Decimal Odds and Dutching
Dutching is a mathematical approach to betting that allows you to increase your chances of making a profit in a betting event. It involves betting on more than one outcome in the event and adjusting your stake on each according the decimal odds available so that a profit is made if any of your chosen outcomes wins.
For example, in a football match the decimal odds might allow you to bet on both the Home Win and the Draw and make a profit no matter which of those results occurs. Dutching isn't suitable for all betting markets that quote decimal odds, but it can certainly be used on many, and in this article we will explain how.
If you have read our page on Decimal Odds and Overround then you will already know how to convert decimal odds to their percentage equivalents (the calculation is 100 divided by the decimal odds on offer, so decimal odds of 2.00 would be 100 divided by 2.00 = 50%). The first step when Dutching is to convert the decimal odds for every outcome in the event into its percentage equivalent.
For example, maybe you wanted to take a Dutching approach to a football match where the decimal odds on offer were 2.87 for the Home Win, 2.50 for the Draw and 2.80 for the Away Win. In this case the percentage equivalents would be:
Home Win = 100 divided by 2.87 = 34.84%
Draw = 100 divided by 2.50 = 40%
Away Win = 100 divided by 2.80 = 35.71%
The Dutching approach allows you to bet on as many outcomes as you like in an event as long as their total percentages are less than 100%. So here we could bet on the Home Win and the Draw (74.84%), the Away Win and the Draw (75.71%) or the Home Win and the Away Win (70.55%).
When you have decided on the outcomes that you want to bet on, and checked that their combined percentages total less than 100%, you can calculate the stakes required on each. To do this, decide how much you want to bet in total and then for each outcome perform the following calculations:
Add up the percentages of all the outcomes that you want to bet on and call this the TBP (Total Bet Percentage).
Then, for each outcome, take the Outcome Percentage and divide by the TBP. Multiply by 100 to give a new percentage figure. Multiply your total outlay by this new percentage and you have the stake required for this outcome.
Using the previous football match as an example, if we wanted to bet on the Home Win and the Draw, and we wanted to bet a total of £50 on the match, our calculations would be:
34.84% + 40% = 74.84% TBP (Total Bet Percentage)
Home Win
34.84 divided by 74.84 = 0.4655
0.4655 x 100 = 46.55%
£50 x 46.55% = £23.27 stake
Draw
40 divided by 74.84 = 0.5344
0.5344 x 100 = 53.44%
£50 x 53.44% = £26.72 stake
Now it must be stressed that these stakes are calculated for the specific decimal odds that have been used, so if the decimal odds change then you will need to start over. That said, if you stake the calculated amounts on the outcomes selected at the decimal odds used, you will make roughly the same amount of profit should any of your outcomes win.
In the case of our example above, if the Home Win occurs then you would get a return of £66.78, and if the Draw occurs then you would get a return of £66.80. The odd 2p that is missing relates to the fact that we actually staked £49.99 instead of £50 (the actual stake for the Home Win should have been £23.275, so we dropped the remainder to keep things easy.)
Using decimal odds to take a Dutching approach to betting does not guarantee success by any means (if an outcome that you have not bet on occurs then you will lose your entire outlay) but it certainly shows how useful decimal odds can be when they are used intelligently.
