Protection bets (for lack of a better name)

[Tripod]

Was wondering if any of you guys do this? Basically, it's just a way to minimize your losses on very bad nights of betting by doing parlays of the opposite of what you bet.

For example, for 121, I bet:
Cain win: $50 @+150
Hammil/Ortiz dec: $150 @ -150
Sheilds/Kamp dec: $102 @ -170
Paul Taylor win: $50 @ +155
Cain win dec: $25 @ +1133

For a total of $377 at stake. It's not likely given my (our) MMA knowledge, but on a bad night where I lose all of them...that's shitty. And can definitely happen eventually. So I did this:

Parlay:
Brock win, Hammil/Ortiz not distance, Shields/Kamp not distance, Stout win (I ignored the cain dec win). I put down $13 for a chance to win about $210.

Do you guys consider this good practice? Too unlikely to have any merit/use? A must for serious betting? Opinions? Discuss.

[bail3yz]

I dont do this.. I think its unnecessary...
I cant think of the # of times Ive had 5+ bets and lost them all..

So really I just see it as lower good nights.. and making bad nights worse.. as bad nights you are still likely to hit one bet

$13 for that parlay.. would mean you lose all your bets ~6%.. that isnt +EV

Even if all 4 of your individual bets only had 50% chance of winning (obviously you think they have higher then 50% otherwise you wouldnt bet on them)... 0.5 ^ 4 = 0.0625 ... so 6.25%.. so its barely break even at 50% chance

If you gave them a 60% chance of winning... 40% chance of losing... 0.4^4 ... 0.0256 ... 2.56%

In the end, I wouldnt worry about protecting yourself from variance.. just worry about making good bets.. and think long term.

[Tripod]

Yeah, this is a strategy I read about for football betting for betting the point spread and is probably a lot more applicable to that than to MMA betting.

[Aaron]

don't like this at all