The Pick 3 and Pick 4 wager give horseplayers an opportunity to make a big score without making a big investment.

The Pick 3 involves selecting the winner of three straight races. Think of it as a Daily Double plus one. The wager can be hit for as little as a $1.00 if you correctly select the winners of the three race sequence.

That is pretty tough to do, and most horseplayers use more than one horse in each race. For example if you narrowed the contenders in each race down to three, the ticket would look like this: 3x3x3 x $1.00 equals a $27.00 ticket.

As long as one of the three contenders won each race, the wager would be a winner.

If you can come up with a strong opinion in one of the races, you can single in one race which would allow you to go deeper in the other races. For instance a ticket laid out 1x4x5 x$1.00 would be a $20 wager. If the single won there would be four horses in the second leg and five horses in the third leg to get the money.

The Pick 4 is a similar wager only its gets harder, because a winning ticket must have the winner of four consecutive races. Most tracks have one or two Pick 4 wagers per race card, and solving four races in a  row can earn a horseplayer a large windfall.

Playing three horses in all four legs can get pricey. A ticket laid at 3x3x3x3 x$1.00 would be a $81.00 wager. Finding a single and narrowing your choices in at least one race can allow you to go deeper in the other races.

A ticket using 5x5x3x1 x $1.00 would be $75.00. If you can find two singles you can go much deep in the other races. A ticket that starts with two singles like 1x1x8x9 x $1.00 would be a $72.00 investment.

The key to making a profit playing Pick 3 and Pick 4 wagers on a regular basis is finding sequences where the betting favorites are vulnerable.