Multiple Value in Horse Racing - How to Bet on More Than One Horse

Finding Multiple Value in Horse Racing: A Guide to Betting on More Than One Horse

The standard thought process when it comes to backing in a horse race is to go through the race and find what you believe to be the likeliest winner and back accordingly, either to win or each-way based on the odds.

Value betting in horse racing, typically, is trying to find the angles where you believe a horse's chance is better than the odds the bookies are offering.

There are occasions when backing more than one runner can be profitable, and in this piece we are looking at the notion of multiple value in one race, which can be added to your horse racing betting strategy as you go about finding value in odds.

What is "Value" in Horse Racing Betting?

A value bet in any sport, including racing, is when the bookmakers offer odds that do not accurately reflect the likelihood of the event happening.

This basically means that in your opinion the bet is more likely to come true vs. the odds offered by the bookmaker, making it a valuable selection.

In professional horse racing betting, punters will use their knowledge of the formbook to create tissue prices – the price at which they believe each horse should be in the market. When the bookmakers offer bigger odds, you have found a value betting chance.

You can think of this as a percentage. If you think a horse has a 20 per-cent chance of winning the race, you would consider fair odds to be 5/1.

Identifying Multiple Value Opportunities

When you have studied a race in detail and assessed the chances of all runners after consulting some horse racing tips, you might arrive at a point where you have whittled the field down. Once the odds are available, you will also find lots of races where you see multiple runners at value prices.

In these instances, pro punters will often back more than one horse in a race – typically splitting stakes to do so – in order to have the value bets in the race on their side.

You can also consider Dutching as a betting strategy here, where you combine multiple horses in one bet.

How to Bet on More Than One Horse and Secure Value

Dutching is the principle of betting on multiple horses to win the same race, with the aim of returning a similar payout in the scenario where one of them wins. Dutching strategy means the punter would split stakes accordingly, based on the odds, to return a similar profit.

There are a few ways of deciding how to Dutch a couple of horses. You might want to pre-determine how much you want to win (if a selection wins), or how much you want to stake on the race, with the aim of getting a similar return. These are set-profit and set-stake Dutching.

Scenarios for Finding Multiple Value

Weak Favourite: When the favourite appears over-bet and therefore poor value in a race, there should be value opportunities for other horses in the field.

Draw or Track Bias: In races where a specific draw or running style is heavily favoured (e.g. there is a strong draw bias at Chester), it can be wise to back multiple well-drawn horses.

Each-Way Value: In the case of big-field handicaps, the value horses you identify could often be at decent odds and, in this scenario, the most profitable way to play them could be backing multiple horses each-way in the same race.

Is This a Profitable Long-Term Strategy?

Betting on multiple horses in the same race is only a good strategy when the odds for each selection represent genuine value based on your research, analysis and opinion of the race.

It is a sophisticated strategy for experienced punters to manage risk and capitalise on their ability to assess a race more accurately than the market reflects ensuring they know how to win at horse racing.

When deployed in a knowledgeable fashion with good form-study, this can be a good long-term strategy but, as with all betting strategies, experienced punters will realise there are good runs and bad runs, and being able to manage a staking plan with discipline is key to long-term profitability.