How to Hedge on Polymarket and Lock In Profit (Step-by-Step)

Every Polymarket match has two sides, and when it ends exactly one of them pays $1 a share. Hold one share of each side and you're paid $1 whoever wins. That's how you hedge on Polymarket. Once the price has moved your way, buy the other side, and the profit is locked in whichever side wins. Then merge each pair back into $1 of cash, without waiting for the result. This guide shows the maths on a real match, when a hedge is worth it, the mistakes that cost money, and how to do all of it in the OddsFantasy trading terminal.

What does hedging mean on Polymarket?

Hedging means buying the other side of a market you already hold, so your result no longer depends on who wins. A Polymarket share pays $1 if its outcome happens and nothing if it doesn't. In a two-sided market such as a match winner, one share of each side is a pair, and a pair always pays exactly $1.

So the question is what the pair cost you:

• Under $1: the difference is your locked-in profit, on every pair.
• About $1: you get your money back and nothing more.
• Over $1: you've locked in a loss.

A real example: Eternal Fire vs Astralis

On 29 October 2026, Counter-Strike's Eternal Fire played Astralis, best of three. These are real Polymarket prices from that night:

• Before the start: about 63¢ · about 38¢
• Astralis behind in map 1 (19:07 UTC): 50¢ · about 50¢
• Astralis won map 1 (19:15-19:20 UTC): 84¢ · about 16¢
• An hour later (20:08 UTC): 58¢ · 42¢

Say you bought 16 Astralis shares at 50¢, $8 in all, while they were behind. Ten minutes later they were at 84¢. If you'd bought 16 Eternal Fire shares then, at about 16¢, each pair would have cost 50¢ + 16¢ = 66¢, and paid $1. That's 34¢ locked in on every pair, about $5.44 on 16 pairs, whichever team won.

An hour later the price had swung back. A hedge at that point cost 42¢ a share: 50¢ + 42¢ = 92¢ a pair, 8¢ locked in. That's about $1 on the position after the hedge's fee. Still a profit, but most of the move had gone.

Then Eternal Fire came back and won the series 2-1. Unhedged, the $8 on Astralis was lost. Hedged, the pairs still paid out, and the profit was already locked in.

When does a hedge lock in a profit?

Only after the price has moved your way. Before the match, both sides together cost about $1 plus the spread (63¢ + 38¢ = $1.01 here), so a hedge then locks in a small loss. The bigger the move in your favour, the cheaper the other side gets, and the more each pair locks in.

How to hedge a position in OddsFantasy

1. Find the position. Open Trade, then the Positions tab. OddsFantasy shows the entry as odds: odds of 2.00 is a price of 50¢ (one divided by the odds). The row's "Sell @ 2.00" is the ticket's word for buying a team at those odds. A red dot on the position means it's unhedged.
2. Buy the other side. Click the match's name on the position row, then the other team's price on the match page. In the example that was Eternal Fire at 2.38 odds, about 42¢. Type a stake that buys the same number of shares you hold: 16 shares × 42¢ = $6.73. Then press the Eternal Fire button. It's a market order, so it fills straight away at the price you see.
3. Check both dots are green. Back in Positions you hold both teams, and both dots turn green: hedged. Green means every result pays at least what the pairs cost. Each row's "potential profit" is that team winning on its own, so don't add the two up.

How to merge the pair back into cash

You don't have to wait for the result. A merge turns each pair straight back into $1 of collateral.

1. Click Close on either team and open the Merge tab. Max mergeable is the number of complete pairs, here 16.
2. Press Merge. Each pair comes back as $1, so 16 pairs return $16 (a little less once the hedge's fee has trimmed the shares it bought). A merge isn't a trade, so there's no trading fee.
3. To merge every hedged pair you hold at once, open Actions and choose Merge.

For bots, open Auto exits in Positions, create a preset, and on the Live step tick Merge hedged positions after kickoff. Any pairs your bot ends up holding in a live match are merged into cash for you.

Four mistakes that cost money

1. Hedging before the price moves. Both sides cost about $1 plus the spread, so the hedge locks in a loss.
2. Matching dollars instead of shares. $8 on Eternal Fire at 42¢ buys about 19 shares. Then an Astralis win pays $16 on $16 spent: that side locked in nothing. Match the shares, and both results pay the same.
3. Waiting for a better price in play. Prices swing every round or every goal. At 84¢ the hedge locked 34¢ a pair; an hour later it locked 8¢. When the pair costs well under $1, lock it.
4. Holding both sides until the end. Once a market is resolved, merging is no longer possible. You redeem the winning side instead, and that waits for Polymarket to settle it. Merge while the match is still live.

What a hedge costs you

A hedge caps the upside. Unhedged, an Astralis win would have paid $16 on $8. Hedged, you take the locked amount whichever team wins. The hedge leg is a market order, so it pays Polymarket's taker fee and OddsFantasy's builder fee. The ticket's profit and loss figures already include those fees. See Polymarket fees explained for the numbers.

If you'd rather exit at a set time than hedge, Polymarket auto sell closes a position whenever you choose. For trading during a match, see Polymarket live trading.

Trade responsibly

Prediction markets carry real risk. Only stake what you can afford to lose, you must be 18 or over, and check that Polymarket is available where you live.