What Is Cash Out?

What Is Cash Out?

Cash out is the ability for you, as a sports bettor, to take a return on your bet before it has finished. You can normally cash out your bet at most times during a game, whether it is winning or losing, however there are times where you might not be able to cash out your bet, for example in the last few seconds of a game when a sportsbook might not want to offer you the option of cashing out losing bets.

When Can Cash Out Be Used?

You can normally cash out your bets whether they are winning or losing.

Your bet does not have to be winning for you to cash out and retrieve some of your wager amount back. For example, you wager a bet on Man Utd to beat Chelsea and 70 minutes have been played and the score is 0-0. The sportsbook would offer you a pay out in return for you to end your bet at 70 minutes. Invariably you would probably get less than your total wager amount back in this scenario (unless for some reason there was a higher chance of Man Utd winning the game after 70 minutes than there was at the start of the match - for example, Chelsea may have had a player sent off).

Cashing out while your bets are not winning is a good way to cut your losses and at least retrieve some of your wager amount back if you do not think your bet has a good chance of winning.

Cashing Out While Winning

Cashing out your bet while it is winning may seem like a strange thing to do, but you have always got to remember that things can change rapidly in soccer.

A large percentage of goals are actually scored between 80 minutes and full time. Check out our analysis of when goals are scored in the English Premier League this season. It is surprising that such a disproportionate number of goals are scored late in the game. However, when you think about it, the last 10 minutes of a game is invariably not 10 minutes because it contains injury time.

Given that relatively more goals are scored later in games than earlier, cashing out while you are winning is always something to think about.

Is Cash Out Worth It?

Cash out effectively gives you a quick and easy way of placing bets on all other selections in a given market to give you a guaranteed return. So, for example, if you have backed Man Utd to beat Chelsea then by cashing out the sportsbook is effectively calculating the bets required on Chelsea and Tie (or put a different way, the probability of the game ending in a Tie or Chelsea win) to give you an early pay out. Given that knowledge, there are probably better ways to cash out yourself in that you do not have to back every possible selection in a given market.

In the above example, if Man Utd were winning 1-0 at 70 minutes then you might cover other scenarios, such as the tie, but not back Chelsea at all. This method is more risky, but it would give you a higher return than cashing out. You could also weight your wager amount on the tie to mean that if the game ends a tie then you will break even, maintaining most of your winnings on the Man Utd win.

The Verdict? - Cash Out is definitely still a very useful feature, and when betting in game it may be the best option to use when you have to make quick decisions before odds, and the game change. Backing other selections in a market to reduce your risk as a game progresses is another method that can be used, but unlike cash back it does not instantly give you funds back into your account to bet with further in game.