I'm in a season long NFL pick'em pool where if the Falcons lose & the Pats win, I win. If the Falcons win, I lose. If the Falcons lose & the Pats lose, I lose.

I'm trying to figure out how to maximize my payout while also guaranteeing a positive payout in all scenarios. I'm struggling with the math behind it so figured I'd start here...maybe this would make for a good discussion & explanation on the show as part of the Math topic of the week? Or as another chapter in DUCY?

Here are the details...

1. Pool buy-in was $50 with 10 players so I stand to win $450 (plus initial buy in)
2. Atlanta to win straight up is currently about -195
3. Parlay for Atlanta to lose and the Pats to lose is about +675

Is this the right way to be modeling this out? And if so, how can I figure out the optimal bets for #2 & #3 (in yellow below)? Finally, since the straight up bet for Atlanta is so low I'm considering not placing it...if I do that, what's the optimal bet for just #3?



FYI:
- Amt = The bet size
- Win = What the total payout (bet + wining amount) would be if that scenario won
- Net Win = Win less Total amount of all 3 bets

I'm of the firm belief that hedging sports bets is a bad idea, unless it's for a life changing amount of money.

Most of the time you just end up paying more juice.

Fair enough...out of curiosity, outside of the extra juice any other reason to avoid hedging?

So you can win more than ~200. If the min win isn't life changing then yolo

That went well...

Adam & Co - I ended up taking your advice and not hedging and the Falcons ended up blowing out the Packers so no payday. I didn't care as much as I thought I would to be honest so appreciate the advice to just let it ride (as it's far from life changing $$).

I agree in the podcast that if you're doing a parlay I wouldn't hedge the last game...what felt different in this case was that being Fantasy, there was really one game that was going to decide it and I had the heavy underdog in it.

I wonder if a better analogy would have been me heads up facing a chip deficit, in which case I would have been better off trying to make a deal with the other guy I was up against (if I did want to ensure winning something).