Today we’ve got a quick and simple way to find an amazingly large amount of winners. It involves dutching which means…
You’re going to have to do a bit of maths. But I promise it’s very simple J
When betting outside of handicaps, and focussing on the top three in the betting, we can expect to find a staggering 70% winners!
Sometimes it can even be a little bit more.
By applying a bit of research and using some clever staking we can expect to be finding plenty of winners.
Okay, so lets got on with how to find them!
The first step is to check the betting forecast on the Racing Post. These are are compiled by expert handicappers and can be very accurate.
We are looking for the first three horses predicted to be in the top three of the betting. This is done by checking the Betting Forecast.
You can see this in the example below:
I’ve highlighted the three horses that are forecast to be at the top of the betting.
We now need to head over to the market and check how the betting looks.
To do this you can use OddsChecker at www.oddschecker.com
As you can see from the image below, Zerfaal is a non-runner so we need to pick out the next best predicted horse, which is Dance Of Heroes.
In the image above I’ve circled the best prices available at the time of looking at the race.
Now we need to head over to a dutching calculator which you can find at:
>> http://www.oddschecker.com/betting-tools/dutching-calculator.html
Below you can see that I’ve entered the odds into the calculator in decimal form. You can change the display on OddsChecker to display the odds in decimals instead of fractions if you don’t want to work it out for yourself.
We then place the stake on each runner shown next to the selections in the calculator. This means that if one of these horses were to win, we would make a profit of £47.73. A 47% ROI isn’t bad!
The results for the race were:
Have a go yourself. Play around until you become comfortable with the method and always paper trade first.
The key is to select place your bets with the bookmakers offering the best odds on each selection.
Once your practiced at this then you can start to look at choosing races that are even more predictable for dutching. You can check out this post where Michael wrote a dutching strategy. It was written in 2010 but is as relevant today as it was then!
Thanks for the article. This comment is more aimed at Michael’s article on value.
It is all very well to say that because across ALL runnings of a particular race show the first three winning 76% of the time. The problem is that this average seriously hides the fact that there are probably many many races where the first three do not provide the winner! So just because the Betfair odds are, say, 65% is by no means a definite good thing. If you were betting on every single race of this type then perhaps, but you might go broke with a losing run long before your theoretical return comes in!
Thank you for the comment Gavin. Very sensible to point out that just because of an average doesn’t mean it won’t be exactly that for every race. However as bettors we are forced to know averages as it’s impossible to know exact percentages before a race. Therefore we must bankroll properly to prevent a losing run making us go broke before it swings back towards the average.
The first 3 in the betting forecast or the first 3 in the betting? Which gives the better results?
I assume we are talking about the RP BF or do we mean the Betfair Mkt?
And should we change our selections when the market differs from the Betting Forecast.
Hi Peter, Peter wrote this using the RP betting forecast. However I don’t see any reason that it wouldn’t be the same with the betting market. But the closer to the off you place your bets the smaller the differences in odds between the bookmakers and so the less likely you are to get higher value odds.
Like the idea of dutching fine but not making selections this way. I use a staking method for backing two from selected races. Not sure how you would select the races from this just using the first three in the racing post.
This is just to get you used to the idea of dutching, but the profits actually will come from getting the best odds available at the time of placing the bets. You would probably often find that you can actually trade out on shortened odds before the race goes off. However I would also suggest you add more analysis into choosing the selections.
Dutching and loss recovery is a method I am interested in because in theory losing runs should be alot shorter although stakes much higher,lay dutching is probably safer ie,2 or 3,5-1,6-1 shots in big fields and the liability would be manageable.
The stakes don’t need to be higher, but the ROI will be lower in the long-run. However as you say this is offset by the significantly reduced losing streaks. Personally I have found lay dutching to be a harder way to long-term profits than lay backing as the edge is much smaller.
This post is in serious need of caveats.
1. The betting shop punter tries to find winners. We are interested in finding value.
It’s no good finding 70% winners unless your combined price is more than 1.43 … which it won’t be in general on the top 3.
2. 47% ROI – my arse!
Yeah you win ÂŁ47.73 about 70% of the time … but what about the other 30% when you lose all the ÂŁ100?
In general backing the top 3 will lock in NEGATIVE ROI’s of 2%, 5% and 10% in proportion to the dutching amounts.
3. By all means dutch:
– if you can find 3 selections which are value in their own right
– or maybe a key factor like heavy going at Towcester means the race is between 3 horses which act in heavy going (and all others are effectively out of it).
Now you can extract value even if you are not quite sure where it is.
– if you assess one of the selections at a marginally unfair price, in which case an increase in stakes on the big value combined with a small saver on the slightly unfair runner will act as a HEDGE
Backing the top 3 indiscriminately is a swift losing policy.
It is an example of a one-sided strategy where you will experience several wins, followed by a string of catastrophic loses (like the Martingale at Roulette).
Hi, nice article. I’ll try this out but I have doubts on the 1st fav break-even.
Stake 100€
Without break-even on 1st fav:
Horse 1 @ 2,84: 26,53€
Horse 2 @ 3,9: 26,53€
Horse 3 @ 5,5: 26,53€
With break-even on 1st fav:
Horse 1 @ 2,84: 0€
Horse 2 @ 3,9: 47,84€
Horse 3 @ 5,5: 47,74€
Another example:
Without break-even on 1st fav:
Horse 1 @ 3,15: 80,76€
Horse 2 @ 7,6: 80,76€
Horse 3 @ 9,6: 80,76€
With break-even on 1st fav:
Horse 1 @ 3,15: 0€
Horse 2 @ 7,6: 189,52€
Horse 3 @ 9,6: 189,52€
So, on the 1st example i have a tight competition and on the 2nd example i have a clear favorite. Can you please help me on which situations (these i posted above, and some other i should consider) should I break even on 1st favorite or not? Thank you.
This is a personal risk based assessment most of the time. If there is a very strong market favourite but you think it’s odds are not offering any value and/or the other runners have just as good a chance at winning then I would recommend that you opt to go for a break-even on the fav and go for the profit only on the other two. However if all look to be offering decent value on the odds with similar chances then there is no reason to going for a break-even on the fav. If you think the fav is by far the strongest then you shouldn’t be dutching at all 🙂