Playing To Win

Typical Trifecta Strategies

A strategic bet with a chance at huge payoffs

The Trifecta wager offers you three ways to play the bet: boxes, wheels and part-wheels. To 'box' a trifecta means to use every combination of the number of horses you choose to include. For example, if you think the #'s 3,6,& 8 horses are the top three candidates in a particular race but you are unsure as to what order they'll finish, you can use every combination of the three by boxing them. So, instead of paying $1 for a 3-6-8 trifecta, the wager would cost $6 for the number of combinations the three horses could finish in. So whether they came in 6-3-8 or 8-6-3 (etc.), you would still have the wager covered.

If you really like a particular horse to win the race and you are wagering in a trifecta format, you can 'key' or 'wheel' a horse on top of other horse combinations to finish in second and third-place underneath your 'key' horse. Evaluating the contenders and eliminating the pretenders is step one in the formula of putting together your trifecta ticket. Among the field in a race, it must be determined what horses can win, what horses can finish second or third at best, what horses have no chance of running in the top three, etc. This way you can now evaluate how many horses fit your formula and what it will cost to cover the trifecta in your mind. You then must evaluate if it is feasible to risk the cost of your ticket versus what the payoff may return. For example, it would not necessarily be beneficial to play a large trifecta ticket on a race you feel a heavy favorite will win, unless you believe a pair of longshots can run underneath him in completing the trifecta. A trifecta with the odds-on favorite on top of a pair of logical second and third place finishers is going to have a minimal payoff because of the likelihood and popularity of that combination coming in. The lesson to be learned here is to understand that it requires horses with good odds to make the trifecta pay, and if you do not foresee horses with fair odds completing your trifecta, then the risk of investment may not be worth the reward. Make the payoff earn a profit!

I don't know who will win

If you don't have any good feelings on who will win, the cost of a Trifecta bet can add up quickly, particularly when you box more than three horses. If you cannot narrow it down to two or three horses you are comfortable with on top of the ticket, then your uncertainty should lead you to skip the race and pick another battle elsewhere.

I like more than one horse for the win

Again, if you think more than one horse can win a race, you can be looking at a pretty expensive bet. Boxing a large number of horses in the trifecta is not the wisest way to go (see the bet cost chart on the next page for more info). If you want to box more than three horses, try to eliminate some others in the race that you think have no chance of finishing in the top four spots to reduce your cost. Liking multiple horses to win in a race is not necessarily a bad thing if you are confident in the number of horses you have chosen to win and you think the trifecta payoff will supercede your investment.

Another way to play multiple horses is to place just those you think have the best chance of running well in the top two or three spots. That way, you can wheel your top selections and still select more horses in the third and fourth spots for a similar cost.

Win more for less

With the introduction of the $0.50 trifecta wagering at some tracks around the country, the bet has become much more attractive to the casual racegoer. A 50-cent trifecta box with three horses costs only $3. A four-horse box costs a total of $12, a five-horse box $30: all of these figures are half the cost of the original $1 minimum bet.

Advanced Strategies

I know who will definitely hit the board

If you feel strongly about a horse getting in the trifecta mix, you might want to key it in more than one spot. To reduce the cost of any exotic bet, finding a key horse and "singling" it in one position makes the bet much more playable. See the "Types of Trifecta Bets" page for the cost of keying or wheeling a single horse. There will also be instances where you'll like multiple horses to hit the board. This becomes more of an ideal situation from a cost standpoint.

The favorite is low-priced

A great angle for trifecta players is finding a "sure thing" type of favorite and keying it in the top spot. This gives you the chance to spread your money on more horses in the next two spots, including plenty of longshots that produce the big payoffs. The flipside to this is when you don't like the favorite at all for the win, but think it most likely to hit the board, as we mentioned in the paragraph above. Generally, the further back in the race the favorite finishes, the higher the payoff will be. Always keep in mind that the horses win odds are usually a direct reflection on what the trifecta payoff probability is.

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Trifecta Topics

• Trifectas Intro
• Typical Strategies
• Types of Trifecta Bets