Regardless if you are an experienced, systematic, or occasional bettor, chances are you have come across the option to cash out a bet in your betting journey. As sports betting in SA and most countries worldwide is growing, bettors have more and more opportunities to explore different ways of safeguarding their bankroll and managing their risk exposure.
Bookmakers and betting sites now offer their customers a choice to cash out their bets at any point before the event (upon which a bet has been placed) is over. With this feature, punters can opt for settling a bet before a game’s end or an event’s closure.
When deciding to cash out, bettors will either get back a part of their bet or get up to the point of their projected profits (this point may be close to the end winnings if the bet wins).
What are the pros of cash-out in sports betting?
Why should bettors choose to cash out? What are the benefits offered by this feature provided by sportsbooks? Let’s see the main advantages.
1. Flexibility and control. The cash-out option gives bettors greater flexibility in managing their bets. They can have more control over their wagers, which says a lot about their strategy. If this feature is offered to punters, they can choose when to settle a bet, and this essentially means choosing how much money to get back.
Imagine a bettor placing a wager on a football game’s home team because he believes in the home-field advantage. While he is very confident about his decision in the beginning, the game progresses, and he sees that things might not play out as anticipated. The cash-out option gives this bettor considerable control and the flexibility required to adjust his strategy.
2. Lock-in winnings. When bettors decide to cash out, they often do so because they want to secure winnings from a bet that continues to play out favorably, but it is quite uncertain if it will continue to do so until the end of the event. When things are fluid and volatile, punters can lock in profits without risking their bets up to the end of a game.
3. Cut-down losses. Another important benefit of the cash-out option in sports betting is that it prevents big losses from bets gone “bad.” If bettors have opted for a cash-out of a losing bet feature before a game ends, they have at least managed to cut down on the lost amount wagered. After all, getting part of their money back is always better than getting no money at all.
What are the cons of cash-out in sports betting?
Besides the confidence from flexibility and control and the guaranteed profits from a cashed-out bet or at least the minimization of losses, some dangers are attached to the specific feature.
One of the most critical cons of the cash-out in sports betting is the lost opportunity to realize full winnings. Suppose you cash out when you think it is the best point to get you the optimum winnings because you find your bet less and less likely to win. If, in the end, your bet is a winning one, what you have done has only stopped you from winning all the potential profits coming along with your bet.
While cash-out is used as a strategy to reduce risks, many bettors end up being confronted with limiting their opportunities for bigger winnings and facing a big opportunity cost.
Another limitation of cashing out is that it can’t be used as a strategy for long-term profit-making in sports betting. The thing is that some punters see the cash-out feature as a panacea to losing bets, but it is more like a damage control instead of a betting strategy. You can’t have a long-term profitable betting routine if you only rely on cashing out to minimize risk exposure.
