Backing more than one selection in the same race or market? Enter your total stake and each selection's odds — the calculator splits the stake so you collect the same amount whichever of them wins.
Stakes are allocated in proportion to implied probability: stakeᵢ = total × (1/oddsᵢ) ÷ Σ(1/odds). Whichever covered selection wins, your return is the same: total ÷ Σ(1/odds).
Example: £50 across three horses at 4.0, 6.0, and 9.0. Σ = 0.25 + 0.1667 + 0.1111 = 0.5278. Stakes: £23.68 / £15.79 / £10.53. Any of the three winning returns £94.74 (£44.74 profit). If anything else wins the race, you lose the £50.
Dutching feels safer because you win more often — but the "market covered" number above is also your cost. Covering 52.8% of the implied market means you paid 52.8 of every 100 units of market probability; you profit long-term only if your selections' true combined chance beats that. Dutching spreads risk; it doesn't reduce the bookmaker's margin by a penny.
It's at its best when you have a genuine view that a market is mispriced across several outcomes ("one of these three pacey outsiders wins this sprint") — and at its worst as a way to back every plausible horse out of indecision.
Arbitrage covers every outcome across multiple bookmakers for guaranteed profit. Dutching covers some outcomes, usually at one bookmaker — uncovered outcomes lose.
Yes — divide your target profit by (1/Σ − 1) × ... practically: enter stakes until the profit figure shows your target. The proportional split stays the same.
Yes, and commission replaces margin in the maths — apply your commission rate to the profit, not the return.
Multiple slips per race make manual tracking miserable — which is why most dutchers have no idea of their real ROI. Zort scans each slip in seconds and shows the combined result per market, per day, per strategy.
Download Zort Free