Tuesday Tool Series #2: Hedge Finder
How to hedge a bet, and what a free bet is actually worth.
The moment this tool exists for
You have a ticket open and the game has not started yet. Maybe you got a good number three days ago and the line has moved two goals in your favor. Maybe it is the last leg of a parlay and the other four have already hit. Maybe a book dropped a $50 free bet in your account after you deposited, and you know that if you just fire it at a coinflip you are throwing most of it away, but you are not sure what the alternative is.
All three are the same problem. You are holding a position that pays one way and pays nothing the other way, and there is a price somewhere out there on the opposite side that would turn "pays one way" into "pays either way." The question is only which price, at which book, and how much to put on it.
Most people answer that question badly. They open whichever app they already have installed, take whatever the opposite side is showing, and never find out that a different book was paying meaningfully more for the exact same protection. The hedge is the part of betting where shopping matters most, because you are not guessing at an outcome anymore. You are buying a fixed thing, and fixed things have a best price.
What the Hedge Finder does
It holds live moneyline prices from 19 sportsbooks and prediction market exchanges at once, including Kalshi, Polymarket, ProphetX, and Novig, and it searches all of them for the price that best protects whatever you already hold. You do not type the odds in. You tell it what you have, and it finds the other side.
It runs seven modes, all on the same engine:
- Hedge a Bet. You have an open cash bet and want a guaranteed result.
- Free Bet to Cash. You have a free bet and want the most cash out of it.
- Profit Boost. You have a boosted price and want to lock the boost instead of hoping.
- No-Sweat Bet. You have a bonus-back offer and want the highest guaranteed value from it.
- Wager Requirement. You have a playthrough to clear and want to clear it for the least expected loss.
- Parlay Hedge. You have two or more legs still live and want either the biggest sequential lock or an immediate floor.
- Futures Hedge. You hold an outright and want to back the rest of the field at each team's best price.
Its sibling, Arb Scan, does the reverse: it hunts brand new two-sided positions rather than protecting one you already have. Everything runs client side over the live board, so there is no signup and nothing to install.
A real conversion, start to finish
These are live numbers. I pulled the board at 8:21 a.m. ET on Tuesday, August 4, 2026, and the board itself was refreshed at 8:01 a.m. ET that morning. Prices move. Yours will not match these exactly, and that is the point of a live tool.
The setup: a $50 free bet sitting in a DraftKings account. Stake not returned, which is how nearly every free bet works. If it wins at +100, you collect $50, not $100.
Here is what most people do with it. They put it on tonight's Blue Jays at Astros game, where DraftKings has Toronto at +109. Hedge the Astros at the best available price, which was Novig at -120, and the free bet converts to $24.77 guaranteed, or 49.5 cents on the dollar.
Here is what the scan actually returned as the top row. WNBA, Toronto Tempo at Golden State Valkyries, 10:00 p.m. ET. DraftKings had the Tempo at +600. The Valkyries were available on the other side across the whole board, and the ladder of prices, best to worst, looked like this:
| Book | Valkyries price | Hedge stake | You keep, either way | Conversion |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ProphetX | -674 | $261.24 | $38.76 | 77.5% |
| Novig | -700 | $262.50 | $37.50 | 75.0% |
| Polymarket | -772 | $265.60 | $34.40 | 68.8% |
| Kalshi | -788 | $266.22 | $33.78 | 67.6% |
| Bally Bet | -835 | $267.91 | $32.09 | 64.2% |
| Hard Rock Bet | -850 | $268.42 | $31.58 | 63.2% |
| DraftKings, FanDuel, Fanatics, Caesars | -900 | $270.00 | $30.00 | 60.0% |
| BetRivers | -910 | $270.30 | $29.70 | 59.4% |
| theScore Bet | -1000 | $272.73 | $27.27 | 54.5% |
| BetMGM | -1100 | $275.00 | $25.00 | 50.0% |
Two things fall out of that table.
The game you pick matters more than anything else. The same $50 credit was worth $24.77 on the near coinflip and $38.76 on the longshot. That is a 56% swing, and it comes entirely from the shape of the market, not from anyone's read on the games.
Where you hedge matters second, and it is not small. Same free bet, same game, same side: $38.76 at the top of the ladder and $25.00 at the bottom. That is $13.76 handed over for placing an identical bet at a different app. If you only hold major sportsbook apps and no exchange account, your realistic best was Bally Bet at -835 for $32.09, still $7 better than the worst row.
The honest part. Locking $38.76 required putting $261.24 of real cash on the Valkyries. If that money is not sitting in your account, the top row is not available to you and the tool will happily show you a row you cannot place. The conversion rate is a rate, not a free lunch, and the bankroll cost climbs fast as the free bet side gets longer.
How to use it
Step one: pick your mode. Free Bet to Cash for a credit, Hedge a Bet for real money already down, Parlay Hedge for a live ticket, Futures Hedge for an outright.
Step two: tell it where the money is. The book dropdown asks which sportsbook the free bet, boost, or original wager sits at, because that is the price it has to work with on your side.
Step three: enter the amount. The stake on the free bet, or the stake and price on an open cash bet.
Step four: choose your books. The chips across the top control which books can supply the hedge. Turn off anything you do not have an account with, because a $38.76 lock at a book you cannot bet at is worth nothing. Books that are not legal in your state are already filtered out for you.
Step five: read the ladder and place in order. Results are ranked best to worst with the exact stake for each row. Place the value side first, then the hedge immediately, because the hedge price is the one that can move against you while you are typing.
The math, in one line
A free bet returns winnings only, so a stake S at decimal odds Dv collects S x (Dv - 1) if it lands. To collect the same figure when it does not, you need a hedge stake H at decimal odds Dh where H x Dh equals that number. So:
Run the example. A $50 free bet at +600 is Dv = 7.00, so the win side pays $300. The best hedge, ProphetX at -674, is Dh = 1.1484. That gives H = 300 / 1.1484 = $261.24, and $300 minus $261.24 is $38.76. Check the other branch: the hedge wins $261.24 x 0.1484 = $38.76. Identical, which is what "guaranteed" means.
Every other mode is the same equation with a different definition of what the value side pays. A cash bet returns stake plus winnings, so its numerator is S x Dv. A boost multiplies the winnings before the split. A no-sweat bet adds the recovery percentage back on the losing branch. Same skeleton, different top line. The full write-up of how we price every market, including how exchange fees are handled, is on the methodology page.
What this does not do
Nobody publishes this section. Here it is anyway.
It does not tell you whether to hedge. If your original bet had an edge, hedging gives that edge away in exchange for certainty. That can be exactly the right trade, and it can also be a slow leak. The tool sizes the lock. It does not have an opinion on whether you should want one.
It cannot see inside your accounts. It does not know your balance, your limits, or whether a book has already restricted you. The top row of a scan is regularly a hedge you do not have the cash or the account to place.
Exchange prices are quoted as a $100 fill. ProphetX, Novig, Kalshi, and Polymarket prices on our board are the executable price for $100 walked down the order book, not top of book dust. A $261 hedge is not $100. It may fill worse, or partially, or not at all. Treat exchange rows at the top of a ladder as a price to go check, not a price you already have.
It does not read your free bet's fine print. Minimum odds restrictions, market restrictions, expiry dates, and partial cash-out rules vary by book and by promo. The math assumes a plain stake-not-returned credit. Read the terms.
It is a snapshot. Every price on the page came from a scan that already happened. Between reading a row and placing the second leg, the number can move, and on a longshot it can move a lot. Re-check both prices before you fire.
Postponements and voids break the pair. If one leg is voided and the other stands, you are not hedged. You are one-sided with real money down.
It does not handle three-way markets. A soccer match with a live draw has three outcomes, and a two-leg hedge does not cover the third.
It does not place bets, and it does not do your taxes. The links take you to the book. Everything after that is you.
Run your own hedge
Free, no signup, live prices from 19 books and exchanges. Tell it what you hold and it finds the best price on the other side.
Open the Hedge Finder →Prices pulled at 8:21 a.m. ET on August 4, 2026, off a board refreshed at 8:01 a.m. ET. Lines move, and on a longshot they move fast, so re-check both prices before you place. Exchange prices (ProphetX, Novig, Kalshi, Polymarket) are quoted as the executable fill for a real $100 order, after fees, and a larger hedge may fill worse, partially, or not at all. See the methodology for how every market is priced, and always verify odds before placing any bet.