Reduced combination bets and reduced field at the PMU: how it works

When you bet the quarté or the quinté, you'd like to cover several possibilities without guessing the exact order. That's where the jeu réduit (a reduced-combination betting formula) and the champ réduit (reduced field) come in. These are ways to play several combinations at once. Used well, they increase your chances; used badly, they empty your budget. Here's how it works.

The problem it solves

In the quinté (a bet requiring the top 5 finishers in exact order, or with variants for near-exact order), finding the top 5 finishers in the exact order is very hard. To give yourself some margin, you can select more than 5 horses and play every possible combination among them. The problem is that the number of combinations climbs very fast, and each combination costs a stake.

The jeu réduit and the champ formulas exist precisely to cover several possibilities in an organized way, while keeping the cost under control.

The champ total (full field)

The champ total means playing every possible combination from your selected horses. If you pick 6 horses for a quinté, you play every way of ranking them. It's complete, but expensive: the more horses you add, the faster the number of combinations explodes.

The base and the champ

A more economical method is to designate one or more bases, horses you're very confident about and that appear in every one of your combinations, then complete the ticket with a champ (field) of other horses for the remaining places.

For example: 2 solid bases, plus 5 other horses to complete the field. You only play the combinations that contain your 2 bases, which sharply reduces the cost compared with a champ total.

The advantage: you concentrate your budget on the scenarios where your strong horses are well placed. The drawback: if a base horse fails, the whole ticket falls apart.

The jeu réduit (reduced combination bet)

The jeu réduit goes further: it only plays a selection of combinations among all those possible, chosen to cover the most likely scenarios without paying for everything. You keep a wide range of horses, but you eliminate the least credible combinations to lighten the bill.

It's a good compromise between coverage and budget, provided you choose well which combinations to keep.

The golden rule: budget first

The danger with these formulas is getting carried away. Adding one horse "just in case" can sometimes double the cost of the ticket. The right method is always the same: set your budget first, then build your bet within that limit. Never the other way round.

Often, a tighter bet on well-chosen horses is worth more than a wide, costly field that dilutes your stake across combinations with little credibility.

The key takeaway

The champ total covers everything but costs a lot. The base plus champ concentrates the budget on your strong horses. The jeu réduit selects the most likely combinations to lighten the cost. In every case, set the budget before building the bet, and prefer quality of selection over quantity of combinations.

Betting should stay a pleasure. Betting is reserved for adults and carries a risk of addiction. If you need help, call Joueurs Info Service at 09 74 75 13 13 (standard call rate, France).