The best horseracing betting systems (Part 4)
What are the best ways to successfully stake your bets.
Dutched Stakes / Dutching Staking Plan
Having studied several aggressive staking methods, of varying strength…
Those which vary from the weak (percentage staking or square root) to the strong, bordering on reckless (martingale, Fibonnaci or Labouchere)…
With this method of staking your bets, backers are able to tread a path of some caution. And arguably it’s the safest, and most low-risk, form of betting – if carried to extreme lengths.
It was actually created, or the term was first applied, to the exploits of Arthur Flegenheimer (aka Dutch Schultz) who was Al Capone’s accountant. He was responsible for the term “dutching” through his dealings with bookmakers back in 1920’s America.
Here’s how it works…
Simply put a dutching staking plan revolves around backing more than one bet in any one event/market. Typical examples would be backing two (or more) horses in the same race, backing the win and the draw in a football match, or following several golfers in a single tournament.
What you are doing is splitting your stake, covering various possible outcomes, in order to increase your odds of winning. But not to increase your winning odds – as we’ll come back to in a moment.
And the act of dutching is also commonly witnessed at the casino, where you see players on the roulette table throwing chips on a variety of numbers, or sections (odd/even, red/black), as the ball spins round the wheel. Again, it’s a strategy which aims to give them a better chance of winning (or at least backing a winner) as they cover multiple potential outcomes.
So in essence, dutching is a bet placement strategy which gives the backer a greater chance of backing a winner… because they’re backing more than one bet (potential winner). And this can appeal to those backers who are more risk averse, and like to maintain a healthy strike rate.
Of course, if you back more than one bet – and only one horse/team/player can win – then it stands to reason that you’re going to back more losers.
This means, practically speaking, that the average odds of your winning bets will be decreased, because you have to factor in the losers.
Here’s how it works in practice…
e.g. from a notional £1,000 starting bank, your stake is 1% (£10)
↪ in a horse race you back two horses, Horse A at 3/1 and Horse B at 5/1
↪ you split your £10 stake evenly between both runners (£5 win on each one)
↪ if neither wins, you lose your whole £10 stake
↪ but if Horse A wins, you return £20 (£5 at 3/1) = profit of £10
↪ or if Horse B wins, you return £30 (£5 at 5/1) = profit of £20
Now the return is less than if you’d put all of the £10 on one bet (and it won) but, then again, with a dutched bet of this kind you have two chances to win, not one.
Now there are variations to dutched bets.
Another way of staking your bets is to guarantee you an identical payout whichever bet (of the several you place) wins… and you do this by varying the stakes on each bet according to its price.
This is known as “set profit dutching“.
Let’s use the above example again, two horses at 3/1 and 5/1.
We’ve already seen how if you place £5 to win on each horse you’ll get a different return depending on which horse wins, but to get the same return, whether Horse A or Horse b wins, is pretty easy to calculate…
e.g. you place £6 on Horse A at 3/1, and £4 on Horse B at 5/1
↪ and so if Horse A wins you return £24 (£6 at 3/1) = £14 profit
↪ or if Horse B wins you also return £24 (£4 at 5/1) = £14 profit
Using this method of split or varied stakes, placing a different sum of money on each bet you place, you can manufacture an identical return, whichever one comes in.
This is often referred to as a “combined odds” bet, and in the above example the 3/1 and 5/1 bets combined to make a winning bet at odds of 7/5 (2.4).
Less than a 3/1 or 5/1 winner on its own would pay, but you’ve got twice as many chances to win.
So in an 8-runner race, for example, you’d go from backing 12.5% (1/8) of the field, to 25% (2/8). This giving yourself a much bigger chance of winning.
Now if you think the maths in the illustration looks easy enough… what happens if you back four golfers in a tournament at 16/1, 28/1, 33’s and 66/1?
Simple. You use one of the many online dutching bet calculators, like this one on the Oddschecker website.
By using this simple but effective tool, all you have to do is to key in the odds of the various bets you’re backing (this one covers up to 12!) and it will automatically calculate the stake required on each bet to give the exact same payout, whichever one wins.
And there is also a third variation to dutched staking…
This is where you back one bet more as a “saver”. Simply using one bet to act as a cover bet on another i.e. to get your original stake back if the “saver” bet wins.
So if your form study whittles down a horse race to just two runners, and you really fancy one… but just have a sneaking feeling that the other might scupper your plans.
Then place the majority of your stake on Horse A, and back Horse B to a level that covers your initial outlay, and no more.
e.g. you consider a horse at 5/1 as the best value in a race, and believe that only the 3/1 favourite can beat it
↪ then you split your £10 stake, £7.50 win on the 5/1 shot and £2.50 win on the horse at 3/1
↪ so if the favourite wins, you return £10 (and so break even)
↪ but if your horse wins at 5/1 you return £45 (£7.50 at 5/1) = £35 profit
You’re still backing two horses, so you’re still dutching your bet.
But the way you outlay your stakes means that you’ll return more money if your preferred horse wins… but still break even if the horse you believe is the danger ends up spoiling the party.
By betting on more than one outcome, dutching might seem like a bet that’s tailor-made for the indecisive. And there’s some truth to this argument.
However, it’s also a very powerful betting strategy when placed in the hands of a skilled market-reader, who can identify more than one value bet in a single market.
By covering multiple outcomes, these disparate pricing errors can all be bundled together in one value-laden single bet/stake.
So in all the various staking methods that you can employ from fixed stakes to percentage, from square root to Kelly, the dutched model demands some serious consideration.
It can work equally well for the casual as well as committed backer.
OPINION: There is a lot to like about dutching, or a dutched staking plan. Yes, you are automatically backing losers, and so reducing your strike rate and your overall profit… but this is looking at it from the viewpoint that you’d otherwise have just one bet and back one winner. And betting doesn’t always work like this! So by covering multiple options, and combining them together into one bet, you are in fact increasing your strike rate, preserving your betting bank, and keeping your profit-making on a more consistent (less volatile) path. All of which seems positive… and professional. And talking of professional staking, our next, and last, staking method to consider is widely considered the most professional of them all, the Kelly Criterion – click here to read
