
Originally Posted by
bigloser
This is not the case. No expectation is given away.
-snip-
I'm afraid I'm going to have to disagree with your analysis on this.
For a player with an appreciable bankroll, the main difficulty with scalping is that limits tend to be quite low in relation to that bankroll. While your argument would make more sense for a sufficiently risk averse bettor wagering in markets with sufficiently high maximum bets, the reality is that most successful scalpers usually operate at a level far below their bankroll capacities.
In other words, while a scalper might wish to lay 100% of his bankroll on a given bet, maximum bet levels may allow him to only lay (let's say) 0.5% of his bankroll. In such a situation, as RickySteve points out, it would be foolish for all but the most risk-averse of bettors to complete the scalp with a negative expectation bet.
In fact, even in the case of a risk averse bettor operating with large limits, a bettor would still be wise to overplay the positive expectation side of the bet. Using your example from above, and assuming sufficiently high betting limits:
A scalper who was uncomfortable taking any betting risk would wager 49.13% of his bankroll on outcome A and 50.87% of his bankroll on outcome B.
However, because nearly all bettors are willing to take on some risk, those bettors would do better wagering more than 49.13% of their bankrolls on outcome A, and the remainder on B.
The point that RickySteve is making is a good one. If a bettor is able to identify the leg of the scalp that contains the value and if he has the stomach to tolerate the bankroll fluctuations (which, given the relatively low limits of most scalp-able bets, most successful scalpers will typically have), then he should completely bypass the hedge portion of the scalp. What's more, even if the bettor is not comfortable taking on the risk of not hedging, he should still bet more on the advantaged leg of the scalp than would be implied by a perfect hedge.