System Review

Dutching is an age-old tool that has been used by punters for years in order to back more than one horse in a horse race, or even back, say, a number of selective scores in the correct scores market of a football match.

(For a free dutching calculator and fuller definition of dutching, please visit http://www.ukhorseracing.co.uk/tools/DutchingCalculator.asp)

The idea with dutching is to ensure a higher strike rate because we are covering more of the field in a given horse race.

Hang on! Isn’t dutching redundant?

Since the arrival of the betting exchanges, we now have the facility to lay a horse – that is to back the horse not to win.

In other words, by laying one horse, it is exactly the same as backing all of the other horses in the race. Or, to put it another way, dutching!  So, has our ability to lay horses now made dutching redundant?

Well, it would seem not with the resurgence in horse racing specific dutching systems that are being marketed at present.

Here is a quick synopsis of the two dutching systems I have come across.

But first a word of warning…

You must be aware that if you are considering dutching as a weapon in your betting armory, it usually requires you to have the ability to follow the live betting market in order to calculate the correct stakes at the most up-to-date odds required on those horses you are considering dutching.  The dutching systems I have read have all missed out on mentioning the one thing that will make your life a whole lot easier when considering dutching as a betting tool.

That is the software that will do all of the calculations for you. I expect you know of my admiration for Fairbot from http://www.binteko.com/! And for good reason.

From a dutching perspective, Fairbot will allow you to back multiple horses in a race:

  • With a specific stake set – i.e. if you only want to stake £30 on a particular race backing four horses, Fairbot will automatically calculate the stakes required to ensure that all four horses win an equal amount and your total outlay does not exceed £30.
  • Win a specific profit – i.e. if you want to win £10 on a particular race backing four horses, Fairbot will automatically calculate the stakes required to ensure that you win £10 on each of the four horses you have chosen to back.
  • Variable profit – Fairbot’s dutching facility allows you to actually load profit on one horse who is strongly fancied while lowering the profit on the other three horses (we are backing four horses as an example). If you fancied the favourite, but could not discount the 2nd, 3rd or 4th favourites, then you could ensure you win £10 if the favourite wins, but nothing if the 2nd, 3rd or 4th favourites win.
  • Variable profit ratios – this facility on Fairbot will actually spread the profit so that the favourite will win most, with profit descending with the odds, so the 2nd favourite wins a little less, the 3rd favourite less and so on.

So, if considering purchasing a dutching betting system, realise that more than likely you will have to follow the live betting market and, ideally, you should have some kind of dutching tool, like this, that will automatically calculate the stakes in a number of different scenarios for you (after all, this is 2010 and we shouldn’t really need to consult odds to percentages charts any longer!).  For this reason then, I would argue that Betfair is better suited than traditional bookmakers for dutching purposes, simply because of our ability to automate dutching with bespoke software specific to this betting exchange.

So this is the foundation to dutching that I think you should be made aware of.

Now, what about the systems?

The Dutching Diamond System

This is another new release from Sportsworld Publishing, this is a dutching system written by Peter Blake.

Let me tell you now that you should be expecting a high strike rate as de rigueur when you are looking to purchase a dutching betting system. As explained earlier, if you are backing multiple horses in a single race, the likelihood is that you are more likely to have the winner amongst the horses you have chosen.

The manual is very comprehensive but does specify the ideal scenario that you be able to follow the live betting market in order to meet profit/risk criteria.

So do bear this in mind before forking out £95. If you can’t work the system, then don’t buy it!  The staking aspect of the manual could be made oh so much easier if the author had introduced you to software such as Fairbot.

The Dutching Diamond looks to win a target profit per race. Instead of doing all of the calculations manually, Fairbot will simply calculate the stakes required to win the target profit for you, in about three clicks!! The author also advocates loss retrieval with a proviso that you stop after three consecutive losses.

This loss retrieval can be a dangerous pursuit at best of times, even more so using dutching, but if target profits are set at 1% as recommended and the strike rate is as advertised, there should never be a long losing run.

Target profit is recommended at 1% of the betting bank (which makes the staking to win £100 per race profit figures in the copy for this system an unrealistic profit figure for the beginner).  The selection system is thorough, as you would expect if we were looking at a high strike rate.  I will be reporting back to you on this particular dutching system in the near future. I will most certainly be using Fairbot to make my dutching a little easier.

http://www.oddsontowin.co.uk/

Some months ago I was contacted by someone claiming just over an 80%, consistent success rate with a new formula for selecting winning racehorses.  Apparently, he had been testing and using his method for over two years. Eight per cent strike rates for backing systems usually point to loss retrieval, creative accounting or dutching. And as the Sherlock Holmes’ amongst you will have deduced, this is a dutching manual.

The manual is well written and easy to follow but again, mention could have been made regarding the use of software in dutching calculations and placement of bets with Betfair.

The meat and bones of the selection process comes down to 11 steps. There is a part on ‘other indicators’ such as ‘heavy ground, 5 furlong sprints’ etc, and this is a very grey area. We are not definitively told what decision to arrive at when faced with these ‘other indicators.’

I requested daily screenshots of all races selected by the author to allow me to compare them with the selections I made following instructions in the manual. Five months after first being contacted, I am happy to say, Odds-On To Win is definitely something to mention, especially for those drawn to dutching and the possibilities of a high strike rate backing system.

This is a good manual for those who want to gain an insight into a method of dutching horses, which has been profitable in the period I have been following the system.

The price of £39.95 or £29.95 for the download version is a lot cheaper than Sportsworld Publishing.

Bottom line

You know now that dutching is the backing of more than one horse in a horse race in order to increase the likelihood of successfully picking a winner.

I recommended that those pursuing dutching seriously, would consider investment in something like Fairbot from http://www.binteko.com/ (no I am not an affiliate, just a happy user) and use this in tandem with Betfair in order to allow the software to do the calculations so you don’t have to.  The Dutching Diamond and Odds On To Win both suffer because they have not brought the staking aspect of dutching into the 21st Century. I have been following Odds On To Win for some months now and it is holding its own as regards strike rate. The Dutching Diamond I have just received so will update you once I have experienced it for a while.

Ideally, with dutching systems, you should have the ability to follow the live betting markets. Do bear this in mind with any purchase of a dutching betting system.

The correct selection strategy can help uncover those races where three to four horses have a statistically outstanding chance of being amongst the winners. Get this right and the strike rate will be at a level that assures profit.

Do remember, also, that you can dutch other markets. A favourite of mine is the correct scores market in the football. Do read the Football Betting Template article and you will notice I make mention of the correct scores market in the Galatasary v Gaziantepspor football match, more specifically 0-0, 1-0, 0-1, 1-1. Because the correct score market odds are generally very good, we can back all four outcomes and still make a profit!  Dutching is well worth investigating as a part of your betting armory. Your first step? Try it out in practice at sites such as http://www.ukhorseracing.co.uk/tools/DutchingCalcu or Google ‘dutching calculator’ and see if you can pick the right horses in the right race where, hopefully, the winner will come from.