Articles - Bet Help Guides - Dutching Horses For Profits

Dutching is a method of betting that can be very successful but is often overlooked as a serious means to profiting from horse racing. Hopefully you will find this article useful in deciding whether dutching is for you!

What Is Dutching?

Put very simply, Dutching is the name given to betting 2 or more horses in a single race to improve your chances of finding the winner. Betting on 2 horses in a 9 runner field is a dutch bet as is betting 7 horses in a 9 runner field.

I'm sure like me, You have had many occasions when you have been able to highlight a few horses that 'stand out' in a race, but have found it difficult to pinpoint the strongest and most likely winner. This is where dutching comes into its own as a sensible betting approach.

How Should You Stake When Dutching?

Depending upon the number of horses I'm going to back and the odds available for them, I use 2 methods of staking.

1. The first is simply 'Level Stakes' and I tend to use this method if I'm only on a couple of horses and the odds for them are similar. Obviously, this method will return different profits depending on the odds of the winner but its a quick and easy method.
2. Recommended: A more sensible approach is to 'divide up your stakes' so that you will return the same profit regardless of the odds of the winning horse you dutched. If your worried that this method is too complicated, please don't be as I have added a simple free calculator to my site which will show you how much to place on each of your selections based on their odds.

Free Horse Betting Dutching Calculator

Important Staking Rule

One very important point I need to make at this time is that you should decide on a total amount you are comfortable with staking 'per race'. By this I mean, if you usually bet £50 in each race this should be the total amount you bet between all your dutched horses. You should never leave yourself in a position where you stand to lose more than this. All betting is risky and even though you have selected the horses that you feel are the most likely winners in your dutch bet, there will be times when none of them win. Very probably many times ! Never bet any more than you can reasonably afford to lose.

Warning Regarding Odds-On Horses

I tend to stay clear of dutching in races where there is a strong odds-on favourite as its usually difficult to rule out the favourite from your shortlist of potential winners and therefore the odds available on it will drastically reduce your returns even if your other horses are available at nice prices.

A general rule of thumb I use is to only play in races where my selections are at 6/4 (2.5) or higher.

However, this is simply a rule that I stick to personally. You may find that dutching a short priced odds-on fav along with a backup horse at larger price is something that works well for you based on your selection criteria. The simple rule here really is to paper trade for a while until you are certain a method works for you. I always tend to recommend a trial of at least 1000 bets before deciding that a method has potential merit and putting down any of my own hard earned cash.

Summary

Dutching is an often overlooked method of profiting from horse racing betting, but can offer a simple and effective means of making money when taken seriously. I tend to have a number of bets each day where I am on 2 or more horses in the race.

I've not only found this to be a profitable means of betting, but also it has the big advantage of increasing your strike rate which is a key factor in controlling the nerves and stress of betting that we all feel from time to time.

You may already have a successful method of highlighting the most likely winners in each race in which case you can simply use my simple dutching calculator to determine the stakes you should use on each horse and your potential profits.

Well that's it for this article. I hope you find it helpful in your quest to profit from betting...

Author: Martin Bailey

Visit www.the-secret-system.com for more free betting and horse racing information by Martin.