Dutch Lay

[burrah]

Can anyone tell a novice if it is possible to dutch lay, rather than bet, and if so, how?

[Spud]

I don't think this is exactly what you were looking for but might be part way there.

The scenario is you have a range of horses, lets say A, B, C, D etc, all of whom you want to lay. If anyone of them wins, you want to incur a fixed liability (lets say £X) - e.g. you lose the same amount whether the 4/1 shot or the 25/1 shot comes in.

You calculate the stake (i.e what the backer will match) on horse A as follows

1. For each horse you are laying, divide horse A's decimal odds by the decimal odds of the other horse
2. Add all of these numbers from stage 1 together
3. Add 1 to your answer from stage 2
4. Subtract your answer from stage 3 from the odds on horse A
5. Divide £X by the answer in stage 4 to get your stake on horse A


Example
You have three horses A, B and C, whose odds are 4/1, 11/1, 30/1 respectively. You wish to risk a total of £50 and to lay all three horses.

To calculate the stake for horse A, you proceed as follows
- for horse B, you divide 5.0 (for horse A) by 12.0 (the 11/1 shot) giving 0.417
- for horse C, you divide 5.0 by 31.0, giving 0.161
- Add these together, giving 0.578
- Add one to this, giving 1.578
- Subtract this from the odds for horse A, i.e. 5.0, giving 3.422
- Divide £50 by this figure to get the stake on horse A, giving £14.61

For Horse B, you get the following
- 12.0/5.0 = 2.4
- 12.0/31.0 = 0.387
- Add these to get 2.787
- Add 1 to get 3.787
- Subtract this from 12.0 to get 8.213
- Divide £50 by this to get a stake on horse B of £6.09

However, once you have calculated the stake for one horse, there is a handy shortcut.
To calculate the stake for horse B, when you have the stake for horse A, just do the following:
- Multiply the stake on horse A by the odds on horse A. Divide your answer by the odds on horse B. The answer is the stake on horse B.

In the example above, multiply £14.61 by 5.0 to get £73.05. Divide this by 12.0 to get £6.09.
By a similar process the stake for horse C is £14.61*5.0/31.0=£2.36

We can check this quickly, to be sure we are correct.

If horse A wins, we lose 4 times what we staked, i.e. £14.61*4 = £58.44. We also win the amounts staked on horses B & C, namely £6.09 and £2.36. You can see (within rounding error!) that we lose £50.

Should none of horse A, B or C win, we of course win £14.61+£6.09+£2.36 = £23.05

[burrah]

Many thanks for the reply Spud.