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A Dutch bet is one of the simplest and most effective ways to improve your chances at the races. Instead of putting all your money on a single horse and hoping for the best, you split your stake across two, three or more horses in the same race. If any of them wins, you make a profit.
The name comes from Arthur "Dutch" Schultz, a 1920s New York bookmaker who realised that backing multiple runners at the right stakes could guarantee a return regardless of which one crossed the line first. The idea is just as powerful a hundred years later.
The key to dutching is not simply splitting your stake equally between your selections. That would leave you with different returns depending on which horse wins. Instead, you adjust each individual stake so that whichever of your chosen horses wins, you get the same profit.
A horse at shorter odds gets a larger share of your total stake. A horse at longer odds gets a smaller share. The maths balances it out so the payout is the same either way.
The appeal is straightforward. In a competitive handicap with 10 or 12 runners, picking the winner from the whole field is hard. Narrowing it down to three or four genuine contenders is much easier. Dutching lets you back all of them and still make a profit when one of them wins.
It also takes the sting out of those frustrating near-misses. Every racing fan knows the feeling of watching their second-choice horse romp home while their actual selection finishes fifth. With a dutch, your second choice is already covered.
Dutching shines in competitive races where several horses have a genuine chance. Handicaps are ideal because the weights are designed to give every runner a shot. Races with 8 to 14 runners tend to produce the best opportunities, wide open enough to get decent prices but not so big that the field is unreadable.
It works less well when there is a very short-priced favourite. If one horse is odds-on, the remaining runners are all at longer prices and the total payout from a dutch on the outsiders often does not justify the risk. The best dutching races are the ones where the favourite is 3/1 or bigger and the market is spread across the field.
The trade-off is honest and worth understanding. By backing three horses instead of one, you are spreading your risk, which means your potential return on each individual winner is lower than if you had put the full stake on that single horse. That is the price of a better chance of winning.
Think of it this way. Backing one horse at 6/1 with £20 gives you £120 if it wins and nothing if it loses. Dutching three horses with that same £20 might give you £40 to £50 whichever one wins. The return is smaller, but you are collecting it far more often.
Over time, consistent small wins beat occasional big wins for most punters, especially those starting out. Dutching keeps your bank ticking over rather than lurching between feast and famine.
You could do the maths by hand, but there is no need. A dutching calculator does it in seconds. Enter the odds of each horse you want to back, enter your total stake, and it tells you exactly how much to put on each one. It also shows you the combined probability and your expected return so you can decide whether the bet is worth placing.
Our free Dutching for Stake calculator does all the maths for you. Enter your odds, set your total stake, and see your exact returns instantly.
Open Dutching Calculator →Start with three selections per race. Two can work but three gives you a better spread without diluting your returns too much. Four or more is fine occasionally but the more horses you add, the lower each individual payout becomes.
Stick to races where you genuinely fancy more than one horse. The point of dutching is not to cover every runner in the field. That is what the bookmaker does, and he has the overround on his side. Pick your two or three strongest fancies and leave the rest alone.
Set a total stake before you start and let the calculator divide it up. Do not be tempted to increase the stake on your "best" pick. The whole point of the dutch is equal profit on any winner. If you skew the stakes you are just placing three separate bets, which is a different thing entirely.
Finally, keep a record. Write down every dutch you place, the stakes, the result, and the profit or loss. After a month you will have a clear picture of whether your selection method is working. If it is, carry on. If it is not, you have the data to work out why.