HEDGE YOUR BETS.

Hedge your bets

Meaning

To avoid committing oneself; to leave a means of retreat open.

Origin

Hedge has been used as a verb in English since at least the 16th
century, with the meaning of 'equivocate; avoid commitment'. An
example of this comes in Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor, 1598:

"I, I, I myself sometimes, leaving the fear of God on the left hand
and hiding mine honour in my necessity, am fain to shuffle, to hedge
and to lurch ."

It began to be used in relation to financial transactions, in which a
loan was secured by including it in a larger loan, in the early 17th
century. Initially, the phrase associated with this form of hedging
was 'hedging one's debts', for example, John Donne's Letters to Sir
Henry Goodyere, circa 1620:

"You think that you have Hedged in that Debt by a greater, by your
Letter in Verse."

'Hedging one's bets' was coined later in that century. It referred to
the laying off of a bet by taking out smaller bets with other lenders.
The purpose of this was to avoid being unable to pay out on the
original larger bet. The phrase was first used by George Villiers, the
2nd Duke of Buckingham, in his satirical play The Rehearsal, 1672:

"Now, Criticks, do your worst, that here are met; For, like a Rook, I
have hedg'd in my Bet."

The verb 'to hedge' derives from the noun hedge, i.e. a fence made
from a row of bushes or trees. These hedges were normally made from
the spiny Hawthorn, which makes an impenetrable hedge when laid. To
hedge a piece of land was to limit it in terms of size and that this
gave rise to the 'secure, limited risk' meaning. Hedge funds, much in
the news nowadays, take their name from their method of limiting, i.e.
hedging, their risk.

Curiously, the original examples of another financial device currently
newsworthy i.e. stocks, were literally made from material that was
taken from hedges. In the 17th century, the tally that recorded a
payment to the English Exchequer was a rough stick of about an inch in
diameter, split along its length. One half, the stock, was given as a
receipt to the person making the payment; the other half, the
counterfoil, was kept by the Exchequer. Ownership of payments that
were made jointly by a group were shared among the members of
so-called joint stock companies, hence stocks and shares.