose partial hedges Cash Out won't offer, and shows you transparently what you're locking and what you're giving up. The rule of thumb: use Cash Out only when you can't access the market to hedge yourself (away from your screen, a fast in-play moment you can't trade); the rest of the time, lay off manually at the real price and keep the margin Cash Out would have taken. Knowing the difference is part of trading the exchange like a trader rather than a punter.
Hedging in-running: the part that goes wrong
Hedging a pre-race position is calm and forgiving; hedging in-running is where the locked profit you see on screen turns out not to be locked at all, and it's worth being honest about why. In a fast in-play market — a football match around a goal, a horse race in-running — the price you read and the price you actually get can differ, because between you reading the ladder and your hedge matching, the market has moved and the in-play delay has done its work. The green figure the calculator showed assumed you'd match at that price; if you don't, your real lock is different, sometimes materially. This is why in-running hedging rewards fast tools and pre-planned exits: decide before the event what price you'll hedge at and what each scenario means, so you're executing a plan rather than calculating under pressure while the price runs away from you. It's also why position size matters so much in-play — a liability you can comfortably cover is one you can hedge calmly; one that's too big for your bank turns every in-running tick into a panic. Use the deep liquidity of major markets to keep your exits realistic, size for the bad case, and treat the calculator's number as a target you're aiming for, not a guarantee you've already banked until the hedge is matched.
A worked lay-then-back hedge
Hedging works just as well when you opened with a lay, and it's worth a quick worked example because the direction confuses beginners. Say you laid a selection at 2.5 for £40 (liability £60), expecting its price to drift, and it duly drifted to 3.5 available to back. To lock an equal profit you now back it at the higher price, and the calculator gives the back stake as your lay stake × lay odds ÷ current back odds = 40 × 2.5 ÷ 3.5 = £28.57. That spreads roughly £11.43 of gross profit across all outcomes — about £10.86 after 5% commission on the net win. The principle is symmetrical with the back-then-lay case: you opened one side, the price moved your way, and you close the opposite side for a stake sized to equalise the book. Whether you started by backing or laying, the calculator handles the direction; your job is to read the real available price, include commission, and decide whether locking the certain profit beats letting your original swing run. Practise both directions until the back-then-lay and lay-then-back maths feel automatic, because in a moving market you won't have time to think about which way round you are.
Hedging locks in a profit (or limits a loss) but only at the price you can actually get — in fast in-play markets prices move before you're matched, so the locked figure isn't guaranteed until the hedge is filled. Most traders lose money overall and past results don't guarantee future returns. 18+ only; help at BeGambleAware.org.
Try the green-up mode in our free calculator, then practise hedging real positions on small stakes before you rely on it in-running.
Open the Calculator Open Betfair Account →FAQ
How does a Betfair hedging calculator work?
You enter your original bet (odds and stake) and the current opposite price available, and it returns the exact lay or back stake to place so your profit is equal across all outcomes — the green screen. For a back-then-lay hedge it uses: lay stake = original stake × back odds ÷ current lay odds. Add your commission rate for the true net figure.
What is greening up on Betfair?
Greening up is hedging a position that's moved in your favour so you show the same profit on every outcome. After backing a selection whose price has shortened, you lay it at the lower price for a calculated stake, locking in a guaranteed profit whichever way the market settles. It's the defining move of scalping and swing trading.
Do I pay commission when I hedge on Betfair?
Yes. Commission applies to your net market winnings, so the gross profit the basic hedge formula shows is slightly higher than what you actually keep. Always enter your real commission rate (use your discount rate if you have one) — on tight scalps the commission can be a meaningful slice of a thin locked profit.
Should I always hedge to lock in profit?
No. Hedge when your edge was the price move (scalping, swing trading) or when certainty matters more than a bigger uncertain win. Let it run when your edge is genuinely in the outcome — hedging then just caps a winner you had a real opinion on. Know which kind of trade you're in before deciding.
Related reading
Pair this with the dutching calculator and lay betting calculator, read the full trading tools pillar, and master the live skill with our green-up guide and scalping strategy. The cash out vs green up comparison is also worth a read.