What is a dead-heat?

It’s one of those age-old punting questions, “How do dead heat rules work?”

Luckily for you, there’s a fairly simple explanation and calculation which should put your mind at ease. Before we get into that, though, let's start at the beginning.

What is a dead-heat?

A dead heat is when two or more selections tie for a given position. In Horse Racing, that could be because both horses crossed the line together and the judge cannot separate them. In other events, such as Golf, it is where players have ended with the same score and are therefore classified in a joint position, such as joint 5th place.

What happens if there is a dead-heat?

Put simply, if there is a Dead-Heat, you will win part of your bet and lose part of your bet.

In a dead heat for first place the stake money on a winning selection is divided by the number of winners in a dead heat. The full odds are then paid to the divided stake with the remainder of the money being lost. For example:

In a two-way Dead-Heat (2 winners), your return will be half of what it could have been. This can be referred to as half-face value of the bet, or a bet for half the original stake.

For an easy calculation of your profit or loss on a Dead-Heat outcome, please see below:

For win markets with two runners tied:
[(Stake / 2) x (Decimal Odds - 1)] - (Stake / 2) = your profit/loss

For markets with more than two selections tied:
[(Stake / No of tied selections) x (Decimal Odds - 1)] - [Stake x (No of tied selections - 1) / No of tied selecions] = your profit/loss