Those of you who have been around for a while will know that I love a little "Dutch" bet, and I've noticed as of late that quite a few people are referring to it as "Laddering". They're essentially the same thing, but this guide should help you to understand what they mean, and add another valuable tool to your betting arsenal - if of course you don't already know what it means!
Dutching or Laddering essentially involves backing multiple selections in the same event. Generally, in footballing terms, these bets are related in some way, and the more goals / corners / cards there are, the more you win. Some people dutch bets across various different selections, which is also a form of doing it I suppose, but when most people refer to it, they are referring to this kind of method.
Let's look at an example to make things easier to understand. Let's say you fancy over 10 corners in a game, but you're very confident that there should be at least 9 and there's even the possibility that it could be a corner riot. What you would essentially do is take the lowest line, take a middle line (or a few if you do the maths) and take the higher line (or again, a few if you like). Say you were going to stick £20 on the Over 10 line originally. Imaging dutching being splitting that stake across various lines, the bottom one guaranteeing you a slight profit or your money back, and the higher ones locking in more profit. Let's say these are the prices:
Over 8 Corners 1.40
Over 9 Corners 1.66 Over 10 Corners 2.10
Over 11 Corners 2.62
Over 12 Corners 3.50
Over 13 Corners 5.00
Now to make a ladder or a dutch, you want the bottom line to at least cover the rest of your bets. So at 1.40 you'd need to bet £14.29 to do this. You could of course move up a line to Over 9 at 1.66, in which case you'd bet £12.05, but in either case, both of those would return £20, which would be your total stake. How you split up the remainder is completely up to you depending on the lines and the risk you want to take, but an example would be:
£14.29 on Over 8 at 1.40
£4 on Over 10 at 2.10
£1.71 on Over 12 at 3.50
This essentially creates a ladder or a dutch. Obviously if the Over 8 doesn't land, then your bet as a whole loses, if the Over 8 lands, you've got your money back at least, and from there, the more corners there are, the more money you make. Sure you could just whack the £20 on Over 10 which was your original fancy, but this gives an extra element of safety but also an extra element of reward. Sometimes the prices can vary much more than I've quoted above, you could do it with Over 1.5, 2.5 and 3.5 goals for example, or with your riskier one you could go for a really high line at a higher price, knowing that if the lower one lands you're still ok. Either way, you get the idea.
There's other options such as taking a small loss if the lower line lands if you want a bit more return, or doubling down on the lower line and just going for a really high line with the remainder, how you do it is completely up to you, but this should give you the fundamentals of how it works and help you when you see it mentioned in the future.
One word of advice is to figure out your stake first. Just because you're backing a lower line which is perceived as less risk, don't go pumping more money on, that's not the point. If your original intention was a £5 or £10 bet, then keep the split across the lines as that amount.