Yes the exact phrase would be better as it has greater density with regards to the desired keywords. Your idea to change the text minimally with one / few words would also work well as you could potentially be targetting several phrases plus the primary one.
I normally try not to list links with targeted anchor unless its a good friend, even then it cant be outrageous. When someone request a link to their site blackjack-casinos-roulette-online-gambling-internet-poker.com for instance and wants me to link to them using “internet casinos” I wont do it! Doing so would be misleading to my visitors afterall the original use of links was for them and not SE rankings. 