One class of horse race bets is called exotic bets, which offer higher rewards at the cost of greater risk to the bettor. To hedge against these horse race wagering odds when betting on exotics, many people employ one of two different strategies--boxing or keying. They both allow the bettor to include additional horses as possible winners in the bet.

When you box a bet, you pick a group of horses to cover the conditions of that bet. For example, you may want to bet on a trifecta, but you don't know which order the three horses will finish in, so place a box on them and this makes the ticket pay off if they finish in the top three in any order. This also works for superfecta and other bets, though it can get expensive.

A key bet, on the other hand, revolves around a certain horse that you designate. It allows you to variably bet on a given horse to win, place, or show with different combinations ahead of or behind it. This is a bit more of a nuanced approach than boxing in your bet, and is effective for a number of bets, including the daily double.

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