It's the first day of this year's Cheltenham Festival, and all was well in the world. My good mood wasn't just caused by the return of my favourite race meet, but also in large part because a tasty 86/1 accumulator, placed before The Festival commenced, was looking in fine shape.
Douvan had snatched the lead and held to win the opening Supreme Novices Hurdle, before Un de Sceaux, Faugheen and Vautour also triumphed – 4/4 so far! As the winning combination of Willie Mullins and Ruby Walsh combined again with Annie Power for the Mare's Hurdle, I was already mentally spending the approximate £1200 my £15 stake would have returned. As Annie Power charged towards victory, my dreamchaser accumulator was surely about to bear fruit. Annie Power turns into the home straight, one hurdle to go and in play markets have Annie Power at 1.04; my 86/1 shot was now at 1/25. Time to trade out, you might think, had I placed my bet online with a bookmaker that would allow the option. Then the worst happens; Annie Power neglects to jump the final hurdle and fell. Was it my hubris? The guiding hand of fate? Or simply pure bad luck? All I knew was that I wanted that nag turned into glue forthwith.
My predicament was by no means a unique one. In fact, I'm sure thousands of gamblers wrestled with the idea of “trading out”, a facility many online bookmakers now offer. Pure mathematical logic would dictate that trading out is rarely a good idea; this is because the bookmaker will take a commission on your trade out, meaning you win less than you “should” in those situations.
But that logic can be wrong in many situations. The mathematics of Expected Value, odds and outs don't take into account that sometimes the bet entails significant, even life changing money. It is perfectly logical for risk averse humans to pay a small price for a now certain outcome. To put it another way, as Annie Power charged home I effectively had a £1150 bet on a 1/25 shot which I would clearly never contemplate placing otherwise. In one well publicised case, a gambler declined a £16,000 trade out on a 100,000/1 shot FA Cup accumulator; only for dreams to be shattered as Liverpool and Bolton drew.
That unfortunate man may have rejected the offer of £16,000 as it priced Bolton at a stupidly long 60/1 to win. However most online bookmakers offer significantly better cash out outs, especially Betsafe; who have become my go to bookmaker since the Cheltenham debacle.
Which brings us to the other reason you might trade out, if you think the odds to do so are actually in your favour. Admittedly, the bookies rarely get their prices very wrong; but in the dying seconds of an FA Cup slugfest is it really possible to accurately price a last second dose of Cup magic?
Trading out is becoming an increasingly common option, which will always be more tempting when the price is large. Of course your decisions on betting are entirely personal, but don't let anyone tell you trading out is somehow foolish. Perhaps you think my defence of the practice is sour grapes after a near miss, but in truth it can sometimes be the right decision!
