Dutching For Profit

Dutching For Profit: Your Guide to Backing Multiple Horses and Actually Winning

Horse racing on turf

Ever wondered how to bet on more than one horse in a race and still walk away with a profit when one of them romps home? That's dutching, mate – and it's about to become your new best friend.

Dutching in 60 Seconds

Here's the quick version of how it works:

1. Pick your horses – Choose 2-3 selections you fancy in the same race
2. Grab the odds – Note down the decimal odds for each horse
3. Decide your approach – Equal profit across all winners, or equal return?
4. Work out your stakes – Use a calculator to split your total stake
5. Round your stakes – Adjust to meet minimum stake requirements
6. Double-check everything – Make sure the maths adds up
7. Place your bets – Get them on before the off
8. Keep records – Track what works (and what doesn't)

Why Bother Dutching?

Look, tipsters rarely tell you to back multiple horses. But here's the thing – dutching seriously boosts your strike rate and cuts down those soul-destroying losing runs.

With standard win singles, you're looking at maybe 20-30% winners if you're doing well. That's only 2 or 3 wins out of 10 bets. A few bad runs and your betting bank – not to mention your confidence – takes a proper battering.

Once you get the hang of dutching, your turnover increases and so does the speed at which your bankroll grows. Simple as that.

How to Calculate Your Stakes

The easiest way? Use a dutching calculator like the one below.

It's dead simple:

1. Enter the odds for each of your selections
2. Pop in your total stake for the race
3. The calculator spits out exactly how much to bet on each horse

Boom – you're guaranteed a profit regardless of which selection wins.

But before you start, read below about the Overlay System

Cheltenham Winners Enclosure

Dutching Calculator

Pro tip: If you fancy automating the whole process, check out BF-Bot Manager. They do a free trial, and it's proper useful for getting your bets on quickly.

The Dutch Overlay System: Finding Value Bets

Right, this is where it gets interesting. You can't just dutch any old race – the odds need to be big enough to actually make you money.

Michael Wilding from RaceAdvisor came up with a cracking method called the Dutch Overlay. Here's how it works:

An overlay happens when you reckon a horse's chances are better than what the market thinks. Say you believe it's got a 75% chance of winning, but the odds suggest only 50% – that's an overlay.The Numbers You Need to Know

Stats show that in any horse race:

• The favourite wins about 35% of the time
• Second favourite wins 20%
• Third favourite wins 14%

Add those together, and the top 3 in the market have a 69% chance between them.

Finding the Right Races

To keep things simple when you're starting out, focus on three things:

• Distance
• Going
• Number of runners

For example, you might target 7f races on firm going with 8-9 runners. Historical data shows that in these specific conditions, the top 3 favourites have a 76.3% winning chance – higher than the general 69%.

Once you're comfortable, you can layer on other factors like form, trainer, jockey, whatever floats your boat.

Working Out Your Edge

Here's the process:

1. Find races matching your criteria – 7f, firm going, 8-9 runners (or whatever conditions you're tracking)
2. Check the odds near the off – Grab the decimal odds for the first 3 favourites
3. Convert odds to percentages – Use this formula: % = (1 ÷ decimal odds) × 100
4. Add them up – If the total is less than 76.3%, you've potentially found value
5. Factor in commission – If you're on the exchanges, add about 5% for safety

So you're really looking for a combined percentage of 66.3% or less to give yourself a decent 10% edge.

A Real Example

Let's say you find a race where:

Selection                Decimal Odds                Percentage   

Favourite                       3.0                           33.33%

2nd Favourite                 5.0                            20%

3rd Favourite                  8.0                           12.5%

TOTAL                                                            65.83%

The market's saying these three horses have a 65.83% chance between them. But we know from our stats it should be 76.3% for these race conditions.

That's value right there.

Punch those odds into your dutching calculator, work out the stakes, and you're looking at a potential 51.9% ROI. Not bad for a race where you're backing three horses!The Formula Behind It All

For the maths geeks out there, here's what's actually happening:

Stake per selection = (Total stake × Individual probability) ÷ Total probability

Or in plain English: you're dividing your total stake in proportion to each horse's chances, so that any winner delivers the same profit.

A worked example makes this clearer. Let's say you've got £100 to stake across those three horses from earlier:

Horse Odds Probability

Stake Return if Wins

Horse A odds 3.0 = 33.33% stake £50.62 £151.86 Profit £51.86

Horse B odds  5.0 = 20% stake £30.37 £151.85 Profit  £51.85

Horse C odds  8.0 = 12.5% stake £18.99 £151.92 Profit  £51.92

Total 65.83% £100 

See how each winner gives you roughly the same profit? That's dutching working its magic.

Common Pitfalls (And How to Avoid Them)

Before you rush off to place your first dutch bet , watch out for these gotchas:

• Rounding stakes – Make sure your rounded stakes still add up correctly
• Minimum stake limits – Some bookies won't take tiny stakes
• Rule 4 deductions – Non-runners can mess up your calculations
• Dead heats – Your stake gets split if two horses tie
• Voided bets – If a horse is withdrawn, your whole dutch can fall apart
• Each-way complexity – Dutching each-way bets is a whole different beast
• Price movements – Odds can shift between calculating and placing
• Poor record-keeping – Track everything or you won't improve

Does Dutching Guarantee Profit?

Let's be clear about something important: dutching doesn't create value on its own. It just distributes your stake efficiently across multiple selections.

You still need to find the actual edge – that overlay where your assessment of the horses' chances is better than what the market thinks. Dutching is the tool that lets you exploit that edge properly.

Think of it this way: dutching helps you bet smarter when you've found value, but it won't magically turn bad bets into good ones.

The Reality Check

Okay, you won't always find odds as juicy as that 51.9% ROI example. But as you get more experienced with the Dutch Overlay method, you'll spot patterns and fine-tune your approach.

The beauty is that even modest edges compound over time. A consistent 5-10% advantage across dozens of races? That adds up fast.

Your Next Steps

Fair warning – the odds in the example above are pretty generous. Real racing is tougher. But stick with it, keep detailed records, and gradually refine your criteria as you learn what works.

Maybe you'll find that 6f races on good-to-soft with 10 runners are your sweet spot—or perhaps all-weather evening meetings on Fridays. The point is to track, learn, and adapt.

The more races you analyse, the better you'll get at spotting genuine overlay situations. And that's when dutching really starts to pay dividends.

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