The 2021 Magic City Jai-Alai year closes out on Tuesday, November 23rd where the Mighty Ocho Pick 8 Jackpot wager and the Jai-5 Pick 5 Jackpot wager will both be forced-out to the winners with the most correct winners. Jackpots of a minimum $5,000 for the Mighty Ocho and $2,000 for the Jai-5 will be split among ticket holders correctly selecting the most winners. Should the Jai-5 Jackpot not be hit by a single winning ticket on Monday, that Jackpot will be far in excess of $2,000 for the Force-Out on Tuesday.

Saturday’s Pari-Mutuel Performance brought the distribution of the non-monetary awards at Magic City Jai-Alai. Here is a list of those awards and the 2021 recipients:

Most Improved Singles Player for 2021: Ben

Most Improved Doubles Player for 2021: Cool Fitness

Team Unity Award for 2021: Tennessee

We don’t know what this award (Team Unity Award) is officially called, however it’s for the player that goes above and beyond on the court and in the locker room. Tennessee continues to win this award every year. He’s the fellow bringing in snacks for the team, he’s out there wiping sweat off the floor when someone takes a spill and he’s there to help anyone when needed. Tennessee is an all-around Mr. Nice Guy and respects everyone.

Tuesday’s closing day will bring the distribution of the cash awards for the Singles and Doubles Championships. The team of Kubala-Benny have locked-up 1st place in the Doubles Championship with Diaz-Douglas the 2nd place winners. In Singles with 4-games left for the leaders to compete, Douglas leads with 62 wins, Ben is 2nd with 58 wins and Julen is 3rd with 57 wins, so 1st could still be a tie if Julen wins all 4-games and the battle for 2nd is still up for grabs. Expect some hot competition in the singles games in the final two days!

SayHiLi would like to give honorable mention to Spinner who has been a great addition to the Magic City roster. Spinner has done a great job mentoring Magic City players. The team of Cool Fitness-Spinner was in contention for the Doubles Championship when Spinner suffered an achilles tear during an H2H match recently. Spinner will return approximately mid-season in 2022. SayHiLi wishes him the best! Magic City fans will be glad to see the return of Spinner and RonRon in 2022.

Magic City Jai-Alai pari-mutuel games and H2H games will resume in 2022 on February 14th and run through November. SayHiLi expects the pari-mutuel betting pools to be significantly larger at Magic City Jai-Alai in 2022 with the closure of Dania Jai-Alai. Dania’s last pari-mutuel performance ever will be held in one short week on Sunday, November 28th. Be sure to visit there soon if you haven’t already done so.

Be on the lookout for announcements coming out after November 28th on roster additions for Magic City Jai-Alai!

Spinner had a season ending Achilles injury on Monday, November 2nd, during H2H doubles games. He was assessed and treated on Tuesday and Wednesday. He is currently recovering and will begin rehab. He is expected to return to active play at Magic City the summer of 2022.

SayHiLi and Magic City fans wish the best for Spinner and a speedy recovery.

Note: 11/6/2021 update per Stu Neiman during live pari-mutuel performance. Spinner’s return to be sometime in 2022.

There is some great and exciting Jai-Alai news on the horizon. Stay tuned to SayHiLi.com to get the latest Jai-Alai News!

Also, for more Jai-Alai news, amateur Jai-Alai info and great Jai-Alai articles be sure to visit Jeff “Laca” Conway’s PelotaPress.com

This September 11th marks a vivid reminder in American history with the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attack in the US where 2,996 people were killed and more than were 6,000 injured in the falling of the Twin Towers at The World Trade Center, the attack on the Pentagon and in the crash of United Airlines Flt 93 outside Shankville, PA. SayHiLi.com asks all of those reading this to take pause and ask yourselves if all the partisan bickering, hate and division in this country is really worth it? We can’t let one former president’s big lie about his election loss and a simple refusal to concede his loss become another 9/11 in our great country! We should have learned on 9/11/2001 how bad terrorism can be and we simply cannot allow the spread of domestic terrorism from a former disgruntled president to cause “the fall of Rome.” We are supposed to be the greatest nation in the world? It’s time to accept the election facts, not conspiracy theories, look in the mirror, reverse course and ALL Americans need to start acting like REAL American patriots again! What ever happened to “Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself?” Enough of the crazed death threats, it’s gotten so fucking ridiculous that Americans would allow OUR democracy to turn into something so moronically chaotic because of one disgruntled person and compulsive liar who has been spoiled his entire life! This simply can’t continue or this country is doomed to fail. There will be no “winners.”

Let’s celebrate Jai-Alai this 9/11 on Saturday with the return of Magic City short-court Jai-Alai in Miami, Florida where the Magic City roster decisively proved on August 29th this year at the USNJAC they have the best short-court Jai-Alai players in the USA! SayHiLi.com thanks Magic City Jai-Alai for keeping the long accepted short-court version of the Jai-Alai sport alive!

Here are the latest updates for Magic City Jai-Alai:

New 2nd generation player Lander joins the roster. Lander is the son of Aramendi who played at Palm Beach/Newport.

Vuelo is off the roster for the rest of 2021. He may return to play in 2022, however he will start his debut as a Magic City referee on Saturday, 9/11. Good luck to both Lander & Vuelo in their new endeavors!

Manuel will continue to judge pari-mutuel games but he will be playing in Doubles H2H Games as #60 Manny and be paired with Juice who was previously paired with RonRon. Manuel just finished playing at Calder Jai-Alai and was the wins leader.

RonRon’s injury (back & knee pain) is more severe than thought and he will not be returning to play in 2021, but is expected to return in 2022. SayHiLi wishes the best for RonRon and his family!

Lucky fans who are able to get to Magic City Jai-Alai to watch the H2H Singles Games on Saturday have a great opportunity to win the 6-Picks Promotion where winners of all 6-games split the $6,000 carryover. This is a one FREE shot at picking all of the 6-winners of the H2H matches and you must be present to win. The H2H games start at 5-pm.

Sunday pari-mutuel games have been discontinued to preserve players for H2H games. Magic City’s H2H games have led to new sports wagering opportunities on Jai-Alai which started with BetRivers.com in the states of Iowa and Illinois in mid-August with more states to be added soon.

mattlanghans Yesterday was something I’ll never forget. I’m at a lost for words. To be able to play against some of the best players in the US and take home the top spot is surreal. I couldn’t have asked for a better partner @bennylanghans! Playing against players that you’ve looked up to and tried to learn from is awesome. All players involved couldn’t have been more humble, congratulating and everyone was without a doubt a class act. Thanks and congratulations to everyone involved and can’t wait to do it again next year! ??

It was a historic day in the making at the 2nd Annual USNJAC Tournament at Magic City Jai-Alai in Miami, Florida today. The Langhans brothers, Douglas and 18-yo younger brother, Benny, turned the USNJAC into a family affair by Douglas winning the Singles Pro Championship and Douglas-Benny team winning the Doubles Pro Championship. They defeated much more experienced top Dania professionals in doing so and the Tiger’s Board Magic City short-court naysayers/haters are now placed on permanent “IGNORE” for their ramblings…..enough said!

Benny-Douglas beat Dania’s best team of Erik-Ladutxe by a score of 9-7 in the Doubles finale. They were behind by as much as 3-points at one time, with a score of 3-6, and then went on to win 6 of the next 7 points to clinch the victory by a score of 9-7. Young brother, Benny, who turned pro at age 17 had a solid performance catching in the back-court while Douglas covered the front-court. This was no doubt a match favored by the highly experienced Dania duo of Erik-Ladutxe, however, the persistence of the Langhans brothers paid off by staying the course. Congratulations Douglas-Benny and father/trainer/former pro James Langhans and family!!

Dania’s Goitia, also a part-time ref at Magic City in the Dania off-season, managed to pull the upset of the day by solidly beating Erik in the semi-final round of the Singles Pro Championship by a score of 7-4. Goitia threw an unbelievable chula to go ahead of the huge favorite Erik by a score of 6-4 before polishing off Erik. Douglas had beaten Spinner by a score of 7-1 and then Carballo by 7-1 to get to the finale with Goitia where the Magic City wonder boy Douglas prevailed in the match against Goitia, winning by a score of 9-4.

Douglas took home $7,500 for 1st place prize in the Singles Pro Championship while Goitia received $2,500 for 2nd place honors. The Langhans brothers split the $10,000 1st place prize for the Doubles Pro Championship and Dania’s Erik-Ladutxe split a respectable $5,000 for their 2nd place finish.

SayHiLi congratulates the Magic City professionals for their incredible victories! Scott, Lindsay, Stu, Andrew, JR and crew are to be commended for putting on a sensational event this year! Be sure to watch the event match replays on The Jai-Alai Channel for some great exciting short-court Jai-Alai action. Check out all the tournament scores right here on SayHiLi.com, including the Master’s Division finale scores for more info (scores here). This author has to take a much-needed break from tracking and reporting on the 3-days of short-court action at Magic City.

We are sure that Jeff Conway’s PelotaPress.com site will provide a write-up on the Master’s Division of the USNJAC, and we don’t want to duplicate effort, but complete USNJAC scores can be seen on the SayHiLi blog article about the USNJAC Scores. The Singles Masters Division finals was yet another Langhans in this event, Douglas I, who is James Langhans, former pro player and father of Matt and Benny Langhans. Douglas I had an impressive showing in the finale against Matt (playing under name Goya this year), also a former pro player and owner of the only remaining active Jai-Alai court in the northeast where Benny trained earlier this year before turning pro and joining the Magic City roster. Douglas I lost to Matt in a closely contested match by a score of 6-7 and took home $500 for his efforts. This truly made it a Langhans Trifecta with all three family members in the money! Congratulations guys!! Watching James in this Masters Division of the tournament made it quite clear the Langhans sons had a truly remarkable coach & trainer in their corner! Thanks James for passing along your Jai-Alai legacy to your sons and helping Jai-Alai fans to be entertained and awed with the once-in-a-century incredible abilities so rapidly developed by your sons Matt & Benny! You deserve a special award for this amazing accomplishment!

Magic City Jai-Alai games resume on Saturday, September 11th with 8-pari-mutuel games at 1:30-pm followed by six exciting H2H singles matches at 5-pm! Residents of Iowa and Illinois can now do sports betting wagers on Magic City Jai-Alai H2H games at BetRivers.com, the USNJAC tournament sponsor for this 2nd annual USNJAC event. Specialized sports wagering on Magic City Jai-Alai pari-mutuel games can also be done on PrizePicks.com in many states including Florida, except for AZ CO CT DE HI ID IN IA LA MD ME MS MO MT NV NH NJ OH PA TN VA WA.

Saturday, August 28th proved to be a huge day for Magic City in day 1 of the Pro Division of the 2nd Annual USNJAC at Magic City Jai-Alai in Miami, Florida. Reigning singles champion of the 1st USNJAC (Dec 2020), Dania’s Jairo, was eliminated by Magic City’s Julen by a score of 3-7. To top that off, the icing on the cake came when Dania’s Arrieta from the 2020 USNJAC winning doubles team of Goitia-Arrieta was eliminated by Magic City’s Spinner by a score of 3-7 in their singles match. These were huge upsets in the eyes of Dania fans. Magic City Jai-Alai fans couldn’t be prouder of their on-court accomplishments Saturday. It’s a win-win regardless of the final outcome on Sunday’s final events.

Dania’s Erik, eligible for the 2nd annual event as he became a U.S. citizen in the last year, did not disappoint for Dania. Erik bested Frank in his opening round by a score of 7-4 and then proceeded to win against Dania foe Zulaika in the next round by a score of 7-3. Erik has been Dania’s top player in recent years and considered one of the best front-court players in the world. Dania fans expect him to be the singles USNJAC tourney favorite.

James Langhans, playing under the name Douglas I, and father of Magic City stars Douglas and Benny, earned his way into the Pro Division Singles tourney by making the finals in the Master’s Division which was played on Friday, the first tourney day of the three-day USNJAC. Douglas I did not disappoint the Langhans family by winning his first two matches in the Pro Division, besting Dania’s Urbieta by a score of 7-3 in Round 1 followed by a Round 2 win of 7-3 against Magic City’s Bueno (Chris Bueno), son of Dania Player Manager Benny Bueno. Douglas I has some solid talent and superb form and looks great on the court with his serious set of specialty shots. His next match is against Erik on Sunday morning and should be a good one. It’s no wonder sons Douglas (Matt) and Benny have developed their skill sets so quickly with a coach like former pro player James! Dania’s Goita narrowly squeaked by Magic City 18-yo phenom Benny, younger brother of Douglas, by a score of 7-6 in a tightly contested 2nd Round match or it would have been a “Langhans Trifecta” making it to the final 8 for the Sunday showdown.

Connecticut player Goya (Matt, owner of the short-court practice fronton facility in CT) did not disappoint in the Masters Division and was the other player making the finals. Goya advanced to the Pro Division by making the final two but was ousted in Round 1 against Goitia by a score of 2-7. Tourney fans were in awe of Goya’s talent for his age. He’s a former professional Jai-Alai player from 40-years ago and certainly did not disappoint fans from the northeast. Goya plays in the Master’s Division Singles final Sunday morning against Douglas I and is also in the Master’s Division Doubles final match of Beach-Goya vs Mickey Mo-Suits. Jai-Alai fans won’t want to miss these Master Division finals!

The final 8 in the Pro Division singles tourney finals to be held on Sunday, 8/29 are: brothers Julen vs Goitia, Douglas I vs Erik, Spinner vs Douglas, and Ladutxe vs Carballo. Magic City players are in three of the four matches and represent half of the players in the final showdown of these eight players. There were (7) Pro Division Singles matches on Saturday where Magic City players faced off against the seasoned Dania players. The Magic City players out-played their far more experienced Dania opponents in those singles matches by a combined point score of 39-37, even with one of those matches including an early games Magic City player. These (7) 7-point matches of Magic City players vs Dania revealed another interesting statistic. All Magic City players scored at least 4-points in the 7-point matches while the seasoned Dania players scored just 3-points in three of the seven 7-point matches against Magic City. Sounds like another win for Magic City. SayHiLi.com is sure Scott Savin, Stu Neiman and Juan Arrasate could not be any prouder of the Magic City players and how far they’ve come in such a short time. Congratulations Magic City for making an event like this possible!

The Pro Division Doubles tourney has been pared-down to (8) remaining teams. Only the first round was played on Saturday with finals on Sunday. The 1st Annual USNJAC doubles winners Goitia-Arrieta were the last doubles match of the day and faced off against the winner of a round-robin match of the losing round 1 teams. They were victorious against the team of El Nino-Gallo by a score of 7-3 to advance to the final eight teams. The doubles match of Frank-Johnny vs Anderluck-Bradley was perhaps the most exciting match Saturday with a comeback victory by Anderluck-Bradley. They were down by 5-1 and then 6-3 and survived 4-game point attempts by Frank-Johnny to claim a hard-fought victory of 7-6 and make the final eight teams. Congratulations Anderluck-Bradley for sticking it out and earning that hard-fought victory.

The final 8-teams for Pro Division Doubles with the Sunday pairings are as follows: Goitia-Arrieta vs Ubilla-Zulaika, Benny-Douglas vs Anderluck-Bradley, Carballo-Spinner vs Brodie-Kubala, and Erik-Ladutxe vs Jairo-Urbieta. The Dania fan favorite team of Erik-Ladutxe won against Mickey Mo-Suits by a score of 7-2 in Round 1. Mickey Mo-Suits team earned their shot in the Pro Division by making it to the final two teams in the Masters Division on Friday.

Magic City wonder boy, Douglas, played in 3-matches on Saturday (two singles and one doubles) and did not disappoint his huge fan base. Douglas was sitting out for the last week of pari-mutuel play at Magic City, having rolled his ankle in mid-August. His tourney debut was astonishing yesterday as he won 21-points and lost only 1-point for the day, besting all other tourney players by a country mile in that category.

All tourney matches and scores can be seen in the blog post for USNJAC scores.

Here are the 2nd Annual USNJAC match scores from Magic City Jai-Alai for August 27-29, 2021. Click here for Tourney Info.

Last Modified: August 31, 2021 7:09 am

2021 USNJAC

DIVISION	DATE	S/D	RND	PLAYER(S)	SCORES	WINNER
Masters	08/27/2021	S	1	Garby vs Geno	1-6	Geno
Masters	08/27/2021	S	1	Suits vs Chewy	6-2	Suits
Masters	08/27/2021	S	1	Big Z vs Lenny	4-6	Lenny
Masters	08/27/2021	S	1	Jefe vs Jay	6-2	Jefe
Masters	08/27/2021	S	1	Borechip vs Douglas I	2-6	Douglas I
Masters	08/27/2021	S	1	Jimmy Jam vs Bob	6-2	Jimmy Jam
Masters	08/27/2021	S	1	The Goat vs Rule	0-6	Rule
Masters	08/27/2021	S	1	Okie vs Phat Boy	6-5	Okie
Masters	08/27/2021	S	1	Kullster vs Alex	6-5	Kullster
Masters	08/27/2021	S	1	Adam vs Lorenzo	6-4	Adam
Masters	08/27/2021	S	1	David vs Gach	David forfeits	Gach
Masters	08/27/2021	S	1	Richie D vs Mikey Mo	6-2	Richie D
Masters	08/27/2021	S	1	Matt vs Gizmo	6-1	Matt
Masters	08/27/2021	S	1	Petro vs LJS	6-1	Petro
Masters	08/27/2021	S	1	Cachin47 vs Ant	5-6	Ant
Masters	08/27/2021	S	1	Richardson vs Casio	0-6	Casio
Masters	08/27/2021	S	2	Geno vs Suits	5-6	Suits
Masters	08/27/2021	S	2	Lenny vs Jefe	4-6	Jefe
Masters	08/27/2021	S	2	Douglas I vs Jimmy Jam	6-0	Douglas I
Masters	08/27/2021	S	2	Rule vs Okie	6-1	Rule
Masters	08/27/2021	S	2	Kullster vs Adam	6-0	Kullster
Masters	08/27/2021	S	2	Gach vs Richie D	3-6	Richie D
Masters	08/27/2021	S	2	Matt vs Petro	6-2	Matt
Masters	08/27/2021	S	2	Ant vs Casio	3-6	Casio
Masters	08/27/2021	S	3	Suits vs Jefe	6-1	Suits
Masters	08/27/2021	S	3	Douglas I vs Rule	6-3	Douglas I
Masters	08/27/2021	S	3	Kullster vs Richie D	2-6	Richie D
Masters	08/27/2021	S	3	Matt vs Casio	6-5	Matt
Masters	08/27/2021	S	4	Suits vs Douglas I	3-6	Douglas I
Masters	08/27/2021	S	4	Richie D vs Matt	0-6	Matt
Masters	08/29/2021	S	5-Finals	Douglas I vs Matt	6-7	Matt
Masters	08/27/2021	D	1	Casio-Geno vs Kulster-Lenny	6-3	Casio-Geno
Masters	08/27/2021	D	1	Ant-Petro vs Alex-Cachin47	6-1	Ant-Petro
Masters	08/27/2021	D	1	Big Z-LJS vs Gach-Jefe	6-4	Big Z-LJS
Masters	08/27/2021	D	1	Beach-Matt vs Garby-Rule	6-2	Beach-Matt
Masters	08/27/2021	D	1	Bonechip-Richie D vs MikeyMo-Suits	6-2	Bonechip-Richie D
Masters	08/27/2021	D	1	Gizmo-Okie vs Bob-Jay	6-4	Gizmo-Okie
Masters	08/27/2021	D	1	Chewy-Jimmy Jam vs Adam-Douglas I	2-6	Adam-Douglas I
Masters	08/27/2021	D	1-Playback	(7) Rnd 1 Losers in round-robin rotation to 6-pts (top 2 move on)	6-1 Micky Mo-Suits vs Gache-Jefe	Micky Mo-Suits
Masters	08/27/2021	D	2	Casio-Geno vs Ant-Petro	6-2	Casio-Geno
Masters	08/27/2021	D	2	Big z-LJS vs Beach-Matt	2-6	Beach-Matt
Masters	08/27/2021	D	2	Bonechip-Richie D vs Gizmo-Okie	6-1	Bonechip-Richie D
Masters	08/27/2021	D	2	Adam-Douglas I vs Mickey Mo-Suits	3-6	Mickey Mo-Suits
Masters	08/27/2021	D	3	Casio-Geno vs Beach-Matt	2-6	Beach-Matt
Masters	08/27/2021	D	3	Bonechip-Richie D vs Mickey Mo-Suits	1-6	Mickey Mo-Suits
Masters	08/29/2021	D	4-Finals	Beach-Matt vs Mickey Mo-Suits	7-4	Beach-Matt
Pro	08/28/2021	S	1	bye vs Jairo	n/a	Jairo
Pro	08/28/2021	S	1	Julen vs Gallo	7-2	Julen
Pro	08/28/2021	S	1	Peugot vs Benny	1-7	Benny
Pro	08/28/2021	S	1	Matt vs Goitia	2-7	Goitia
Pro	08/28/2021	S	1	Douglas I vs Urbieta	7-3	Douglas I
Pro	08/28/2021	S	1	El Nino vs Bueno	6-7	Bueno
Pro	08/28/2021	S	1	Zulaika vs Bradley	7-4	Zulaika
Pro	08/28/2021	S	1	Frank vs Erik	4-7	Erik
Pro	08/28/2021	S	1	bye vs Arrieta	n/a	Arrieta
Pro	08/28/2021	S	1	T Bone vs Spinner	3-7	Spinner
Pro	08/28/2021	S	1	Jeden vs El Barba	7-3	Jeden
Pro	08/28/2021	S	1	Johnny vs Douglas	0-7	Douglas
Pro	08/28/2021	S	1	Ladutxe vs Tennessee	7-4	Ladutxe
Pro	08/28/2021	S	1	CRB vs Anderluck	3-7	Anderluck
Pro	08/28/2021	S	1	Ben vs Brodie	7-2	Ben
Pro	08/28/2021	S	1	bye vs Carballo	n/a	Carballo
Pro	08/28/2021	S	2	Jairo vs Julen	3-7	Julen
Pro	08/28/2021	S	2	Benny vs Goitia	6-7	Goitia
Pro	08/28/2021	S	2	Douglas I vs Bueno	7-3	Douglas I
Pro	08/28/2021	S	2	Zulaika vs Erik	3-7	Erik
Pro	08/28/2021	S	2	Arrieta vs Spinner	3-7	Spinner
Pro	08/28/2021	S	2	Jeden vs Douglas	1-7	Douglas
Pro	08/28/2021	S	2	Ladutxe vs Anderluck	7-4	Ladutxe
Pro	08/28/2021	S	2	Ben vs Carballo	1-7	Carballo
Pro	08/29/2021	S	3	Julen vs Goitia	5-7	Goitia
Pro	08/29/2021	S	3	Douglas I vs Erik	0-7	Erik
Pro	08/29/2021	S	3	Spinner vs Douglas	1-7	Douglas
Pro	08/29/2021	S	3	Ladutxe vs Carballo	6-7	Carballo
Pro	08/29/2021	S	4	Goitia vs Erik	7-4	Goitia
Pro	08/29/2021	S	4	Douglas vs Carballo	7-1	Douglas
Pro	08/29/2021	S	5-Finals	Goitia vs Douglas	4-9	Douglas
Pro	08/28/2021	D	1	Goitia-Arrieta vs El Nino-Gallo	7-3	Goitia-Arrieta
Pro	08/28/2021	D	1	Ubilla-Zulaika vs Ben-Bueno	7-2	Ubilla-Zulaika
Pro	08/28/2021	D	1	Benny-Douglas vs Beach-Matt	7-0	Benny-Douglas
Pro	08/28/2021	D	1	Frank-Johnny vs Anderluck-Bradley	6-7	Anderluck-Bradley
Pro	08/28/2021	D	1	Carballo-Spinner vs El Nino-Gallo	7-5	Carballo-Spinner
Pro	08/28/2021	D	1	Brodie-Kubala vs CRB-Tennessee	7-5	Brodie-Kubala
Pro	08/28/2021	D	1	Erik-Ladutxe vs Mickey Mo-Suits	7-2	Erik-Ladutxe
Pro	08/28/2021	D	1	Jeden-Julen vs Jairo-Urbieta	5-7	Jairo-Urbieta
Pro	08/28/2021	D	1-Playback	(6) Rnd 1 Losers (excl Beach-Matt, forfeited their spot) Playback, Winner plays Goitia-Arrieta	n/a	El Nino-Gallo
Pro	08/29/2021	D	2	Goitia-Arrieta vs Ubilla-Zulaika	7-3	Goitia-Arrieta
Pro	08/29/2021	D	2	Benny-Douglas vs Anderluck-Bradley	7-3	Benny-Douglas
Pro	08/29/2021	D	2	Carballo-Spinner vs Brodie-Kubala	7-4	Carballo-Spinner
Pro	08/29/2021	D	2	Erik-Ladutxe vs Jairo-Urbieta	7-5	Erik-Ladutxe
Pro	08/29/2021	D	3	Goitia-Arrieta vs Benny-Douglas	2-7	Benny-Douglas
Pro	08/29/2021	D	3	Carballo-Spinner vs Erik-Ladutxe	3-7	Erik-Ladutxe
Pro	08/29/2021	D	4-Finals	Benny-Douglas vs Erik-Ladutxe	9-7	Benny-Douglas

2021 U.S. National Jai-Alai Championship at Magic City Jai-Alai. This is the 2nd annual event with prize money over $25,000.

Golden Cesta Award (GCA):

Carballo wins with 3-singles game wins (42.9%) over Bueno with 3-wins (30.0%) on win % tiebreaker, his 6th GCA of his Magic City career and now tied for 3rd most GCA’s ever with EL Barba. Congratulations Carballo and a shout-out to Bueno! Douglas is 1st with 28 GCA’s and RonRon is 2nd with 16. See GCA history HERE.

2021 Regular Season Singles Championship (# of wins):

Ben – 42

El Barba/Julen – 41

Douglas/Benny – 40

Next best is Anderluck with 34

What a competition, great going guys!!

2021 Doubles Tourney #3 (# of wins):

Cool Fitness-Spinner – 10

Kubala-Benny – 8

Diaz-Douglas – 6

Anderluck-Bradley – 5

2021 Doubles Tourney #3 Week 17 Wins:

Cool Fitness-Spinner – 2 (note Cool Fitness was scratched Monday)

(3) teams tied with 1-win for the week for this short week

2021 Regular Season % Wins – All Singles Games (top 4):

Douglas – 27.8% (did not play Wk 17)

RonRon – 23.6% (still out with injury, back 9/11)

El Barba – 17.3%

Spinner – 16.8%

2021 Regular Season % ITM – All Singles Games (top 4):

Douglas – 56.9%

RonRon – 55.7%

Spinner – 51.4%

Benny – 47.7%

2021 Regular Season Week 17 % Wins – Singles Games (top 4):

Carballo – 42.9%

Cool Fitness – 33.3%

Bueno – 30.0%

Spinner – 28.6%

2021 Regular Season Week 17 % ITM – Singles Games (top 4):

Carballo – 71.4%

Bueno – 70.0%

Cool Fitness – 66.7%

Kubala/Tennessee – 50.0%

Other Magic City Jai-Lites:

USNJAC is next on agenda. Watch live on The Jai-Alai Channel at 10-am EST Aug 27-29th. Amateurs are Friday and Professionals are Saturday/Sunday. GO Magic City players!! Magic City Jai-Alai fans know you can do it!!

Next pari-mutuel performance is Sat, Sept. 11 following a short well-deserved break after USNJAC. No schedule changes for Magic City, still Sat thru Tue at 1:30-pm. Get ready for the “Jai-ly” popular mandatory payouts of Jai-5 and Mighty Ocho at the end of Edgewater Meet on September 21.

Lander Aramendi to make his professional debut at Magic City Jai-Alai on Saturday September 11. The only other roster change we know of is that Vuelo will not be playing for the remainder of 2021 but could return in 2022. RonRon expected back on 9/11 too.

Jai-Alai sports betting continues in Iowa & Illinois on H2H matches thru BetRivers.com with more states to be added soon. Thanks Magic City Jai-Alai for your dedication at keeping the sport of Jai-Alai alive and kicking in the USA!

Saturday Sept. 11 6-Picks Jackpot is $6,000 for this FREE H2H contest for live fans at Saturday H2H games at Magic City. WOW, you gotta be kidding me! Only at Magic City Jai-Alai!

New H2H 18-Picks contest for all fans debuts on Saturday Sept. 11. Fans must re-register for this new contest on fantasizer.com. This 18-Picks contest replaces the fantasy contest for the pari-mutuel games. SayHiLi’s owner Say-HiLi Susie was the winner of the fantasy contest for 2021 with 4-weekly wins. Congrats Susie for kicking the guys azzez! She is a huge fan of the sport!

Dania slated to re-open on Wed. Sept 1 at this time. No other info available at this time or how long they will continue to offer Jai-Alai. Remember the Big Payoffs are at Magic City Jai-Alai! Magic City Jai-Alai serves excitement with its faster version of the sport and top talent! Thanks Magic City fans for your continued and dedicated support of pari-mutuel games and H2H matches!!

Steve

Side note from contributor Steve. Cardiologist says I definitely need a heart procedure and it’s serious. Undergoing additional tests soon and decisions by the experts on what kind of surgery. Should you see no updates on site scratches, carryovers and weekly reports, there is a good reason and hope to be back soon!

Golden Cesta Award (GCA):

Bueno wins with 4-singles game wins (28.6% wins), his 4th GCA of his Magic City career – Congratulations Bueno!

2021 Regular Season Singles Championship (# of wins):

Julen – 41, Ben/Douglas/El Barba – 40, Benny – 39

Next best is Anderluck/RonRon with 33

2021 Doubles Tourney #3 (# of wins):

Cool Fitness-Spinner & Kubala-Benny – 8

Diaz-Douglas – 6

Anderluck-Bradley – 4

2021 Doubles Tourney #3 Week 16 Wins:

Kubala-Benny – 3

(4) teams tied with 1-win for the week

2021 Regular Season % Wins – Singles Games (top 3):

Douglas – 27.8%

RonRon – 23.6%

El Barba – 17.5%

2021 Regular Season % ITM – Singles Games (top 3):

Douglas – 56.9%

RonRon – 55.7%

Spinner – 51.8%

2021 Regular Season – Week 16 % Wins (top 3):

El Barba – 50% (3-wins in 6-games), scratched Mon/Tue

Bueno – 28.6%

Douglas/Ikeda/Spinner – 22.2%

2021 Regular Season – Week 16 % ITM (top 3):

Benny – 83.3%

Douglas – 66.7%

Bradley – 62.5%

Other Magic City Weekly Jai-Lites:

Juice get his 1st singles win since back from injury

Tuesday Jai-5 paid $11,746.40 to (1) lucky winner

Jai-Alai sports betting started in Iowa & Illinois on H2H matches – history in the making! Congrats Magic City!

Saturday Aug 21 6-Picks Jackpot is $5,000 (last day for FREE 6-Picks contest for fans on site)

Here is the link for the Press Release

Jai-Alai sports betting history in the USA makes its debut today at 5-pm EST with (4) Magic City H2H singles matches on the sports betting menu on BetRivers.com for Iowa residents. BetRivers has sports betting in the states of IA, IL, IN, CO, MI, PA, WV, VA, NJ so other states are expected to be opened up soon in addition to Iowa once their individual state approval process is completed. Approvals can take place pretty quickly for sports betting of new sports, so stay tuned.

This history breaking announcement came during the pari-mutuel performance at Magic City Jai-Alai on Monday, August 16, 2021 after the 7th game had finished. Watch the Jai-Alai Channel on YouTube to hear the full announcement as all past performances can be seen after the live games. This is exciting news for Magic City as they have explored various ways to introduce Jai-Alai into the sports betting market and have a strong desire to keep the sport of Jai-Alai alive in the USA. Jai-Alai was first introduced to the USA nearly 100-years ago in the city of Miami, Florida.

Congratulations Magic City Jai-Alai on this historical announcement!

The Jai-ly popular Jai-5 wager at Magic City Casino & Jai-Alai in Miami, Florida has now gone (8) consecutive performances without a single winning ticket on this elusive $1.00 Pick 5 Jackpot Wager offered on the Jai-Alai pari-mutuel performances. Monday, August 16 the Jai-5 Jackpot will pay the 3rd highest payoff in Jai-5 history if there is a lucky bettor with the single winning ticket.

There have been no Jai-5 bettors live for a single winning ticket jackpot payoff going into game 7, the final leg of the wager, in any of the last 3-performances. After Sunday’s performance with no jackpot winner, the pot soared to $6,603.20. Based on recent history, the jackpot on Monday will easily exceed the 3rd largest Jai-5 payoff from 11/22/2019 which paid a cool $7.941.60. The 2nd largest payoff was $12,220 which was hit on 11/13/2019. That payoff stood as the record for nearly a year and a half until the current record payoff of $27.348 was won on 4/5/2021 this spring after going a whopping (16) consecutive performances without a single winning ticket with all 5-winners correct.

Good Luck to those Jai-5 bettors pursuing the Jai-5 challenge! Get your longshots ready!

The Saturday Doubles H2H Live Fan Contest at Magic City Jai-Alai has a HUGE $5,000 6-Picks carryover for August 21 to be split among live H2H fans successfully picking all 6-winners of the H2H games. Saturday August 14 found 4-fans live with 5/5 match winners correctly selected going into the final match of Bueno-Ben versus Kubala-Benny, however, all 4-free fans had 6-Picks tickets with match loser Bueno-Ben on their tickets. Kubala-Benny polished off Bueno-Ben in quick order in two sets with scores of 6-1 and 6-1.

There are only 64-possibilities for selecting all 6-match winners, however, lately with RonRon scratched due to injury which creates a forfeit for the Juice-RonRon team and automatic win for their opponent, some of the H2H contests on Saturday have been effectively reduced to a 5-Picks and even 4-Picks contest once due to another injury, vastly improving the odds for selecting all match winners. The first two weeks of the 6-Picks contest there were single winners for $1,000 each time. The last three Saturday contests there have been fans live going into the final match and they have all missed on the final match. Saturday August 21 multiple winners of all matches will split the $5,000 carryover prize.

Saturday August 21 is the last 6-Picks contest until Saturday, September 11th where again each live H2H fan gets one free selection to be submitted 5-minutes before the first match. Live fans participating be sure to read and follow the rules to collect in the event you select the correct match winners. The 2nd Annual USNJAC tourney at Magic City is played from August 27-29, a 3-day event this year instead of 2-days. When the tourney concludes, there is a short break at Magic City before the Jai-Alai action resumes on Saturday, September 11. Note that before the USNJAC tourney, Monday the 23rd is the final day of Magic City Jai-Alai for the week. When play resumes on September 11 after USNJAC, there will also be a another H2H contest offered for H2H fans called 18-Picks which includes the fans at home and covers all (18) weekly H2H games. Note that 18-Picks replaces the popular weekly fantasy league on pari-mutuel games. Complete 18-Picks contest details are still being finalized and will then be fully released. We have heard that fan(s) correctly selecting the most weekly H2H winners for 18-Picks will split a $100 prize, the same as the current fantasy contest, and we think there is a carryover if nobody correctly selects all 18-winners. Stay tuned for full details!

Steve

The super exciting fast-paced short-court Jai-Alai action concluded for week 15 of the regular season on Tuesday, August 10th with good-guy Ben, nailing his 4th Golden Cesta Award of his career joining the ranks of 4th most GC awards with Anderluck and Carballo. Ben won 4 of his 12 singles games and was 50.0% ITM in his 12 games and had the highest % Wins of the week with 33.3%. Congratulations Ben on your great Jai-Alai play! Douglas took honors for highest ITM of the week with a respectable 66.7%. The doubles teams of Anderluck-Bradley and Kubala-Benny were win leaders for the week with 2-wins each despite Anderluck-Bradley missing action the first half of the week. Currently, Cool Fitness-Spinner lead the 3rd doubles tourney of the year with 7-wins while Diaz-Douglas and Kubala-Benny are tied for 2nd with 5-wins each. Anderluck-Bradley are next best with 3-wins each. Teams Cool-Fitness and Diaz Douglas are both tied for 2nd in ITM with 56.6% each. The highly touted and respected H2H doubles team of Jeden-Julen are still struggling in pari-mutuel games while tied for 5th in wins with 2-wins (8.3% wins and 29.2% ITM).

The Singles Championship remains super-heated with 4-players tied for first with 38-wins (WOW! You don’t get this at Dania!). Those players are Ben, Benny, Douglas and Julen followed up by El Barba with 37 along with RonRon (currently out with injury) and Anderluck with 33 wins. The next best total singles wins is a group of 3-players led by Tennessee with 26, Spinner 25 and Kubala 24. This group of three is then followed by others with 16-wins and less.

Week 16 of the regular season kicks-off on Saturday, August 14th, with a 1:30-pm performance where live fans are allowed in the fronton. Seating starts at 1:00 pm. Don’t forget the exciting H2H doubles games which follow at 5-pm where live fans are also allowed. Live fans for Saturday’s H2H doubles can also get in on one FREE shot at an incredible cash prize of $4,000 on Saturday with the 6-Picks Promotion. There was another $1,000 added to the previous $3,000 carryover making this jackpot $4,000 since nobody again selected all six H2H doubles games correctly on Saturday August 7th. One contestant yet again had the first 5-matches correct and missed on the final match. Generally, the person(s) picking ALL 6-winners of the (6) H2H doubles matches split $1,000. There are 64-different combinations of picking all 6-matches and each participant gets only ONE chance, so this is not impossible by any means. This 6-Picks Jackpot continues to grow by $1,000 weekly until a contestant correctly picks the winner of all 6-matches (multiple winners of all matches split the Jackpot). So far there have been lucky winners the first two Saturdays, July 10th and July 17th. Those winners each took home a cool $1,000 cash. Be sure to understand all the rules for this promotion if you are participating in this on-site contest at Magic City Jai-Alai and get your entry in before the deadline. We do know you must be present at the conclusion to collect if you are a 6-Picks winner. Please note that this contest ends on August 21st and will be replaced with a new contest allowing fans at home to participate and entails all three H2H game days. The new contest is called 18-Picks! The 18-Picks also replaces the weekly fantasy league. The 18-picks contest makes it’s debut after the 2nd Annual USNJAC tourney when Magic City Jai-Alai H2H and pari-mutuel games resume on Saturday, September 11.

Don’t forget to get those Magic City Fantasy Jai-Alai League selections locked-in for week 16 before the start of Saturday’s game 1! Contestants need to be mindful of the recent entries change on Saturday’s live performance where the late-game players now play an extra feature game in addition to game 6 & 8. These late-game players get to fascinate the fans by competing in middle game 4 on Saturdays only. The Jai-5 is at an huge $4,696.40 carryover going into Saturday’s performance so don’t miss out on your chance at a big pot which could top $7,000 to a single 5 of 5 winner on Saturday.

The week 16 entries are expected to be scratch-free for the start of the week. RonRon continues to be out with knee/back pain and should be back after the break in action after the conclusion of the USNJAC tourney (Tourney is Aug 27-29th, don’t miss this).

A new roster addition is coming to Magic City Jai-Alai in September. Lander Aramendi has joined the Magic City roster and will make his professional debut on Saturday, September 11 in the early games. He will be playing under his first name of “Lander.”

The name Aramendi is not new to Jai-Alai. Lander is a 25-yo second generation Jai-Alai player. His father played under the name Aramendi at Palm Beach Jai-Alai and quite likely played significant time in Newport too. This author has seen Aramendi on the Palm Beach court hundreds of times and remembers he was an excellent player. The complete bio on Aramendi at Palm Beach is not known at this time, but we suspect it won’t take renowned Jai-Alai historian, Ralph Butts (aka “Tiger” of website tigerhili.com), long to track down the full history and release more details on his website. We also expect Jeff Conway of pelotapress.com to dig up additional info with photos from his substantial list if industry contacts.

While the name Aramendi is well known and respected in the Jai-Alai community, the young Lander is relatively new to playing the game of Jai-Alai and has less than 1-year of amateur experience. Lander has been practicing at Matt’s court in Connecticut and was flown down to Magic City for some court time last week. Here are Stu Neiman’s observations in his own words. “Lander catches and throws well and has a rebote, however, he needs some work on shots and serving,” according to Stu.

The 2nd annual USNJAC tourney runs from August 27-29 this year. Magic City Jai-Alai will be running their regular schedule through Monday, August 23rd prior to the tourney, however, they will be closed on Tuesday, August 24th in prep for the upcoming tourney. Magic City will have a short break after the conclusion of the USNJAC tourney on Sunday, August 29th and will continue with pari-mutuel games on Saturday, September 11th where Lander will make his professional Jai-Alai debut.

SayHiLi.com wishes Lander a great debut and mucho Golden Cesta Awards! Welcome to Magic City Jai-Alai, home of exciting, fast-paced professional short-court Jai-Alai!

Steve

Fast-paced short-court Jai-Alai action concluded for week 14 of the regular season on Tuesday, August 3rd with Benny, the youngest professional on the roster and brother of top player Douglas, nabbing his first Golden Cesta Award since starting on February 6th this year. Benny won 6 of his 12 singles games and was 83.3% ITM in his 12 games, besting Julen’s 2nd place of 53.3% ITM quite decisively. Congratulations Benny on this great achievement! The doubles team of Diaz-Douglas took top honors for the week with 8-3-2-0 for 37.5% wins and 62.5% ITM. Currently, Cool Fitness-Spinner lead the 3rd doubles tourney of the year with 6-wins while Diaz-Douglas have 4 and Kubala-Benny have 3-wins.

The Singles Championship remains quite the battle with 8-players of the Magic City 20-player roster still within 8-wins of each other. El Barba & Julen have 37, Douglas 36, Benny 35, Ben 34, Anderluck & RonRon 33, and Ikeda 29. The next best on wins is Tennessee with 25, Kubala 24 and Spinner with 23. This group of three is then followed by others with 16-wins and less.

Week 15 of the regular season kicks-off on Saturday, August 7th, with a 1:30-pm performance where live fans are allowed in the fronton. Seating starts at 1:00 pm. Don’t forget the exciting H2H doubles games which follow at 5-pm where live fans are also allowed. Live fans for Saturday’s H2H doubles can also get in on one FREE shot at $3,000 on Saturday; the new 6-Picks Promotion. There was $1,000 added to the previous $2,000 carryover making this jackpot $3,000 since nobody again selected all six H2H doubles games correctly on Saturday July 31st. One contestant had the first 5-matches correct and missed on the last match. Generally, the person(s) picking ALL 6-winners of the (6) H2H doubles matches split $1,000. There are 64-different combinations of picking all 6-matches and each participant gets only ONE chance, so this is not impossible by any means. This 6-Picks Jackpot continues to grow by $1,000 weekly until a contestant correctly picks the winner of all 6-matches (multiple winners of all matches split the Jackpot). So far there have been lucky winners the first two Saturdays, July 10th and July 17th. Those winners each took home a cool $1,000 cash. Be sure to understand all the rules for this promotion if you are participating in this on-site contest at Magic City Jai-Alai and get your entry in before the deadline. We do know you must be present at the conclusion to collect if you are a 6-Picks winner.

Don’t forget to get those Magic City Fantasy Jai-Alai League selections locked-in before the start of Saturday’s game 1! Contestants need to be mindful of the entries change on Saturday’s live performance where the late-game players now play an extra feature game in addition to game 6 & 8. These late-game players get to wow the crowd by competing in middle game 4 on Saturdays only.

The week 15 entries are expected to be scratch-free for the start of the week. RonRon continues to be out with knee/back pain and is expected to be out for 3-4 weeks. El Barba and Ikeda are back in action for week 15 and are listed in the entries for Saturday & Sunday.

Amazing short-court Jai-Alai was again on the menu for week 13 which concluded Tuesday, July 27th! Douglas secured his 28th Golden Cesta Award by winning 4 of his 9-singles games and had an impressive 88.9% ITM with his 8 of 9 games ITM and surged to 2nd place in the Singles Championship, just 2-wins shy of leader El Barba who has 37-singles wins. The new doubles tournament started, the 3rd of 2021, and 2nd doubles tourney winners Cool Fitness-Spinner got of to a huge lead again by winning 5 of their 7 doubles games for an impressive 71.4% wins! There are three other teams tied for 2nd with 1-win each.

The Singles Championship remains to be quite a battle with 8-players of the Magic City 20-player roster within 8-wins of each other. El Barba has 37, Douglas 35, Julen 34, Ben & RonRon 33, Anderluck 32, and Benny & Ikeda finish out the top 8 with 29-wins. The next best on wins is Spinner with 23, Tennessee 22, and Kubala 21. This group of three is then followed by others with 15-wins and less.

Week 14 of the regular season kicks-off on Saturday, July 31st, with a 1:30-pm performance where live fans are allowed in the fronton. Seating starts at 1:00 pm. Don’t forget the exciting H2H doubles games which follow at 5-pm where live fans are also allowed. Live fans for Saturday’s H2H doubles can also get in on one FREE shot at $2,000 on Saturday; the new 6-Picks Promotion. There is a carryover making this jackpot $2,000 since nobody selected all six H2H doubles games correctly on Saturday July 24th. Generally, the person(s) picking ALL 6-winners of the (6) H2H doubles matches split $1,000. There are 64-different combinations of picking all 6-matches and each participant gets only ONE chance, so this is not impossible by any means. If nobody has all 6-winners, the $1,000 carries over to the next Saturday where $2,000 is up for grabs for the winner(s) of ALL 6-matches. This “jackpot” continues to grow by $1,000 weekly until a contestant correctly picks the winner of all 6-matches. So far there have been lucky winners the first two Saturdays, July 10th and July 17th. Those winners each took home a cool $1,000 cash. Be sure to understand all the rules for this promotion if you are participating in this on-site contest and get your entry in before the deadline. You must be present at the conclusion to collect if you are a winner.

Don’t forget to get those Magic City Fantasy Jai-Alai League selections locked-in before the start of Saturday’s game 1! Contestants need to be mindful of the entries change on Saturday’s live performance where the late-game players now play an extra feature game in addition to game 6 & 8. The late-gamers will also be competing in game 4 (Saturday only).

There had not been any scratches at Magic City Jai-Alai since June 5th, however, Tuesday July 27th RonRon scratched on games 6-on due to knee and potential back issues. This was an amazing stretch for a Jai-Alai venue to have no scratches which is far different from the Dania Jai-Alai venue which unfortunately has a history of regular unexpected player scratches, which makes handicapping more difficult and and can make advance wagering a riskier gamble. Please take note that RonRon is not listed in the entries for Saturday & Sunday. Anderluck did injure his bicep during the first H2H doubles match on Tuesday evening and scratched for his second match. We are assuming this was not a serious injury as he is listed in the entries for Saturday & Sunday.

Magic City Jai-Alai Fans, last, but not least, DO NOT FORGET that Saturday, July 31st, is Magic City co-announcer and statistician, Andrew Blechman’s 24th birthday. SayHiLi.com wishes Andrew a Happy Birthday! Fans of the live chat on the JAC, please join-in and give this birthday boy your best wishes on his 24th birthday! Perhaps the lucky 2-4 quiniella is the bet for the day!

Tuesday, July 20th concluded another week of the fast-action short-court Jai-Alai with Magic City early-mid game professional Jai-Alai player El Barba securing his 6th Golden Cesta Award and surging to the lead in the singles championship. El Barba won 6-singles games for the week, an impressive 50% wins, and is in 3rd place for most GC Awards at Magic City, only headed by Douglas and RonRon. Congratulations El Barba on your victorious week!

The 2021 regular season Singles Championship has continued to be a contentious battle with lead changes happening regularly. Eight players of the 20-player roster have from 27 to 35 singles wins. El Barba now leads this group with 35 wins, Ben 33, Anderluck & RonRon have 32, Douglas & Julen 31, Ikeda 28, and Benny 27. Douglas continues to lead in singles win percentage with 28.7% with RonRon not far behind with 24.1%. RonRon leads overall best % ITM with 55.6.

The second 2021 Doubles Tournament of the year concluded on Tuesday, July 20th. Cool Fitness-Spinner dominated the tourney with 25-wins (25.5% wins) and will split the first place price of $10,000. Kubala-Benny scored 2nd place prize money of $5,000 with 19-wins, edging out 3rd place finishers Carballo-Tennessee with their 17-victories. Fourth place team was El Barba-Ikeda with 12-wins. Those were the only teams with double digit win stats. The 3rd 2021 Doubles Tournament starts on Saturday July 24th with game 5. There are 9-teams in this tournament. Anderluck-Vuelo and CRB-Bradley will not be playing in this one. Anderluck is paired with Bradley this time while CRB and Vuelo will be tournament subs. The remaining teams from the 2nd Doubles Tournament will continue as-is.

Week 13 kicks-off on Saturday, July 24th, with a 1:30-pm performance where live fans are allowed in the fronton. Seating starts at 1:00 pm. Don’t forget the exciting H2H doubles games which follow at 5-pm where live fans are also allowed. Live fans for Saturday’s H2H doubles can also get in on one FREE shot at $1,000 on Saturday; the new 6-Picks Promotion. The person(s) picking ALL 6-winners of the (6) H2H doubles matches split $1,000. There are 64-different combinations of picking all 6-matches, however, each participant gets only ONE chance. If nobody has all 6-winners, the $1,000 carries over to the next Saturday where $2,000 is up for grabs for the winner(s) of ALL 6-matches. This “jackpot” continues to grow by $1,000 weekly until a contestant correctly picks the winner of all 6-matches. So far there have been lucky winners both weeks who picked all 6 winners of the H2H games on Saturday, July 10th and July 17th. Those winners each took home a cool $1,000. The 6-Picks Promotion starts at $1,000 again for Saturday, July 24th. Be sure to understand all the rules for this promotion if you are participating.

Don’t forget to get those Magic City Fantasy Jai-Alai League selections locked-in before the start of Saturday’s game 1! Contestants need to be mindful of the entries change on Saturday’s live performance where the late-game players now play an extra feature game in addition to game 6 & 8. The late-gamers will also be competing in game 4 (Saturday only).

Tuesday, July 13th concluded another week of the fast-action short-court Jai-Alai with top Magic City professional Jai-Alai player RonRon securing his 16th Golden Cesta Award, winning the tie-breaker against Ben & CRB who also had 3-wins each but had lower singles game win percents for the week than RonRon. Congratulations RonRon on your achievement and we are sure your family is very proud of you!

The 2021 regular season Singles Championship has continued to be a contentious battle with lead changes happening regularly. Half of the 20-player roster has from 20 to 32 singles wins. Ben now leads this group with 32 wins, Julen & RonRon have 31, Anderluck & El Barba have 29, Douglas has moved up to the top six with 28, Benny & Ikeda have 26, Spinner has 22, and Tennessee has 20. Douglas still commands the lead in singles win percentage with 28.0%. Spinner and RonRon are in a virtual tie with overall best % ITM with 55.7 and 55.2, respectively while Douglas is the only other player with ITM over 50% with a 51.0%.

The second 2021 Doubles Tournament of the year is still being dominated by the same 3-teams. Cool Fitness-Spinner lead the 10-teams with 23-wins and will win split the first place price of $10,000. Kubala-Benny picked up a win and are second with 18-wins while Carballo-Tennessee were winless this week and remain in 3rd place with 16-wins. There are only 8-games left in this doubles tournament which concludes on game 7 of Tuesday’s performance on July 20th. The 2nd place prize money of $5,000 could come down to the final game if Carballo-Tennessee kick it into gear and make up some ground this week.

Week 12 kicks-off on Saturday, July 17th, with a 1:30-pm performance where live fans are allowed in the fronton. Seating starts at 1:00 pm. Don’t forget the exciting H2H doubles games which follow at 5-pm where live fans are also allowed. Live fans for Saturday’s H2H doubles can also get in on one FREE shot at $1,000 on Saturday; the new 6-Picks Promotion. The person(s) picking ALL 6-winners of the (6) H2H doubles matches split $1,000. There are 64-different combinations of picking all 6-matches, however, each participant gets only ONE chance. If nobody has all 6-winners, the $1,000 carries over to the next Saturday where $2,000 is up for grabs for the winner(s) of ALL 6-matches. This “jackpot” continues to grow by $1,000 weekly until a contestant correctly picks the winner of all 6-matches. There was one lucky winner who picked all 6 winners of the H2H games on Saturday, July 10th. That winner took home a cool $1,000. The 6-Picks Promotion starts at $1,000 again for Saturday, July 17th. Be sure to understand all the rules for this promotion if you are participating. Also, don’t forget, be sure to get those Magic City Fantasy Jai-Alai League selections locked-in before the start of Saturday’s game 1!

Tuesday, July 6th concluded another week of the fast-action short-court Jai-Alai with top Magic City professional Jai-Alai player Douglas dominating the Golden Cesta Award with his 4-wins for the week, winning half of his games and securing his 27th Golden Cesta Award for most weekly singles wins. Early games player CRB finished 2nd with 3-wins and Diaz, Spinner & Tennessee each tied for 3rd with 2-wins. Congratulations Douglas on your hard work and this outstanding accomplishment in the world of professional Jai-Alai!

The 2021 regular season Singles Championship has continued to be a contentious battle with lead changes happening regularly. Currently nearly half the 20-player roster has from 20 to 30 singles wins. Julen leads this group with 30 wins, Ben has 29, Anderluck/El Barba/RonRon have 28, brothers Benny & Douglas have 26, Ikeda 24, and Spinner 20. Douglas’s singles win percentage has been rising and he is the outright leader with a commanding 28.3%. RonRon and Spinner’s win percentages have both been decreasing with RonRon currently at 23.9 and Spinner in 3rd with 17.5. Douglas (Matt Langhans) missed a large portion of the previous 2021 10-week mini season due to a wrist injury and has been mounting one heck of a comeback in the 2021 regular season which started May 1st. Douglas won the Singles Championship his first year of professional Jai-Alai in 2019 with 181 wins (38.4%) and again in 2020 with 179 wins (36.5%). Top-level competitor RonRon won the singles championship in the short 10-week mini-season in 2021 with 35-wins in his 90-games for 38.9% wins. Douglas missed two-thirds of the mini-season but still had an impressive 7-wins in his 30-games played for 23.3% wins.

The second 2021 Doubles Tournament of the year is still being dominated by the same 3-teams. Cool Fitness-Spinner lead the 10-teams with 21-wins. Kubala-Benny were winless this week and remain at 17 wins, while Carballo-Tennessee added 3-wins and are only one win behind 2nd place with 16-wins. This highly competitive doubles tournament only has 16-games left before concluding on Tuesday, July 20th. Prize money is paid to the top 2-teams, so this tourney could easily come down to the last game in the “Quest for the Dough!”

Trifecta pools continue to soar at Magic City since the closing of Dania Jai-Alai at the end of May. Trifectas are the most popular wager at Magic City Jai-Alai and trifecta wagering pools have grown over 34% since the last week of May. Trifectas can be purchased for as low as $0.50 base wagers.

Week 11 kicks-off on Saturday, July 10th, with a 1:30-pm performance where live fans are allowed in the fronton. Seating starts at 1:00 pm. Don’t forget the exciting H2H doubles games which follow at 5-pm where live fans are also allowed. Live fans for Saturday’s H2H doubles can also get in on one FREE shot at $1,000 starting this Saturday; the new 6-Picks Promotion. The person(s) picking ALL 6-winners of the (6) H2H doubles matches split $1,000. There are 64-different combinations of picking all 6-matches, however, each participant gets only ONE chance. If nobody has all 6-winners, the $1,000 carries over to the next Saturday where $2,000 is up for grabs for the winner(s) of ALL 6-matches. This “jackpot” continues to grow by $1,000 weekly until a contestant correctly picks the winner of all 6-matches. Also, don’t forget, be sure to get those Magic City Fantasy Jai-Alai League selections locked-in before the start of Saturday’s game 1!

The short two performance week of Magic City Jai-Alai ended on Sunday June 27th with Douglas securing his 26th Golden Cesta Award for most singles wins for the week. Douglas was the only player to win 2-games in this short week and also took over first place in the singles games win % with 26.2%. RonRon is second with 24.8% and former Dania player, Spinner, is a distant third with 17.0%. Congratulations Douglas!

Players are on a short break, off Monday & Tuesday, till play resumes on Saturday, July 3rd, when the schedule changes to 4-performances a week from Saturday through Tuesday, all starting at 1:30-pm. This is a decrease of two performances a week, but there is an increase in H2H weekly Jai-Alai events from two to three sessions each week. The highly entertaining big money H2H events will follow the live pari-mutuel wagering performances at 5-pm with Doubles H2H on Saturday and Tuesday and Singles H2H on Monday. Also, live fan viewing is now allowed for both the 1:30-pm pari-mutuel performance on Saturday PLUS the 5:00-pm H2H which follows. There will be special activities for fans between these two sessions on Saturday.

Julen leads the 2021 regular season singles championship with 29-wins with Ben at his heels with 28, and Anderluck & RonRon with 27. Right behind are El Barba 26, Benny 25, Ikeda 24, and Douglas 22, so only 7-wins separate these top eight contenders. Douglas got off to a slow start as he was recovering from a wrist injury earlier this year and is now playing extremely well.

The second Magic City doubles tournament of the year is still being led by the team of Cool Fitness-Spinner with 20-wins in their 79-appearances. This tourney ends Tuesday July 27th, so with only four Jai-Alai weeks to go and 4-performances a week with two doubles games per performance, time is running out with only 32-doubles games left. The second place team of Kubala-Benny is 3-wins behind with 17-wins and the third place team of Carballo-Tennessee has 13-wins. Fourth place is El Barba-Ikeda with 9-wins. Only the top two teams split prize money. Kubala-Benny were the winners of the first 2021 doubles tournament during the short 10-week mini-season.

The short week also ended with jackpot Force-Outs for the Jai5 and the Mighty Ocho wagers. There was one winning ticket correctly selecting all winners of the popular Jai5 wager and that paid the guaranteed $2,000. The Mighty Ocho, Magic City’s version of a $1 Pick 8 jackpot wager, was paid out to 3-winning tickets with 6 of 8 correct winners, each ticket paying $1,666.60. Sorry Tiger, that Ocho did not come to “Papa” but thanks for trying and supporting Magic City!

Other great news for Magic City Jai-Alai is that wagering pools have been on the rise with Magic City seeing the highest trifecta pools in the last 2-years. Despite being lower handle than Dania Jai-Alai, Magic City still pays out very high trifecta payoffs, well over $200 for the $1 average trifecta, which is no different than the Dania fronton. One huge difference between frontons, aside from offering a faster and more exciting version of Jai-Alai, is that Magic City appeals to all kinds of bettors by offering chances for BIG payoffs with the challenging Jai5 and the Mighty Ocho wagers with guaranteed minimum payoffs of $2,000 and $5,000 should one be the ONLY winner. The record Jai5 payoff to-date has been a massive $27,348 which occurred during the 10-week short season this year.

Don’t forget to get your selections submitted for the Magic City Weekly Fantasy Jai-Alai League for Week 10 which now has a 1:30-pm start on Saturdays instead of 4-pm. There is currently a $100 weekly cash prize to be split among the winners with the most points and a special one-of-a-kind Magic City themed merchandise award for the winner with the most weekly wins for 2021. SayHiLi.com’s website owner “SAY-HILI SUSIE” currently leads the contest with 4-weekly wins so far in 2021 for the 19-contest weeks to date. Congratulations Susie on your impressive handicapping skills!!

Steve M.

Tuesday, June 22nd concluded another week of the fast-action short-court Jai-Alai with Magic City professional Jai-Alai player El Barba dominating the Golden Cesta Award with his 7-wins for the week. Professionals Douglas and Julen were 2nd in the chase for this prestigious award with 4-wins each. This was El Barba’s 5th Golden Cesta Award at Magic City since week 11 of 2018 when SayHiLi’s statistician started tracking this prestigious award. There are only 2-players with more GC Awards at Magic City; Douglas with 25 and RonRon with 15. Congratulations El Barba for your hard work and this great accomplishment!

The 2021 regular season Singles Championship is turning out to be a contentious battle with lead changes happening regularly. Currently there are 8-players with 20-29 singles wins. Julen leads this group with 29 wins, Ben has 28, Anderluck and RonRon 26, El Barba 25, Benny 24, Ikeda 23, and Douglas has moved-up with 20 wins. There is another group of 3-players not far behind with 15-17 singles wins. Kubala and Spinner top this second group with 17 and Tennessee has 15-wins. The remaining players have 10-wins or less. Douglas took over the lead in highest win percent for the regular season with 25.0%. Top Magic City professional, Douglas (Matt Langhans) missed a large portion of the previous 2021 10-week mini season due to a wrist injury. Congratulations Douglas on this regular season accomplishment!

The second 2021 Doubles Tournament of the year is still being dominated by 3-teams. Cool Fitness-Spinner have 19-wins and lead two other strong teams; Kubala-Benny with 15-wins and Carballo-Tennessee with 13-wins. The team of El Barba-Ikeda are 4th with 8-wins, Diaz-Douglas 5th with 7-wins and Jeden-Julen 6th place with 6-wins. The team of Kubala-Benny have a large lead in the ITM category with 58% while the win leader team of Cool Fitness-Spinner have a 48.7% ITM. The third place win leading team of Carballo-Tennessee have a 42.3% ITM while 5th place team of Diaz-Douglas are 3rd in ITM with 44.4%. The Juice-RonRon team are the only other team with higher than 40% ITM with 42.1% for their 19-appearances. Juice has not been playing long as he had been recovering from knee surgery.

The Jai5 Jackpot wager was hit twice during Week 8 and both Jackpot scores were made on Tuesday. The Tuesday Mat-1 performance Jai5 was hit for a $1 price of $7,272.80 which was the 4th largest Jai5 payoff in Magic City history. The Jai5 was hit again by a lucky bettor at the Mat-2 for the minimum guarantee of $2,000. Note that both the Jai5 and the Mighty Ocho will be Force-Outs on Sunday’s 1-pm performance on June 27th.

Week 9 kicks-off on Saturday, June 26th, with a 4-pm performance where live fans are allowed in the fronton. Seating starts at 3:30 pm. Don’t forget the exciting H2H doubles games start at 1-pm and also, be sure to get those Magic City Fantasy Jai-Alai League selections locked-in before the start of Saturday’s game 1! Last but not least, do not forget about the Jackpot Force-Outs on Sunday! Good Luck and have a great week!

Both the Jai-5 and the Mighty Ocho Jackpot wagers will be forced-out on the Sunday, June 27th 2021 performance which starts at 1-pm EST. The minimum guarantees for each wager will be the minimum amount paid-out for both of these wagers, thus, $5,000 will be the minimum amount paid out to ticket holders with the most correct winners for the Mighty Ocho $1 Pick 8 Jackpot wager and $2,000 minimum will be paid out for the Jai5 $1 Pick 5 Jackpot wager.

Usually a pari-mutuel facility will only pay-out a mandatory payout (aka Force-Out) of what is wagered on the Force-Out Day plus what was in the Jackpot Carryover, and that could be less than the minimum guaranteed amount, and a bettor would have to have ALL winners correctly selected to collect the entire minimum guaranteed amount, however, Magic City Jai-Alai goes above and beyond and guarantees the minimum guarantee amount to the bettor having the MOST correct winners. This is very generous of the Magic City Jai-Alai, world-class facility! You rock Magic City Casino & Jai-Alai!

Another week of the fast-action short-court Jai-Alai finished on Tuesday, June 15th, with Magic City professional Jai-Alai player Kyle Kubala securing the Golden Cesta Award with his 5-wins for the week. Three other players were close behind with 4-wins; Anderluck, Douglas and Vuelo. This was Kubala’s 2nd Golden Cesta Award at Magic City since week 11 of 2018 when SayHiLi’s statistician started tracking this prestigious award.

The 2021 regular season Singles Championship is turning out to be quite a battle with lead changes happening regularly. Currently there are 6-players with 22-26 singles wins. RonRon and Ben lead this group with 26 wins, Julen had 25, Anderluck 24, while Benny and Ikeda have 22. There is another group of 5-players not far behind with 14-18 singles wins. El Barba tops this second group with 18, Douglas has 16, Kubala 15, while Spinner and Tennessee have 14-wins each. The next most wins behind the second group is led by Carballo and Vuelo with 8-wins each.

The second 2021 Doubles Tournament of the year is being dominated by 3-teams. Cool Fitness-Spinner have 17-wins and lead two teams with 12-wins each, the teams of Carballo-Tennessee and Kubala-Benny. The team of El Barba-Ikeda is a distant 4th with 7-wins and two other teams have 5-wins each. Several teams are struggling with 3% wins and a 21% ITM. Kubala-Benny have a large lead in the ITM category with 59.3% while the win leader team of Cool Fitness-Spinner have a 48.5% ITM. Carballo-Tennessee have a 45.6% ITM while Diaz-Douglas are 4th with 43.3% ITM. Juice returned to play this week starting Sunday after recovering from knee surgery and already the team of Juice-RonRon have 2-wins in their 10 appearances for the week for 20% wins and a respectable 40% ITM (10-2-0-2), so bettor’s better beware of the Juice-RonRon team.

The big win of the week came on Monday’s Mat-2 performance when a lucky Mighty Ocho bettor spent $8 on a ticket at Derby Lane in St. Petersburg and was the only winner of 8/8 correct winners to nail the $5,000 guaranteed payoff. That bettor’s winning ticket was 6/2+4/5/1+4/3/4/3+8/2. The winning sequence was heavily chalk for the games and at least one more bettor would have also had all 8-winners had the 8-post of Kubala-Benny won their game point in the 7th game. In the event of 2-winners with all 8-correct winners, the winning tickets would have split the consolation payoff and collected $15.20 each. There was a total of $76 wagered on the Mighty Ocho for this performance and consolation payback is 40% of the amount wagered. This is the first time in the history of Jai-Alai in the United States that a bettor has successfully hit all 8-winners of a Pick 8 wager. Congratulations Mr. K!

Week 8 kicks-off on Saturday, June 19th, with a 4-pm performance where live fans are allowed in the fronton. Seating starts at 3:30 pm. Don’t forget the exciting H2H doubles games start at 1-pm and also, be sure to get those Magic City Fantasy Jai-Alai League selections locked-in before the start of Saturday’s game 1! The Jai-5 is getting “Jai” with a nice carryover of $3,423.60 and will clear the $4,000 level on Saturday, so be sure to give this big jackpot wager a shot!

Magic City’s version of a Pick 8 Jackpot Wager, called the Mighty Ocho, was successfully won by one single winning ticket for the $5,000 guaranteed minimum jackpot at Monday’s Mat-2 performance at 4:30-pm on June 14, 2021. At least one Jai-Alai fronton had a Pick 8 type wager over the years and this is the first time this amazing feat has been successfully accomplished by picking all 8-correct winners for the 8-game sequence. Palm Beach Jai-Alai had a $50,000 guaranteed Pick 8 wager in the early 1990’s where the winner(s) successfully picking all 8-winners would split $50,000. This was not a Pick 8 “Jackpot” wager like Magic City where the bettor has to be the ONLY winner successfully picking all 8-winners. The term “Jackpot” in the pari-mutuel industry implies one has to be the ONLY winner to secure the entire jackpot.

There was a total of $76 wagered on the Mighty Ocho for the Monday twilight performance. This Jackpot wager had grown to $1068.80 since the start of the 2021 regular season before it was successfully won for the guaranteed $5,000 minimum at the second performance of Monday’s double-header.

SayHili is aware of a regular Mighty Ocho bettor who had the first 6-winners on a 1-ticket wager costing $48 and needed the ending 48 / 2 for the last two legs to have all 8-winners correct. The 8-post of Kubala-Benny lost a game point in the 7th game for that bettor to have all 8-winners as Douglas from post 2 won the final game. The post 3 team of Carballo-Tennessee foiled that bettor’s ticket by winning the 7th leg of this “mighty difficult” wager. The game 7 trifecta result was 3-8-4.

Bettors have previously come close to successfully picking all 8-winners of this challenging wager on three different occasions with 7 of the 8 winners since the Mighty Ocho was introduced at the start of the 2020 season. SayHiLi has knowledge of one unlucky bettor who had 7 of 8 winners correct on one of those three occasions and lost a game point scenario when the player they needed over-served. Monday was the first time a bettor has successfully picked the first 7-winners going into the final leg. Magic City announcers Stu and Andrew were surprised to see one lucky bettor had a shot at the guaranteed $5,000 and had to do a “double-take” to make sure their eyes weren’t toying with them.

Congratulations to the $5k winner of this challenging wager! You now hold a place in Jai-Alai pari-mutuel history for successfully nailing the most difficult wager ever and may very well hold this coveted title for Jai-Alai eternity. Well done!

The week was another great one with amazing short-court Jai-Alai action as these fast-paced games won’t put you to sleep at this fronton! The players keep improving and always give it 100% here, something revered and respected by Magic City Jai-Alai fans!

Anderluck had the most singles wins for Week 6 and prevailed in capturing his 5th Golden Cesta Award of his career. He is tied at 3rd with Carballo on most GC Awards, both players having 5 each! Douglas leads with 25 overall and RonRon is next most with 15.

The 2021 Regular Season Singles Championship is setting up to be the most competitive ever with more than a third of the roster jockeying for the top spot with only 6-wins separating the top 7 contenders. Currently, Ben & RonRon top the leaderboard with 23-wins, Julen has 22, Anderluck has 20, 17-yo Benny (brother of Douglas) is tied with Ikeda at 19-wins, and El Barba has 17. Strong late game players Spinner and Douglas have 14 and 12-wins each, respectively, and Tennessee also has 12-wins. Kubala isn’t far behind with 10-wins. The remainder of the players have 7-wins or less and are not out of the picture with this long season of short-court action extending through the end of November.

The 2nd Doubles tournament of 2021 has been quite the showcase of team talent at Magic City. Former Dania professional, Spinner, new to the Magic City roster for 2021 has been a great addition to Magic City with his strong competitive spirit and command of the Magic City short-court. The team of Cool Fitness and Spinner have so far been dominating this tournament with 15-wins in their 55 appearances for 27.3% wins, however 2nd place team of Kubala-Benny are closing in with 11-wins and dominated Week 6 doubles with their top 33.3% wins for the week and 66.7% ITM. Carballo-Tennessee are a close 3rd with 9-wins. Doubles teams at the low end are currently Anderluck-Vuelo with no wins in 24-starts and Bueno-Ben with 1-win in 22 starts.

Juice, a Magic City fan favorite since the inaugural season, was seen practicing on Tuesday and makes his return to play on Sunday, June 13. So far, Juice has missed all of 2021 as he underwent knee surgery and has been recovering. Welcome back Juice and SayHiLi wishes you the best on your return! Juice is well known for his spunk on the court and catching opponents off-guard with his surprise dejadas and caroms.

Don’t forget to catch even more exciting short-court Magic City Jai-Alai action with H2H Doubles games on Saturday at 1-pm on the JAC (Jai-Alai Channel) and H2H Singles at 10-am every Monday before the Monday double-header at 1-pm and 4:30-pm. Also, something new in 2021 is Tuesday Jai-Alai with another double-header at the same times. Be sure to get those Magic City Fantasy Jai-Alai League selections in before Saturday at 4-pm to for your shot at FREE weekly cash!

Magic City concluded another week of exciting short-court Jai-Alai on Tuesday, June 1 with a Golden Cesta Award that came down to the end with the impressive Ikeda winning his 4th award. Ikeda had 7-singles wins for the week while Julen, who played great all week, had 6-wins and Ben, who is off to a great start, had 5-wins. Cool Fitness has made some amazing improvements and has become quite the contender in early games with 3-wins in his 14-singles game appearances, which was 1-win more than Magic City stars Douglas and RonRon had combined for the week.

The doubles tourney team of Kubala-Benny were the doubles team of the week with 4-wins in their 12-appearances for 33.3% wins while Diaz-Douglas with only 1-win led Week 5 in doubles % ITM with 66.7% (12-1-2-5). The team of Cool Fitness-Spinner still lead this 2nd doubles tournament of 2021 with 13-wins in 44-appearances for an impressive 29.5% wins and lead the 2nd place team of Kubala-Benny by 5-wins (Kubala-Benny: 39-8-7-7, 20.5% wins, 56.4% ITM). Carballo-Tennessee are 3rd with 7-wins (15.2% wins, 45.7% ITM). The next best teams have 4-wins or less and need to find another gear before they are left in the dust.

Th 2021 regular season Singles Championship is the most exciting to-date with so many players bunched-up at the top. Ben currently leads with 21-wins. Ben is perhaps one of the most dedicated players on the roster as he spends a large amount of time on the Magic City court in his off-time. He also worked at the Miami fronton in the off-season and got some good tips from a few of the world’s best players and this has rewarded him handsomely so far. Julen and RonRon are one win behind with 20-wins each and Ikeda has been closing the gap with his 17-wins. The youngest player on the roster and brother of Douglas, Benny, is tied at 15-wins with El Barba who has also been playing some consistent Jai-Alai and showing good form with his play. The hard-throwing Anderluck had 14-wins and Spinner has 12-wins. Spinner has the highest % ITM in singles with an incredible 65.2% and thus rewarding some smart trifecta bettors consistently with their wheel bets.

The week concluded with the Jai-5 being nailed by one lucky fan for a handsome $5,890 which was in the top 10 highest payoffs for this popular wager and was the 100th time this Jackpot-type wager was hit with a single winning ticket since the wager’s inception. A Jackpot wager is a wager where a bettor has to be the ONLY winning ticket to win the entire jackpot, otherwise the multiple winners with 5 of 5 correct winners share in splitting the consolation payoff for that performance. Magic City always announces how this popular wager works, which is identical to how numerous popular horse tracks operate their Jackpot wagers for Pick X betting. The objective of a pari-mutuel plant in offering Jackpot wagers is to build a large jackpot for their fan base. Large jackpots can be a big draw for fans and become more exciting the larger they grow. They also help increase the handle in betting on other races/games. Magic City Jai-Alai had its largest average trifecta handle per game the week the Jai-5 paid a whopping $27,348 during the short 10-week meet in 2021.

Get ready for Week 6 at Saturday 4-pm where fans are allowed in the fronton for live viewing (ONLY for Saturday performances at this time). Seating starts at 3:30 pm on a first-come first-serve basis. Be sure to load your four Magic City Jai-Alai Fantasy League picks for this week. Bueno is still not back in the entries for Saturday/Sunday. He has been experiencing chronic shoulder pain and we hope he gets back in action soon. Juice is still recovering from his injury and we wish him a speedy recovery.

Tune in to the H2H doubles games at 1-pm on Saturday on the JAC for some great games. There is $100k in H2H prize money for H2H singles and doubles during the regular season (May-November). Be sure to support Magic City short-court Jai-Alai, the most transparent Jai-Alai ever to be played, where players give it 100% all of the time, the way Jai-Alai is supposed to be played!

Despite missing the first performance for Week 4, the amazing Douglas still was able to win the Golden Cesta Award with 4-wins for the week. Four players were tied with most wins for the week, 4-wins each, however Douglas won the Golden Cesta Award with the tiebreaker rules of the highest win percent of 40%. The other players with 4-wins were Spinner (28.6%), Tennessee (21.1%) and Julen 19.2%. Douglas also dominated in overall % ITM for Week 4 with an impressive 70% (10-4-2-1). Next best in that category were RonRon and Spinner who both had 57.1% ITM.

The doubles team of Cool Fitness-Spinner continued to pile on the wins with 3-wins in their 10-games for Week 4. The team of CRB-Bradley impressed fans and have become major contenders for a piece of the prize money with their 3-wins in 10 appearances for Week 4. Cool and Spinner have a commanding lead with 12-wins while the current 2nd place team of Carballo-Tennessee have 5-wins. Needless to say, Cool and Spinner are playing extremely well together and will be hard to beat!

The 2021 Regular Season Singles Championship is squaring up to be one for the history books. RonRon still leads with 18-singles game wins, however, Ben has been playing extremely well and is only 2-wins behind. A total of 10-players have from 10-18 wins through Week 4. Douglas has been quickly rising up the leader board in the short time he’s been back from his wrist injury and is playing some amazing Jai-Alai. He’s a true champion and impressive to watch his incredible mastery of the “scoop” catch. He’s been throwing hard and focusing on shot placement and his stats are impressive in late game singles (32-9-6-1).

Week 5 action kicks off on Saturday, May 29th, at 4-pm and don’t forget that fans are allowed in the fronton for Saturday viewing with seating starting at 3:30 pm on a first-come first-serve basis. Get your Magic City Fantasy Jai-Alai league picks in before 4-pm Saturday and be sure to tout this FREE contest to your friends and relatives so the weekly cash prize can grow!

The incredible short-court Jai-Alai action return today at 4-pm to Magic City Jai-Alai for week 4 of the regular season. Live fans are allowed to attend for the Saturday performances only and seating starts at 3:30-pm on a first-come first-serve basis so be sure to arrive early to get your preferred seating, including the special pod-seating! Magic City Jai-Alai professionals Bradley & Jeden are listed in the entries and expected to be returning from injuries. Welcome back Bradley & Jeden!

Today’s action features all singles games, however, doubles games are returning for Sunday and the rest of the Jai-Alai week. Be sure to get your Magic City Fantasy Jai-Alai League selections completed before the start of today’s first game.

Week 3 featured some amazing singles Jai-Alai games as this talented roster continues to improve. Ben won the Golden Cesta Award for the most singles wins with 8-wins in his 36-games played for a 22.2% win rate. Kubala was right behind with a great week with 7-wins and the best % ITM of the week with 59.4%. Spinner was second best on % ITM with 55.6% for the week but struggled to hit the quiniela with a weekly record of 18-1-1-8 with those 8-third place finishes. Magic City star Douglas had the highest win rate of the week with 27.8% wins (18-5-4-0).

The regular season Singles Championship is tightening up with 8-players that now have between 9-15 wins. RonRon still leads the pack through 3-weeks of action with 15-wins. Ben is 2nd with 14, Benny (17-yo brother of Douglas) has 13, Anderluck 11, El Barba & Julen 10, Ikeda & Kubala 9. The overall leader on % ITM for the regular season is Spinner with an amazing 66.7 and RonRon is second with 58.1.

Be sure to tune in to watch the doubles H2H at 1-pm today!

Week 3 of the regular 2021 season at Magic City Jai-Alai in Miami, Florida kicks off with live fans allowed for the Saturday 4-pm performance. Fans are only allowed in the Jai-Alai viewing area, called the fronton, for the Saturday performances each week.

Week 2 showcased some fantastic Jai-Alai skills with this roster. RonRon clinched the Golden Cesta Award, his 15th award, by winning 7 of his 12 singles games for an amazing 58.3% wins. The Golden Cesta Award is an honorary award for the player who wins the most singles games for the week. Most of Magic City Jai-Alai games are singles as 6 of the 8-games each performance are singles games. Historically, singles games are the most popular with the betting fans as they tend to be easier to handicap than doubles games.

The 2nd doubles tournament of 2021 was again dominated by the team of Cool Fitness & Spinner who won 4 of their 12 singles games in Week 2 and now have won 9 of their 24 appearances. They lead the doubles tournament with their 9-wins and have a comfortable lead over the 2nd place team of Carballo & Tennessee who have a total of 4-wins in their 24-appearances. Note that due to a player shortage because of injuries, doubles games are on-hold for Week 3 and thus, Week 3 will feature all singles games.

Don’t forget to make your (4) weekly Magic City Fantasy Jai-Alai League selections, which this week will be 4-singles game players. Magic City is the only Jai-Alai in operation that offers fans a FREE chance to win $100 or more weekly based on the number of active participants. Already this year, in the 12-weeks of this fantasy league, there have been two different contestants who have won first place 3-times each, so this truly is a game of skill and not just luck as there have been more than 100-contestants entering this contest each week.

Be sure to tune in to The Jai-Alai Channel Saturday though Tuesday to watch the best professional short-court Jai-Alai players in the country compete and don’t miss out on the opportunities for BIG PAYOFFS only at Magic City Jai-Alai. You can win $5,000 if you pick the winners of games 1-8 and are the only bettor to do so. Also, be sure to give the highly popular Jai-5 wager a shot where you can win a minimum of $2,000 if you can successfully pick the winners of games 3-7 and are the only bettor to do so. Already since May 1st there have been two big winners correctly selecting all 5-winners of games 3-7. You could be the next big winner. Magic City also has the standard pari-mutuel wagers: Win, Place, Show, Daily Doubles, Pick 3’s, Quinielas, Exactas, and the high paying Trifectas.

Don’t forget, tomorrow at 4-pm! Be there or be square!!

Steve M, SayHiLi.com

Magic City kicked-off week 1 of the regular season on Kentucky Derby Day, May 1 of 2021, and showcased some great Jai-Alai action! The regular season now features six performances a week from Saturday through Tuesday with double-headers on Monday and Tuesday.

The changes for the 2021 regular season are as follows: 8-games a performance instead of 9 (no longer a 9-point superfecta game), addition of two Daily Double wagers with $2 min bets (no $1 tickets, so less of those small Daily Double payoffs like Dania has), increased guarantee to $5,000 for the Mighty Ocho (the $1 Pick 8 Jackpot wager bet), and LIVE fan viewing allowed starting Saturday May 8th. The LIVE fan viewing is only allowed for the Saturday performance at this time, but expect a capacity crowd for this on May 8th as this short-court Jai-Alai has become a great entertainment option with the faster paced games than traditional Jai-Alai at Dania Jai-Alai. Magic City Jai-Alai is the home of the best short-court Jai-Alai action in the country.

Anderluck won the Golden Cesta Award Week 1 by winning the most singles games with 5-wins (5-wins in 28-games). He took full advantage of winning some extra games played due to filling-in as a sub for Jeden who suffered a back injury (minor we believe) early in week 1. RonRon and Spinner both had exceptional weeks winning 4-games each ending the week, Win % and ITM % as follows: Spinner 33.3 and 75.0, RonRon 30.8 and 61.5.

The 2nd doubles tournament of 2021 also kicked-off Week 1 and the team of Cool Fitness-Spinner stole the show with 5-wins in their 12-games for 41.7% wins (overall record 12-5-1-1). Carballo-Tennessee did not disappoint either as their record was 12-3-1-5 for a commanding ITM stat of 75%. The team of Diaz-Douglas are currently win-less in 12-games but look for that to change soon. Douglas has started the regular season playing only doubles games but could be playing in one singles game a performance starting on Monday, May 10. Douglas has been out for some time recovering from a wrist injury.

Jeden and Bradley both scratched during the week due to back issues. Both players had started week 1 with some great stats. Jeden had 6-games played with 1-win and 2-places while Bradley had 1-win in 5-games played before his back issue. SayHiLi wishes a speedy recovery to these two Magic City Jai-Alai professionals.

Magic City set a new record for the 2021 trifecta pool in week 1 with a pool of $2,193 for game 8 on Monday. Payoffs have been excellent for the $1 trifecta, averaging $265 for week 1 for the 48-games played. Actually, Magic City’s $1 trifectas have been averaging between $240 and $265 for 6 of the last 7-weeks. Try comparing these averages to the Dania fronton to the north!

The popular Jai-5 wager was not won during week 1 and has a jackpot of $1,604.40 for the upcoming Saturday 4-pm performance. Based on Saturday wagering activity on this fun wager, the jackpot could surpass the $2,000 min guarantee for a single winning ticket. The record payoff for the Jai-5 is $27,348, making Magic City Jai-Alai the home of BIG PAYOFFS for Jai-Alai bettors.

H2H Jai-Alai games also kicked off on Saturday, May 1st, with the start of Doubles H2H at 1-pm. The doubles H2H is played every Saturday at 1-pm and singles H2H is Monday at 10-am. There is an astonishing $100,000 in H2H prize money to be awarded during the regular season. The doubles teams are the same as the doubles teams during the current doubles tournament that started May 1. This is the second doubles tournament of the year. If you haven’t yet seen any of the H2H games, you are really missing out as they are very intense and highly competitive!

Don’t forget to sign-up again for the great fan participation opportunity, ONLY at Magic City Jai-Alai. I’m talking about the Magic City Fantasy Jai-Alai League with cash prizes weekly for participants with the most points. The prize is $100 weekly but could be higher based on the number of active contestants.

Finally, apologies for not posting more frequently on this great entertainment option at Magic City Jai-Alai. I’m struggling to keep up at this time. I had a recent mini-stroke, world’s worst headache was the first indication and lasted about 40-minutes. I had to have several very expensive tests and those indicated it was indeed a stroke, so I’m having to take it a bit easier, and again, my apologies.

Steve M.

The exciting and fast-paced action of short-court Jai-Alai returns to the Magic City Jai-Alai court at 4-pm on Saturday, May 1^st.  Magic City Jai-Alai fans have been anxiously awaiting the return of Magic City phenom Douglas who missed a large portion of the 2021 10-week mini-season due to a wrist injury.  Douglas will kick-off the regular season by playing only in doubles games for Week 1 and is expected to start playing at least one singles game a performance starting Week 2. 

Players Bueno and Juice are both sidelined Week 1 due to injuries.  Bueno is suffering from chronic shoulder pain and will miss Week 1.  He will be scratched from play for Saturday & Sunday.  The Monday & Tuesday double-header entries have been re-uploaded without Bueno in the entries so be careful to use only the newly released entries & programs without Bueno  for Monday/Tuesday.  Juice is out with a knee injury and is expected to be out for 2-weeks to a month while recovering.  SayHiLi wishes the best to both of these players in their recovery!  We believe this is the first time Bueno has scratched in his entire Magic City Jai-Alai career which is an amazing accomplishment for such a physically demanding sport.

The 2^nd Doubles Tournament of 2021 again looks to be another highly competitive event with evenly-matched teams thanks to doubles tournament matchmaker, Scott Savin.  The doubles teams are as follows:  Anderluck-Vuelo,  Bueno-Ben,  Carballo-Tennessee, Cool Fitness-Spinner, CRB-Bradley, Diaz-Douglas, El Barba-Ikeda, Jeden-Julen, Juice-RonRon and Kubala-Benny.  The top four teams in the 1^st 2021 Doubles Tournament remain the same for this 2^nd tournament:  Kubala-Benny, Bueno-Ben, Juice-RonRon and Ikeda-El Barba.  The doubles tournament games will continue to be played in games 5 and 7 like previously during the 2021 10-week mini-season.

The 2021 regular season now features the addition of a Daily Double wager, a $2.00 minimum wager.  There is an early Daily Double games 1&2 and a late Daily Double games 7&8.  There are only 8-games a performance now, so the game 9 superfecta game has been discontinued and all eight games are 7-point games with points doubling after the first round (aka the Spectacular 7 format).  The Mighty Ocho wager, a $1.00 Pick 8 Jackpot wager which works exactly like the “Jai-ly” popular Jai-5 wager now has a $5,000 guaranteed jackpot to a single winner correctly picking all 8-winners in games 1-8; this is increased $1,000 from the previous $4,000 guaranteed jackpot.  The Jai-5 Jackpot wager, with it’s $2,000 guaranteed jackpot to a single winning ticket, still starts with game 3 (games 3-7).  There are still two Pick 3’s on the wagering menu, however they are now games 2-4 and 6-8. Magic City’s Pick-X wagers still offer the low takeout rate of 20% which is 5% lower than the Jai-Alai industry standard of 25% for these type of wagers.

Live fans are being allowed in the spectator area to watch the Saturday 4-pm performances only and this kicks-off with Week 2 for the Saturday, May 8^th performance.  Note the addition of exciting H2H doubles games on Saturdays at 1-pm before the 4-pm performance; these start on Saturday May 1st.  The H2H games are not open for live fan viewing so please take note of this when planning your next visit to Magic City Jai-Alai.  H2H singles will be played on Mondays only at 10-am.  There is an amazing $100,000 in total H2H prize money for the singles and doubles H2H so get ready for some intense competition. Remember to watch all H2H games on The Jai-Alai Channel and if you miss the live games be sure to watch after the fact.

The Magic City schedule for the 2021 regular season is 6-performances a week from May through November.  Here is the schedule:

• Saturday:  4:30 pm
• Sunday:  1-pm
• Monday:  1-pm and 4:30-pm
• Tuesday:  1-pm and 4:30-pm

Last but not least, the highly popular Magic City Fantasy Jai-Alai league kicks off again this week, a continuation of the first 10-week mini-season of 2021 for the grand prize (a one-of-a-kind merchandise prize).   Be sure to go to www.fantasyjaialai.com to sign-up to submit your picks for this opening week of the regular season (everyone needs to sign-up again).  You can win up to $100 a week for being the first place finisher and possibly even more depending on the number of live entries for the week.  A special thanks to Andrew Blechman, Fantasy League Commissioner, for all his efforts in running this Fantasy Jai-Alai league!  For more details on 2021 regular season Fantasy League Click Here.

Good Luck to All from SayHiLi.com!

Magic City’s regular season from May 1 through November brings lots of changes.  The biggest change to the roster will be the return of Douglas from his wrist injury rehabilitation which will make the late games even more competitive.  The regular season schedule includes six performances a week from Saturday through Tuesday.  There will no longer be any 12 noon performances.  The regular season schedule includes a twilight performance on Saturday at 4-pm, matinee on Sunday at 1-pm and double-headers on Monday and Tuesday at 1-pm and 4:30-pm.  There will only be 8-games a performance instead of the usual 9-games a performance.  Jai-Alai H2H games will also be continuing with the addition of Doubles H2H on Saturday’s at 1-pm.  Singles H2H games will only be played on Monday at 10-am where previously they were held on Monday and Tuesday.  If you haven’t yet seen Jai-Alai H2H, you certainly need to check this out.

Live Jai-Alai viewing is partially back at Magic City beginning on Saturday May 8^th and will only be allowed for the 4-pm Saturday performances until further notice.  Magic City Jai-Alai has taken smart steps in prevention of the spread of covid-19 plus there have been different county regulations for Dania Jai-Alai which in Broward compared to Miami-Dade where Magic City Jai-Alai resides.

There are several changes in the wagering menu, some game changes for exotic wagers and a Jackpot minimum guarantee increase.  May 1^st brings the addition of Daily Doubles to Magic City Jai-Alai.  There will be an early Daily Double on games 1&2 and a late Daily Double on games 7&8.  Pick 3 wagers will be changed to games 2-4 and 6-8.  The Mighty Ocho, a $1.00 Jackpot wager like the popular Jai-5, will increase from the current $4,000 minimum guarantee to a $5,000 guarantee.  There is no change to the “Jai-ly” popular Jai-5 Jackpot wager.  The Superfecta wager, previously held on Game 9, will go away since there is no longer a game 9.  All games will be the Spectacular 7 format which means all games are to 7-points with points doubling after the first round of play.

Are we ready for some fast short-court Jai-Alai action at Magic City Jai-Alai? SayHiLi is certainly ready for more of this fast-paced Jai-Alai action! We are expecting to see some of the largest wagering pools in Magic City Jai-Alai history especially after Dania action concludes at the end of May. SayHiLi wishes Magic City Jai-Alai players, support staff and management a successful regular season for 2021.

The Magic City Jai-Alai 10-week mini-season concluded on Monday, April 12^th.  Here is a short summary of the season:

Singles Championship:

RonRon – $5,000 for First, 35 wins in 90 games (38.9% wins)

CRB – $3,000 for Second, 19 wins in 93 games (20.4% wins)

Spinner – $1,000 for Third, 16 wins in 90 games (17.8% wins)

There was a tie for 3^rd between Spinner and Bueno after the conclusion of game 9 on Monday, each had 16-wins.  Bueno’s record was 16 wins in 118 games (13.6% wins).  The tie led to a dead-heat tie-breaker game to 6-single points between Spinner and Bueno.  The tie-breaker was using the same format as a set in an H2H match, the first to win 6-single points was the winner for third and 2-serves were allowed just as in H2H.  Spinner was favored to win the tie-breaker and won with a score of 6-3.

1^st Doubles Tournament of 2021:

Kubala-Benny – split $10,000 for First, 11 wins in 50 games (22.0% wins)

Bueno-Ben – split $5,000 for Second, 10 wins in 53 games (18.9% wins)

Juice-RonRon were 3^rd with 9 wins in 53 games (17.0% wins)

Ikeda-El Barba were 4^th with 7 wins in 51 games (13.7% wins)

Jeden-Bradley were 5^th with 6 wins in 51 games (11.8% wins)

CRB-Spinner were 6^th with 5 wins in 53 games (9.4% wins)

Golden Cesta Awards:

RonRon won 6-consecutive GC Awards from Weeks 5-10.  He was the only player to win multiple GC Awards during the 10-week mini-season.  Other winners were:  Week 1 – Vuelo, Week 2 – Douglas, Week 3 – Ikeda, Week 4 – CRB

Mandatory Payouts on Closing Day, April 12^th:

Jai-5 paid $5,533.60 to (1) lucky winner with 5 of 5 winners ($5,952 total handle on Jai-5).

Mighty Ocho paid 4,477.60 to (1) lucky winner with 6 of 8 winners ($3,840 total handle on MO).

Record Jai-5 Payoff:

The Jai-5 paid a whopping record payoff of $27,348 to a single ticket holder with 5 of 5 correct winners on April 5th, shattering the previous record of $12,220 in 2019.

Congratulations to Magic City Jai-Alai players, support staff and management for a successful 10-week mini season!

INTERESTING STATS – 06-April-2021 through Week 9

RECORD JAI-5 PAYOFF:

The Magic City $1.00 Jai-5 wager went 16-consecutive performances without a single winning ticket holder and the jackpot had swelled to $20,408 for Monday’s 1-pm performance where one winner took down the Jai-5 for a record payoff of $27,348!  A Jai-5 record handle of $8,675 was wagered going after the large jackpot.  The previous Jai-5 record was 12-consecutive performances without a winner and resulted in a record payout of $12,220 on November 13^th 2019.

RECORD 2021 TRIFECTA POOLS:

Monday’s April 5^th performance games 8 and 9 produced the two highest trifecta pools for the 2021 10-week meet so far with pools of $1,979 and $1,985, respectively.  The previous 2021 high was a trifecta pool of $1,827 on game 8 of the Monday, March 22^nd performance.

OVERALL – RonRon (5^th Consecutive GC Award) , RonRon (Singles Championship Locked-up), Kubala-Benny (Leading Doubles Tournament by 1-Win):

RonRon continued to dominate singles games and show consistency for the short 10-week meet.  He won his 5th consecutive Golden Cesta Award with 3-singles game wins for Week 9 and winning the second tie-breaker of % ITM since he was tied for 3-wins with Ikeda and Kubala.  The 1^st-tie-breaker which was % wins removed Kubala from the running as he had 25% wins compared to the other’s 33.3% wins.  RonRon edged out Ikeda in the 2^nd tie-breaker with 66.7% ITM compared to Ikeda’s 44.4% ITM.

RonRon has locked-up 1^st place in the 10-week meet Singles Championship, distancing himself from the field with his 28-victories for a 34.6% win rate.  CRB is 2^nd best with 18-wins and Spinner is 3^rd with 16-wins.  There are 7-players in the running for 2^nd and 3^rd place honors and prize money with only 7-wins separating those 7-players.

The team of Kubala-Benny took the lead in the hotly contested 1^st 2021 Doubles Tournament with 9-team wins and only (6) tournament games left in this first 2021 tourney.  Their lead is a slim 1-win advantage over Bueno-Ben and Juice-RonRon with 8-wins each, followed by Ikeda-El Barba with 7-wins and Jeden-Bradley with 6-wins.  The remaining four active teams have from 2-4 wins each.  This exciting tournament could well come down to the last doubles game of the 10-week meet (Game 7) on Monday, April 12^th.

SINGLES GAMES:

Some consistent or improved players:

• RonRon has won 1-2 singles games in 16 of the last 17 performances and has earned the nickname Mr. Consistent.  He’s been ITM 20-consecutive performances in his 3-singles game a performance.  He’s only been out-of-the-money ONCE in 27-performances.
• CRB continues with great play and has 12-performances in a row with ITM finishes.
• Kubala has now gone 11-performances in a row with ITM finishes.
• Vuelo & Jeden have ITM streaks of 8-consecutive performances.
• Diaz, off to a slow start in 2021, is perhaps the most improved for the 2^nd half of the season.  He was ITM 2/14 performances prior to March 8, after March 8^th he’s been ITM 9/13 performances.  He’s had 6-consecutive performances ITM.
• Anderluck has also improved, he was off to a slow start with only 1-win the first 2-months and how he’s had wins in 2 of the last 3-performances (overall  79-3-12-12).
• Bradley was winless in his first 13-performances of 2021 but has kicked it into high gear with 6 wins in the last 14-performances.
• Carballo has also been coming on strong with 1-3 times in the Quiniela in his singles games for the last 4-performances.
• Benny has no wins in his 3-singles games for each of the last 6-performances, but has 2^nd place finishes in all of those performances.
• Cool Fitness has places in 4 of the last 6-performances and has been ITM 5 of his last 6-performances, a huge improvement for him.
• Juice (54-3-2-6) had a win and a place on the April 4^th performance for Week 9.

Some “due” players:

• Tennessee has been out-of-the-money for 6-consecutive performances, but watch out in Week 10 as he played some great H2H on Tuesday, April 6^th, including an upset match win over El Barba.  Previously, Tennessee has only been out-of-the money for 2-consecutive performances at most.
• Cool Fitness only has 1-win for the meet in 64-games (64-1-7-4), but played some great H2H on Tuesday also, with an upset win over CRB so be watching for another win or more in the final week.
• Watch out for Bueno as he’s only had 4-ITM finishes in the last 2-weeks (25-games total), and he’s capable of much better!

DOUBLES GAMES:

The hot teams:

• The Kubala-Benny team has been ITM in 12 of their last 13-performances.  They are the current doubles tournament leader with 9-wins (44-9-7-8)
• Diaz-Carballo have been winning 1-game every other performance for the last 6-performances.

 Some “due” teams:

• Bueno-Ben are only twice in the Quiniela in their last 19-games.
• Second place team  Juice-RonRon have no wins in the last 7-performances.

SOME SPECIFIC SINGLES GAME STATS:

Game 1:

• Vuelo  not in the Quiniela the last 18-games
• Cool Fitness – no game 1 win in 27 attempts

Game 2:  nothing overly significant found

Game 3:

• El Barba only once in Quiniela in 26-games
• Diaz and Tennessee – no game 3 wins

Game 4:  Bueno at 27-9-3-6 this game has only been in the Quiniela once in his last 6-games.

Game 6:

• Bradley (27-1-2-4) could surprise in this late game with his significantly improved singles play the 2^nd half of the 10-week meet.
• Jeden (21-0-0-5) and Kubala (20-0-3-1) could also upset in in this late game with their recent improved play.

Game 8:  RonRon (27-10-3-3) has a 37% win rate in this game.

Game 9:  RonRon (27-12-2-2) has an astonishing 44.4% win rate in this 9-point game.

The Jai-5 Jackpot was taken down by a single winning ticket at Monday’s 1-pm EST performance for a whopping $27,348, a new record for this popular wager! The winning posts for the sequence of games 3-7 was 4-2-3-8-4. Winners of the games were as follows: Anderluck (game 3), Bradley (game 4), Jeden-Bradley (game 5 in a perfect game), Spinner (game 6 in a perfect game), and Kubala-Benny (game 7). Prior to today’s winning ticket, the jackpot had gone a record 16-consecutive performances without a jackpot winner.

All 8-posts were covered for 5 of 5 correct winners and surprisingly, there were no multiple winners for any of the posts. A Jai-5 record handle of $8,675 was wagered by bettors into the jackpot for today’s performance. This $27,348 payoff shattered the previous record Jai-5 payoff of $12,220 which was won on 13-Nov-2019.

The jackpot starts out again for Saturday’s 4-pm performance with the usual $2,000 guaranteed payoff should there only be a single winning ticket with all 5-correct winners. Monday, April 12th is the conclusion of the short 10-week session of extra Jai-Alai at Magic City Casino & Jai-Alai and both the Jai-5 and the Mighty Ocho jackpots will be Forced-Out.

The regular meet of Magic City Jai-Alai begins on May 1st and runs through the end of November with 6-performances a week on Saturday through Tuesday (double-headers on Monday & Tuesday).

Word of the largest jackpot in recent Jai-Alai history at Magic City Casino & Jai-Alai has spread and word is, the horse and greyhound professional gamblers have taken notice and are asking questions. When it comes to the popular Jackpot Wagers featured at all the big racetracks, and even smaller ones, everyone takes notice when the $20k threshold is reached. The last time a Jai-Alai jackpot reached this size was probably back in the early 2000’s on a Tri-Super at Fort Pierce Jai-Alai. So, this is a rare event in the world of Jai-Alai these days.

Be on the lookout for some old-timer greyhound and Jai-Alai system professional gamblers to attempt to swoop-down and try to fly away with a $20k plus jackpot that’s been built-up by authentic Magic City Jai-Alai fans. True Magic City Jai-Alai fans are hoping the vultures go feast on some other jackpot.

The HUGE Jai-5 jackpot wager starts on game 3 of today’s 4-pm Saturday matinee. Should it survive today, there is another shot at the big one at tomorrow’s noon performance EST. Yes, both Magic City and Dania ARE open on Easter Sunday. Your kin may not like it, but “ya gotta do what ya gotta do” and spend quality time with kin after those bets are in (first things first in this situation, IMHO)!

INTERESTING STATS – 30-March-2021 through Week 8

THE SCOOP ON THE JAI-5:

The Magic City $1.00 Jai-5 wager has now gone 14-consecutive performances without a single winning ticket holder and the jackpot has swelled to $14,802.40 for Saturday’s 4-pm performance with a potential of paying $20,000 to a single winning ticket holder.  The previous Jai-5 record was 12-consecutive performances without a winner and resulted in a record payout of $12,220 on November 13^th 2019.  The other next longest non-Jackpot paying streaks happened in 2020 when twice this Jai-ly popular wager went 10-consecutive performances without a winner.  A record $7,614 was wagered on the Jai-5 on Monday, March 29^th.

There are only 5-performances left till the final day of the short 10-week meet until there will be a Force-Out of both the Jai-5 and the Mighty Ocho Jackpots.  The burning question is, will the Jai-5 jackpot survive until the April 12^th Force-Out?

Why has this jackpot gone so long without a winner?  The main factors are:  Douglas is out of the entries and recovering from a wrist injury (he had dominated in singles and doubles), Ikeda was moved out of Game 4 to play in all late singles games (6,8,9) where he had dominated in Game 4, the most highly competitive doubles game teams in Magic City history where 4-different teams are within 1-win each for the lead, and the Magic City improved roster for 2021 with the addition of Spinner, Julen and 17-yo Benny (youngest brother of Douglas).

OVERALL (It’s RonRon, RonRon, Juice-RonRon):

RonRon continues to dominate and show consistency for the short 10-week meet.  He won his 4^rd consecutive Golden Cesta Award with 4 or 5 wins in the 9 games each of the last four weeks with astonishing 44-56% singles game win rates!

RonRon continues to lead the Singles Championship, being the first player to hit the 25-win mark and has distanced himself from the field with second best CRB having 16-wins with time running out and has locked-up first place money.

The team of Juice-RonRon continue to lead the hotly contested 1^st 2021 Doubles Tournament with 8-team wins and only (12) tournament games left in this first tourney.  Their lead is only by one win and this event may well come down to the last exciting game to determine the winners.  There are 3-other teams only 1-win Juice-RonRon with 7-wins each:  Bueno-Ben, Ikeda-El Barba, Kubala-Benny.  Watch-out for Kubala-Benny who went on a rampage winning both singles games on Monday to tie for second place honors.  The remaining teams have a huge disadvantage with the clock running out and only 2-4 team wins to date.

SINGLES GAMES:

Some consistent players:

• Ikeda ITM streak has lengthened to 20-performances in a row and has only missed being ITM in one performance early in the 10-week meet.
• CRB continues to WOW the fans in 2021 with his amazing improved talent in early games.  He’s second in the Singles Championship and has 9-performances in a row with an ITM finish.
• Kubala has now gone 8-performances in a row with an ITM finish.
• Jeden’s play has improved and he’s secured an ITM finish in 9 of the last 10-performances.
• RonRon’s singles win streak continues and has lengthened to 11-consecutive performances with one or two wins.  He’s the Singles Championship leader with a 34.7% win record (72-25-8-4).  There have only been 5 of 24 performances where he hasn’t won a game in his 3-singles game appearances in late games 6, 8 & 9.

Some “due” players:

• Anderluck’s drought continues with only 1-win in 67-games (67-1-10-10).  He hasn’t hit the quiniela in the last 7-performances.  This hard-throwing player is on the verge of wins very soon and has lost game points recently.
• Cool Fitness also has only 1-win in 58-games (58-1-5-4), but has shown much improved play in recent games and H2H matches, so bettors better beware here.
• Tennessee has now gone 3-performances in a row with no ITM finish and 7-performances in a row with no wins, so watch for this strong early game player to catch fire soon.
• Bueno is coming off an unusual week for his usual standard and has gone 2-performances in a row with no ITM finish, quite unusual for him to say the least.  His Week 8 record was (13-0-0-1), so watch for improvement here from this talented player who rarely misses a catch.

DOUBLES GAMES:

Two doubles teams won two games each in Week 8 of the 1^st 2021 Doubles Tournament, the teams of Kubala-Benny and CRB-Spinner.  The tourney has been highly competitive with some of the best doubles games in Magic City history played in Week 8.  Only 12-doubles games remain in the first tournament.

Some hot teams:

• The Kubala-Benny team has been ITM the last 10-performances which is an amazing run based on only 2-doubles games a performance and teams don’t always play in both of them.  They only have 4-wins and time is running out, so watch for them to really be pouring it on to try to get a piece of the prize money.
• Juice-RonRon are in the tourney lead with 8-wins and have the highest win rating of 19.0% (42-8-3-5).  This team will be trying to maintain the lead in this tightly contested tourney.  They have no wins in the last 4-performances, so beware.

Some “due” teams:

• The 2^nd place team of Bueno-Ben has gone 7-performances in a row without a win or place.
• Anderluck-Tennessee team hasn’t won a game in the last 17-performances.
• Tournament leaders Juice-RonRon have gone 4-performances without a win.

The Jai-5 Jackpot at Magic City Casino & Jai-alai reached a new “Jai” today when nobody again won 5 of 5 winners in games 3-7. Going into the final leg, there were no live tickets for 5 of 5 again and top favorites were not hitting the ticket.

SayHiLi expects the Jai-5 Jackpot will pay over $16,000 for the Monday 1-pm performance if there is a single winner selecting the 5-correct winners. The current Jai-5 Jackpot carryover is a Jai-5 record of $11,756.80.

The elusive Magic City Jai-5 Jackpot, featuring a $1.00 Pick 5 wager, continues to grow as bettors failed once again to select the 5-winners in games 3-7 at Magic City Casino & Jai-Alai in Miami, Florida. Saturday’s opening Week 8 performance showed a whopping $6,484 wagered into the jackpot carryover of $7,230.40 where one must be the ONLY winning ticket with 5 of 5 correct winners to bring home the entire jackpot. This was the 12th consecutive performance where this feat was not accomplished, which ties the previous record of 12-winless performances back in 2019, which led to a single jackpot winner on the 13th try for a record $12,220 payoff on November 9th. The Jai-5 wager is a Jackpot Wager, a popular type of Pick-X exotic wager which has become highly popular throughout the horse racing industry as it leads to some very attractive jackpots for bettors. Jackpot Wagers are only paid out in entirety when there is one unique winning ticket with all winners correctly selected. Magic City Jai-Alai pays out consolation payoffs to winners who have the most games correctly selected when there is not one unique winner. Saturday’s consolation payout was $68.20 to winners correctly selecting any 3 of the 5-games. The house takeout on the Jai-5 is 20% of the gross amount wagered, consolations pay out 40% and the other 40% gets added to the jackpot carryover.

Today’s performance which starts at noon EST, has a Jai-5 Jackpot of $9,824 for the Jai-5 and the payout for a single winning ticket with 5 of 5 correct winners is expected to pay $14,000 or more to a lucky winner, assuming bettors pump a minimum of $5,000 into this challenging wager today. The wager starts on game 3 and with game 1 of today’s performance starting at noon EST, bettors will need to “be on their toes” to get in on today’s action, which means if tuning in at 1-pm, you will likely be too late for a shot at this giant jackpot at Jai-Alai. Start brewing the coffee and studying that Magic City Jai-Alai program!

This jackpot is rapidly approaching the largest Jai-Alai payoff in this century at any Jai-Alai fronton in the USA. The record payoff is $16,372 when Dania Jai-Alai had a $0.50 Pick 5 Jackpot wager. This was in the roughly 2016-2017 time frame and the exact date will be retrieved by this author with some additional research.

Will today be the lucky 13th for someone? Tune in today to YouTube’s “The Jai-Alai Channel” to catch all the exciting short-court Jai-Alai action from Miami, Florida where the fascinating sport of Jai-Alai has been played for over 90-years! If you want to get in on the Jai-Alai wagering action, open a wagering account with WatchandWager.com or MyWinners.com (restrictions may apply).

INTERESTING STATS – 23-March-2021 through Week 7

THE SCOOP ON THE JAI-5:

The Magic City $1.00 Jai-5 wager has now gone 11-consecutive performances in a row without a single winning ticket holder and the jackpot has swelled to $7,230.40 for Saturday’s 4-pm performance.  There has only been one other time in Jai-5 history where the wager has gone longer without paying-out.  The 2019 inaugural Jai-5 season produced a Jai-5 winner for $12,220 after going 12-consecutive performances without a winner.  The other next longest streaks happened in 2020 when twice this Jai-ly popular wager went 10-consecutive performances without a winner.

The Jai-5 syndicates have been taking a hit and the word on the street is they’ve been in contact with Jeeves to get loans to continue.  Rumor has it that Jeeves is printing up some cash and heading in an armored car to The Sports Club at Magic City on Saturday afternoon to take down the big Jai-5 jackpot himself!  If that’s true, the syndicates are in big trouble as Jeeves is a numbers genius!  No one messes with The Jeeves.

Fans need to remember, if you don’t bet the Jai-5, you won’t get the “Jai” from hitting the Jai-5…..and this one promises to be a BIG ONE!  So, be there and take the dare!

OVERALL:

RonRon continues to dominate and show consistency for the short 10-week meet.  He won his 3^rd consecutive Golden Cesta Award with 4 wins in 9 games each of the last three weeks for an astonishing 44.4% win rate!

He continues to lead the Singles Championship, being the first player to hit the 20-win mark and has distanced himself from the field with second best CRB having 14-wins.

The team of Juice-RonRon continue to lead the hotly contested 1^st 2021 Doubles Tournament with only (18) tournament games left in this first tourney.  Their lead is only by one win and this event may well come down to the last exciting games to determine the winners.  Last week (wk 7) the 6-doubles games were won by 6-different teams.   Magic City’s COO Scott Savin did an excellent job selecting equally-matched teams for this first tournament , as evidenced by the top five teams having 8,7,6,5,4 wins respectively.

SINGLES GAMES:

Some consistent and/or improved players:

• Bradley is the most improved of late and seems to have “come alive” in the singles department.  He was winless in the first 13-performances and now he has wins in 4 of the last 8-performances and 3 of the last 5-performances.  His first 18-singles games was (18-0-0-2) while his last 25 games look like this (25-4-2-4).  So, whatever Bradley’s doing, he needs to bottle it and sell it!
• Ikeda ITM streak has lengthened to 17-performances in a row and has only missed being ITM on one performance early in the 10-week meet.
• CRB continues to WOW the fans in 2021 with his amazing talent and still hasn’t gone more than 2-performances without a win.  There have only been 3 performances where he’s gone without an ITM finish.
• RonRon’s singles win streak continues and has lengthened to 11-consecutive performances with one or more wins.
• Bueno has been very consistent this meet with only 2-performances without an ITM finish.
• Kubala game is getting back on track with ITM finishes the last 5-performances and multiple ITM finishes in 4 of the last 5-performances.  He’s now playing some of his best singles since his slow start early in the meet.  Here’s Kubala’s record for 2/6 through 3/8 (36-3-1-5) for 9/31 ITM compared to the last 2-weeks from 3/13 through 3/22 (19-2-6-2) for 8/19 IM.
• Carballo’s short drought appears to be over.  He had gone 3-consecutive performances without an ITM finish.  On Monday he played like he was on a mission, going 3-1-0-2 for a perfect 100% ITM in singles.

Some “Due” players:

• Anderluck has only 1-win in 57-games (57-1-10-9).  He hasn’t hit the quiniela in the last 4-performances.
• Ikeda has “cooled-off.”  The first 5-weeks his record was 38-8-11-4 for 23/38 ITM or 60.5% while the last 2-weeks were 18-1-3-2 for 6/18 ITM or 33.3%.

DOUBLES GAMES:

Six different doubles teams won the six games in Week 7 of the 1^st 2021 Doubles Tournament.  The tourney has been highly competitive with some of the best points every being played at Magic City Jai-Alai in Week 7.

Some hot teams:

• The Kubala-Benny team has been ITM the last 7-performances.
• Juice-RonRon are in the tourney lead and remain strong with a 23-7-1-4 record in their last 23-games. They had the best ITM for the week with (5-1-0-2) for 60%.

Some “Due” teams:

• The experienced doubles team of Diaz-Carballo have been struggling with only 2-wins in 36-games, however they may have turned the corner as the last 2-performances is the first time this year they’ve been ITM in 2-consecutive performances.
• Anderluck-Tennessee team hasn’t won a game in the last 14-performances.  Since Feb. 27 they are 20-0-7-3 which is an impressive 50% ITM, however the wins remain elusive.
• The second place team of Bueno-Ben is winless in the last 4-performances.

SOME SPECIFIC SINGLES GAME STATS:

Game 1 (early game):

• Jeden is ITM 6 of the last 7-performances.
• Diaz has not hit the quiniela yet in 21-games (21-0-0-2).
• Vuelo has no quiniela finish in his last 12-performances.
• Cool Fitness has no quiniela finish in his last 8-performances.

Game 2 (early game):

• Ben has been ITM 12 of his last 15-performances.
• Vuelo has not been ITM in the last 11-performances.
• Juice has not been in the quiniela in the last 10-performances.
• El Barba has no game 2 win the last 12-performances and no ITM in the last four so watch out for him since he’s at the top of this early group.

Game 3 (mid-game):

• This is “Bueno’s Game” with a record of 21-9-2-5 for an impressive 76% ITM.
• El Barba is due in this more competitive game with a record of 21-0-0-1.
• Likewise, early game player Tennessee has no wins in 21-games and Cool Fitness is 0/10 ITM.

Game 4 (mid-game):

• Julen has been hot since playing in this game with 6 of 9 ITM (9-2-2-2).
• Kubala is impressive in game 4 with 19-4-2-2.
• Anderluck is surprisingly winless in this game, but his 10 of 20 ITM (50%) is to be respected with a record of 20-0-5-5.
• Jeden has yet to hit the quiniela in game 4 with a record of 21-0-0-1.

Game 6 (late-game):

• Spinner has dominated this game with 16 of 21 ITM and 9-wins (record is 21-9-2-5).
• New 17-yo pro Benny had done well here for his limited appearances with 6 of 10 (10-1-2-3) so he can certainly compete with Magic City’s finest.
• RonRon is 21-5-4-0 with 9 of 21 in the quiniela.
• Jeden appears a tad bit outmatched here with his 15-0-0-2 record.

Game 8 (late-game):

• Here’s an interesting stat, Ikeda is 13-0-8-0 in this game, 8/13 in the place position.
• This final leg of the Mighty Ocho is one of RonRon’s best games with a 21-7-2-2 record, winning at a 33.3% rate here.
• Ben is 17-0-0-1 in this game and may surprise soon.

Game 9 (9-point late-game):

• RonRon owns this feature game with his record of 21-8-1-2 and has won it his last 4-appearances.
• Ben plays well in this 9-point game, maybe better suited for him with more chances to score points, with a record of 13-1-3-2 which is far superior to his game 8 record of 17-0-0-1.  Certainly don’t leave Ben out of your superfecta here.

The Magic City Jai-Alai Pick 5 wager called the Jai-5 again went another performance without a single ticket holder with 5 of 5 correct winners. A total of $2,677 was wagered into the Jai-5 for Saturday’s 4-pm performance. There were (3) winning tickets with 4 of 5 correct winners which paid $356.90 each. This is now the 9-th consecutive performance without a Jai-5 winner.

The jackpot could pay nearly $7,000 at Sunday’s noon performance if Jai-5 enthusiasts wager another $2,700 tomorrow!

The longest streak with no single ticket Jai-5 winner since the debut of “America’s Most Generous Pari-Mutuel Wager” has been 12-performances. The Jai-5 Jackpot has paid out to a single winning ticket (92) times since it began in 2019. The largest payoff was $12,220 on November 13, 2019. Click Here for a complete listing of all the Jai-5 Jackpot Payouts and the Mighty Ocho payouts for the Force-Outs. The Jai-5 and the Mighty Ocho will both be Forced-Out (aka Mandatory Payout) on the closing day of the short 10-week meet on Monday, April 12. When the jackpots are Forced-Out, the ticket holders with the most correct winners will split the full jackpot amount.

Good Luck to those Magic City short-court Jai-Alai bettors in search of a big payday tomorrow! Start working on your ticket now as the wager kicks-off at the start of Game 3. Don’t get shut-out!

A 2021 record Jai-5 Jackpot of well over $5,000 awaits a single winning ticket holder for the start of Magic City Jai-Alai’s 7th week of the initial 10-week meet prior to the start of the 2021 regular Magic City Jai-Alai season which starts on May 1. During this initial 10-week short meet, there are 3-performances a week on Saturday through Monday.

The Jai-5 wager is a $1.00 Pick 5 bet where a bettor must select the winner of games 3-7 and be the ONLY winning ticket with all five winners correctly selected. This wager was hit several times early in the 10-week meet, but has now gone 8-consecutive performances without a single Jackpot winner. Should a lucky bettor hit all five winners correctly and be the ONLY winning ticket, they will score for over $5,000 this week. SayHiLi estimates that one lucky Jackpot winner at the Saturday, March 20th performance could bring home over $5,500 and perhaps even closer to $6,000!

The Magic City Jai-5 wager debuted on August 14, 2019 about 6-weeks after the 2019 meet started on July 3. The Jai-5 went a record 12-performances in a row without a single Jackpot winner in it’s debut season before the record Jai-5 payoff was nailed for $12,200 by one lucky winner. This record payoff still stands as the top payoff at Magic City to this day. Click Here to see the complete Magic City Jai-5 Payoff History.

There were two different times in 2020 where Jai-5 bettors went 10-consecutive performances without a single Jackpot winner. Those lengthy Jai-5 droughts resulted in payoffs of $6,761 and $4,996. Needless to say, the Magic City Jai-5 is on the verge of another big score soon for some lucky winner based on Jai-5 history. The lucky Jai-5 winner could be YOU, but it doesn’t Pay if you don’t Play!

Currently the Jai-5 jackpot carryover is at $3,562.80 however it’s expected the Jai-5 wagers for Saturday will be in excess of $2,500 and since 80% of that amount wagered gets added to the jackpot carryover for a single winning ticket, that means an additional $2,000 added to the $3,562.80 which means over $5,500 for the Only winning ticket holder on Saturday. Should there be no single winning ticket with all five winners correct, there’s a consolation payoff for tickets with the most winners that share in half of the 80% of what’s wagered for the day while the other half gets added to the jackpot carryover.

So remember this week, if you don’t Try, you can’t hit the Jai!

Week 6 of the 10-week session of Jai-Alai (before the regular season starts) kicks-off at 4-pm today! Be sure to clear your schedule  and sharpen your pencils, but it really only takes a few minutes to win your share of the weekly cash prize in the FREE Magic City Fantasy Jai-Alai League. Contest picks must be completed by the 4-pm deadline for game 1 today to be eligible for the weekly cash prize.

There have been no scratches so far for the first 5-weeks of this short initial season, with the exception of Wonder Boy Douglas who is out for the rest of this short meet nursing a wrist injury. This initial short 10-week meet is EXTRA games of Jai-Alai offered by Magic City Jai-Alai this year before the regular season starts in May, with 6-performances a week running through the end of November.  Amazing huh, even more exciting games of short-court Jai-Alai this year! Thanks Magic City Jai-Alai for helping to keep this great sport alive! If you haven’t yet seen this short-court version of Jai-Alai, it’s a Must-See as these games are in HD and it’s great action-packed entertainment, plus you might even win a few bucks by opening a Watch & Wager wagering account or playing in the Free Fantasy league. Note that due to safety precautions, Magic City Jai-Alai is not yet open to live spectator viewing for this 10-week meet which ends April 12.

Don’t forget about the new, exciting Magic City Jai-Alai option called Jai-Alai H2H which is ONLY at Magic City Jai-Alai! These are non-wagering events featuring head-2-head matchups between two players in a tennis-style format of 3-sets each to 6-single points. The first player to win 2-sets wins the match. These are intense competition and involve speed, strategy and stamina! These matches are featured from 10-am to noon EST on Monday and Tuesday mornings through mid-April. Jai-Alai for breakfast, now that’s a deal!  If you haven’t yet seen these then you are really missing out!

Last but not least, Magic City not only offers chances at big jackpots for their casino players; Magic City Jai-Alai offers big jackpot chances for the Jai-Alai bettors as well. There isn’t just one chance, but there are two, two, two Pots in One fronton!   TWO BIG JACKPOT OPTIONS for Magic City Jai-Alai bettors. The Jai-5 Jackpot bet, a $1 Pick 5 jackpot wager, is paid to the winner of a single winning ticket correctly selecting the winner of games 3-7 and that guaranteed jackpot is a minimum of $2,000. The other jackpot wager is called the Mighty Ocho, a $1 Pick 8 jackpot wager, also paid to the winner of a single winning ticket correctly selecting the winner of games 1-8 and that jackpot is guaranteed at a minimum of $4,000. These jackpot wagers both pay consolation payoffs to those selecting the most correct winners and the jackpots continue to grow. The record $1 Jai-5 jackpot at Magic CIty Jai-Alai is a whopping $12,220!  The Jai-5 Jackpot for today will exceed the $2,000 guarantee and then the sky’s the limit until there is a single winning ticket!  Maybe 2021 will see a new record jackpot?

Regular Magic City Jai-Alai games and the H2H matches can be seen live or at a later date on The Jai-Alai Channel on YouTube, all in High Definition, a must for getting the full benefit of watching this amazing and fast action-packed sport! Jai-Alai has been known for years as the world’s fastest sport!

Monday’s exciting short-court Jai-Alai action concluded Week 4 of the 10-week added Jai-Alai in 2021 for Magic City Jai-Alai fans. CRB was the star of the week by winning his first ever Golden Cesta Award for the most singles wins. He wins the award with 3-singles wins and 37.5% wins for the short 3-performance week. Bueno and CRB are both leading the pack of contenders for the Singles Championship with 9-wins each. The action-packed doubles tournament, featured in games 5 & 7, is currently being led by teams Kubala-Benny and Juice-RonRon with 4-wins each.

The popular Jai-5 wager has a jackpot of $748.80 and guarantees $2,000 to a single winner. The Mighty Ocho has a jackpot of $517.60 and guarantees $4,000 to a single winner.

Magic City Jai-Alai superstar Douglas is out for the rest of the 10-week short meet nursing a wrist injury. SayHiLi wishes a full recovery for Douglas and he will be in our thoughts and prayers!

Week 5 kicks-off with a 4-pm performance on Saturday. Be sure to get your Magic City Fantasy Jai-Alai League selections in by 4-pm on Saturday to be eligible to win the weekly cash prize for the most points. This contest is FREE and no strings attached!

SayHiLi recommends the world’s best beef jerky while watching Jai-Alai games and that great beef jerky is only found at People’s Choice Beef Jerky. I’ve been ordering this jerky since I found out about this more than 5-years ago and my all-time favorite is the 1-pound bag of Carne Seca Limon con Chile for $25. This is a great price considering the 2-3 ounce bags of jerky at grocery or convenience stores cost from $5 to $7 dollars each. This jerky is not tough at all and is very flavorful but not a hot or overly-spicy jerky. I guarantee you will love this jerky!

People’s Choice is a family operated business in Los Angeles that started in 1929 and if you order more than $75 in products, you even get free shipping. They have a large variety of products, and even have a large sampler box with every kind of product offered. Pictured below is a photo of a 1-pound bag I recently purchased.

Be sure to check out the website as they are currently offering a FREE $6 bag of jerky! Wow, you can enjoy the world’s finest beef jerky for FREE while enjoying that FREE Magic City Fantasy Jai-Alai League with cash prizes! What a combo! Steve M.

Carne Seca Limon con Chile is the official beef jerky of SayHiLi.

People’s Choice Beef Jerky website

Magic City’s 4th season debut showcased outstanding Jai-Alai talent at Saturday’s 4-pm performance and fans were wowed at just how far this short-court development Jai-Alai program has come since it began in 2018. Magic City Jai-Alai has a roster of 20-players and all played during the 9-game opener, including three new players on this 2021 roster. New additions were Spinner (Daniel Spinner) from Dania Jai-Alai, Julen (Julen Goitiandia) with playing experience from Casino Miami Jai-Alai & Markina Spain, along with 17-year old “Benny” who is Ben Langhans, the brother of Magic City’s 21-year old top player Douglas (Matt Langhans). Douglas has won all doubles tournaments and both singles championships since he started his professional career at Magic City in 2019.

Carballo was hot in late game singles and looked phenomenal, winning two of his 3-games and a second place finish in the other. Douglas had a win in his first singles game of the day. Magic City early game player, Vuelo, definitely looked improved as Stu Neiman had been touting this week. Vuelo had a show in game 1 and a win in game 2. Vuelo’s game 3 singles game almost gave him a second place finish had Jeden won his final match-up when it appeared he was on his way to a perfect game. Bueno, son of Magic City player manager and former Jai-Alai superstar, Benny Bueno, also had an exceptional day with a first, second, and a 3rd in the four singles games he played. CRB looked impressive and scored the first win of the 2021 season in game 1 and also won the show playoff in the very competitively-matched game 4 mid-singles game which was won by Kubala, one of Magic City’s top five late-game players.

Doubles game winners for game 5 & 7 were Juice-RonRon in post 1 and Jeden-Bradley in post 7. The Jeden-Bradley win was an incredible display of talent for this doubles team with a perfect game from post 7, the toughest post to secure victory from in the Spec 7 format. This first doubles tournament for 2021 is already shaping up to be some very competitive games with evenly matched teams. The teams of Juice-RonRon and Jeden-Bradley are currently 100% ITM for their two games each team has played. There are 10-teams for the doubles competition so not all teams get to play twice daily.

Trifecta pool were decent for Magic City Jai-Alai, averaging $1,527 per game over the 9-game performance, ranging from $1303 to $1,668, which is a huge increase in trifecta pool size from the recent Casino Miami Jai-Alai performances which ended on Monday. The $1.00 trifecta prices were phenomenal for day 1 and averaged a high $421 which is about double that of average season trifecta prices for Dania and Magic City Jai-Alai. Five of the $1.00 trifectas paid between $330 and $1180. The lowest $1.00 trifectas of the day were $48.70 on the easy 3-2-5 combination in singles game 6 which was a handicap special with Douglas-Carballo-Spinner along with the very easy 1-4-2 trifecta combination which paid $86.30 in the game 1 opener (CRB-Bueno-Vuelo). Note that Magic City offers $0.50 trifecta tickets, just like Dania Jai-Alai. Casino Miami Jai-Alai trifectas were not available for $0.50, Miami fans had to spend $1.00 for base trifecta wagers at that venue.

The$1.00 Jai-5 jackpot wager was nailed by one lucky bettor for the $2,000 guaranteed jackpot. The five winners of the game 3-7 sequence were: Bueno, Kubala, Juice-RonRon, Douglas, Jeden-Bradley. Fans wagered $1,244 into the Jai-5 opening day and this popular jackpot wager starts out again with another $2,000 guarantee for the Sunday noon performance if there is a single jackpot winner with all five winners correctly selected.

The Mighty Ocho wager, a $1.00 Pick 8 wager which works exactly like the Jai-5, has an increased guarantee for a single winner with all eight winners correctly selected for games 1-8. The jackpot was increased to $4,000 for 2021; previously this jackpot had a guarantee of $3,000. The Mighty Ocho wager first started in 2020 and no handicapper has had all 8-winners correct, although there have been winners with 7 of 8 winners several times. There were 2-winning tickets with 5 of 8 correct winners for the season opener that paid $24.40 each ticket holder.

Magic City Jai-Alai features two $1.00 Pick 3 wagers, game 4 and game 7. All Magic City pick-x wagers feature a low 20% takeout rate, which is 5% lower than competitor Dania Jai-Alai and fans took advantage and played more on the Pick 3 wagers than at the opening day of Dania Jai-Alai on Wednesday this week. Magic City fans wagered $753 and $466 on each of the Pick 3’s and the $1.00 payoffs paid quite handsomely to Jai-Alai handicappers with prices of $150.60 for the Kubala, Juice-RonRon, Douglas sequence and $372.80 for the Jeden-Bradley, Carballo, Carballo sequence.

The total handle for all the games was $20,222.

The next performance at Magic City is Sunday at noon and is followed by a Monday 1-pm performance.

Be sure to check out the new head-to-head matches at Magic City Jai-Alai at 10-am on Monday and Tuesday mornings (10-am to noon). These are non-wagering events. Check out the JAI-ALAI H2H page on the Magic City website.

Check out the new Head-to-Head Jai-Alai Action on The Jai-Alai Channel at Magic City on Monday and Tuesday mornings at 10 am. The Magic City roster has been divided into 3-groups of 6-players in each grouping. Players will battle head-to-head for supremacy in their respective division.

Here is the link for more details: Jai-Alai H2H

Be sure to sign up on the new website to be ready for Week 1 of the Magic City Fantasy Jai-Alai League!

Go to “Magic City Fantasy League” under Other Links for all the details from Andrew Blechman, Producer of The Jai-Alai Channel.

Magic City Jai-Alai starts on Saturday, February 6th at 4-pm.

I lost a very close and dear relative on January 30^th this year.  Her name was Kayla and she was so special over the nearly 15-years she’s lived with my wife and I. 

My wife and I never had any children but we had the chance to adopt Kayla when she was just 2-months old and she has been such a blessing in our lives every day.  Kayla loved us, learned from us and strived for our attention and entertained us.  We learned from Kayla and loved our precious baby so dearly and she made us laugh.

Kayla spent extra time with me when I went through tough times from a very difficult left knee total replacement in 2015.  She helped me get through my cancer surgery recovery in the fall of 2019 and I thanked her many times for helping me get through those really tough times.  I don’t think I could have done it without her love, dedication and watching over me.

We took great care of Kayla and home-schooled her and she was the best student.  I’m so proud of her and she never ceased to amaze us.  She was generous with her love for us and there isn’t one bad thing I could ever say about her, she was the best.

In early November last year, we noticed she was limping and something wasn’t right with her right leg.  We took her to the doctor for a multitude of tests, blood work, x-rays and more.  The specialists couldn’t figure out what was wrong, so typical the case these days it seems.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been misdiagnosed myself.  We were given a prescription and sent home.  The condition got worse and more doctor visits, perhaps likely a nerve issue they said but those are hard to diagnose, then even told us it could be the C word (cancer).  It got worse and Kayla’s leg was getting swollen, she wasn’t eating as much, but she was such a trooper and we believe she was trying to conceal her true condition.  We tried our best to get Kayla to eat more and drink more fluids, yet Kayla was losing weight and I could sense she was suffering from depression, but she never complained.  But yet, something was wrong and we knew it wasn’t good.

Last Saturday morning, our precious little orange tabby cat Kayla awoke me at 5:35 am when she fell off the recliner where she had been sleeping with me for the last six hours on a pillow between my legs.  I knew immediately this was not good as it made a loud thud on the floor, so I woke up my wife.  We spent the next four hours consoling her the best we could and stroking her fur in-between the occasional spastic movements, but we knew the end was definitely near.  Her breathing was becoming shallower and she took her last breath at 9:20 am and it broke our hearts, yet we had been asking God to take her home as we didn’t want to see her suffer any longer.  When the Pet Cremation van left our home with our little baby Kayla at 10:30 am I lost it and broke down crying my eyes out like never before.  I just couldn’t help it and couldn’t believe she was gone, after being so healthy for so many years I had figured she was going to live past 20-years, or even break the world’s record for being the world’s oldest cat.

It just goes to show that you never know how long you have on this earth and to make each day count.  We do believe in God and that there are rewards in heaven.   Now some of you may think I’m crazy and I don’t give a rat’s behind if you do, but I do believe I will see Kayla again in heaven and that will be one of my rewards.  I believe she is now in God’s hands and he is taking care of her till we meet again.  Kayla was our family, she was our child and we treated her like family.

Rest in peace my dear baby Kayla and we will always keep you in our hearts and thoughts!   God bless you!

Steve M.

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Current Casino Miami player Julen was officially announced on “The Scoop” espisode on 12-January as being the 20th player for the 2021 Magic City Jai-Alai roster. Julen has a family history of Jai-Alai and is the middle brother of Alex and Goitia.

Welcome to Magic City Jai-Alai Julen!

Magic City Jai-Alai resumes on Saturday, Feb 6th, with a 4-pm performance.

Another Andrew Blechman interview will be featured on “The Scoop” tomorrow at 12:30 pm on the JAC (Jai-Alai Channel). Magic City’s own Stu Neiman will be on the witness stand, LOL, for the interrogation where Andrew and fans get the chance to ask Stu questions.

Stu has a wide ranging career in Jai-Alai since his youth when he learned to play the game at the World Jai-Alai School in Miami. Stu has even been a GM of multiple Jai-Alai frontons at the same time. We do know Stu has an astute knowledge of the sport of Jai-Alai and it’s history and this is a great chance to ask an expert about this fascinating game.

Stu has never placed a wager on Jai-Alai, but from listening to his announcing at Magic City Jai-Alai, many Magic City fans do know Stu had had some great luck when he won a really nice national lottery payoff (5 of 6 correct numbers) from either Powerball or Mega Millions. SayHiLi has already confirmed Stu is playing the BIG lottery jackpots this week for both Powerball and Mega Millions. The Mega Millions draw is Tuesday night and currently at $615,000,000 while Powerball is Wednesday night and at $550,000,000.

Jai-Alai fans won’t want to miss this interview!

Stu Neiman from Magic City Jai-Alai contacted SayHiLi today with the following official player changes for 2021.

These four players are not returning:

Legend – major health issues/surgeries

Rock – knee injury/surgery

Fred – not returning, will be continuing with his FT job with Broward County

Limonte – left during 2020 meet and relocated to Orlando due to wife’s job change

Note that Asier is still part of the program but will not be participating in the January practices, “on-leave” status

These two players joined the 2021 Magic City Jai-Alai program (will practice in January and start on Feb 6th):

Spinner – from Dania

Ben Langhans – 17 yo brother of Douglas, playing under name “Benny”

Magic City Jai-Alai Schedule Update and U.S. National Jai-Alai Championship Info

The 10-weeks of added Magic City Jai-Alai resume on February 6th with a Saturday 4-pm performance, Sunday 1-pm performance and a Monday 1-pm. Performances will be at least 9-games each. The 10-week meet runs through April 12 and then the regular Magic City season will consist of games from May 1 through November 29.

The 2nd U.S. National Jai-Alai Championship will be played at Magic City Jai-Alai somewhere between August 24 and September 10.

Andrew Blechman, Producer of the Jai-Alai Channel (JAC) interviews Magic City Jai-Alai player, Michael Carballo, tomorrow at 12:30 pm. Carballo recently won 2nd place prize money of $2,500 in the singles division of the first ever U.S. National Jai-Alai Championship Tournament held at Magic City Jai-Alai in Miami on December 5th and 6th in 2020.

This is Carballo’s first interview on the JAC and should be an interesting one. Jai-Alai fans won’t want to miss this special interview of “The Scoop.”

Magic City Jai-Alai Returns Soon!

Magic City Jai-Alai players are off the rest of December but will be practicing the month of January and then return to professional Jai-Alai action starting on Saturday, February 6th for an additional 10-weeks of Jai-Alai in 2021 (February through mid-April) This is in addition to the regular Magic City Jai-Alai season from May through November. Performances for the 10-week meet will be once a day for Saturday, Sunday and Monday. While the other Jai-Alai venues have shut-down or pared-back schedules, Magic City Jai-Alai is going the other direction and increasing their schedule. Many thanks to Magic City COO, Scott Savin, for his dedication to the tradition of Jai-Alai and his efforts in promoting the faster short-court Jai-Alai version of this fascinating centuries old sport!

Magic City Jai-Alai players, most only having played any Jai-Alai since January of 2018 when they learned to play the game for the first time, played fantastic Jai-Alai against top U.S. professional players in the very first U.S. National Jai-Alai Championship held at Magic City Jai-Alai in Miami, Florida on December 5th and 6th.

Magic City’s Michael Carballo won 2nd place prize of $2,500 in the singles bracket, losing in the final match to seasoned Dania pro Jairo in a 9-point game by a score of 9-6. Carballo had gotten off to an early 4-1 lead in this match and Jairo mounted a comeback and was leading 7-6 over Carballo late in the contest before winning the final two points to secure the win. In the final 8-players of the singles bracket, Carballo demolished Dania’s Johan in a 7-point match by a score of 7-1 and then Carballo went on to beat Dania’s Angel by a score of 7-5 to get into the final match of the singles championship against Jairo. Dania player Jairo took home a check for $7,500 for his singles championship win.

The doubles championship also demonstrated that Magic City players are top professional players in their short Jai-Alai careers and can play competitively against the seasoned Dania pros. When the doubles tourney had dwindled down to 4-remaining teams, Magic City was represented with Anderluck-Bradley team taking on Dania’s Goitia-Arrieta. Anderluck-Bradley were playing sensational Jai-Alai and were leading the Dania duo by 5-1 in this 7-point match when Goitia-Arrieta mounted a comeback and tied the match at 6-6. The Dania team won the match 7-6 when Anderluck dropped the ball on a tough catch against the inside wall.

Likewise, Magic City’s CRB was paired with Spinner, currently at Dania, but coming to play at Magic City in February 2021. CRB-Spinner played Dania team of Goixerri-Minte to see who would proceed to the final doubles match. Goixerri-Chasio of Dania had scored a 15-point partido win over Dania’s top front and back-court players Erik-Ladutxe on Thursday night last week, so Goixerri has been playing at his career best lately. CRB-Spinner jumped out to an early 4-1 lead in this 7-point match, but Goixerri-Minte persistently whittled away at the early lead and got back into the match. Goixerri-Minte had a 1-point lead of 6-5 when the Dania team secured the win with a narrow victory of 7-5. The match highlighted some excellent play and great teamwork between Dania player Spinner and Magic City’s CRB (early game player at Magic City), who had very little time if any practicing as a team before this tournament. Spinner showed he can play extremely well on the Magic City short-court and will be a great addition to the Magic City roster next year. Welcome to Magic City Jai-Alai Spinner!

The final 9-point doubles match was between Dania teams of Goitia-Arrieta and Goixerri-Minte. The match was close throughout with Goitia-Arrieta leading by 1 or 2 points throughout until Goixerri-Minte tied the match at 8-8. The team of Goitia-Arrieta secured the win and they split $7,500 prize money with Goixerri-Minte getting $2,500 for second place in this first ever U.S. National Doubles Jai-Alai Championship.

Trophies for the tournament winners will remain at Magic City Jai-Alai.

Magic City COO Scott Savin, player manager Juan Arrasate, Stu Neiman, Lindsay Savin, Andrew Blechman, video and support staff and all others involved in the Magic City Jai-Alai program and sponsorship of this prestigious event are well deserving of a gold medal for what has been accomplished with this tournament and the development of this new short-court Jai-Alai program started from scratch in less than three short years. Magic City Jai-Alai proved they deserve respect from the full Jai-Alai community, even from those hard-core long-court traditionalist nay-sayers. Well Done Magic City! Fans are looking forward to February 2021 for the return of Magic City Jai-Alai with 10-added weeks from February through mid-April before the regular season in May 2021.

Here are all the scores from the Day 2 matches:

2020 U.S. National Jai-Alai Championship Singles Games for Sunday, Dec 6 (in order played, matches to 7-points):

Arrieta beat Minte 7-4

Goixerri  beat Anderluck 7-4

Tevin beat Kubala 7-1

Casio beat Ben 7-6

Ikeda beat Bueno 7-0

Spinner beat Matt 7-3

Jairo beat Cachin47 7-3

Angel beat Bradley 7-2

DeCarlo beat Chia 7-2

Johan beat Jeden 7-4

El Barba beat Petro 7-4

Carballo beat CRB 7-2

Ant beat Monte 7-5

These are Singles Matches of the Final 16 players on Sunday, Dec. 6 (in order played):

Arrieta beat Goixerri 7-5

Tevin beat Casio 7-3

Ikeda beat Douglas 7-1

Jairo beat Spinner 7-4

Angel beat Goitia 7-1

DeCarlo beat Ari 7-4

Johan beat El Barba 7-6 (Note:  Dania’s Johan overcame a 6-0 lead by El Barba)

Carballo beat Ant 7-1

These are Singles Matches of the Final 8 players on Sunday, Dec. 6 (in order played):

Arrieta beat Tevin 7-6

Jairo beat Ikeda 7-6

(Note:  both of the above matches were tied at 6-6)

Angel beat DeCarlo 7-2

Carballo beat Johan 7-1

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Jairo beat Arrieta 7-5

Carballo beat Angel 7-5

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Final Singles Championship Match for 1^st Ever U.S. National Jai-Alai Championship Singles Tournament (contest to 9-straight points):

Jairo beat Carballo 9-6 (Note:  Carballo had an early 4-1 lead)

Jairo wins $7,500 for 1^st placeCarballo wins $2,500 for 2^nd place

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2020 U.S. National Jai-Alai Championship Doubles Games of Final 16-Teams on Day 2, Sunday, Dec 6 (in order played, games to 7-straight points):

Anderluck-Bradley move on over Frank-Gallo by default (Frank scratched)

Johan-Gorka beat Jeden-Tevin 7-5

Carballo-Ben beat Paul-Kubala 7-3

Goitia-Arrieta beat Ikeda-Angel 7-5

Bueno-Douglas beat Chia-Ari 7-1

CRB-Spinner beat Matt-Beach 7-5

Jairo-Larrea beat Belota-Ant 7-2

Goixerri-Minte beat Monte-T-Bone 7-1

These are the Final 8-Teams:

Anderluck-Bradley beat Johan-Gorka 7-2

Goitia-Arrieta beat Carballo-Ben 7-1

CRB-Spinner beat Bueno-Douglas 7-6 (Note:  match was tied at 6-6)

Goixerri-Minte beat Jairo-Larrea 7-4

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Goitia-Arrieta beat Anderluck-Bradley 7-6 (Note:  match was tied at 6-6)

Goixerri-Minte beat CRB-Spinner 7-5 (Note:  CRB-Spinner had early lead 4-1)

Final Doubles Championship Match for 1^st Ever U.S. National Jai-Alai Championship Doubles Tournament (contest to 9-straight points):

Goitia-Arrieta beat Goixerri-Minte 9-8 (Note:  match was tied at 8-8)

Goitia-Arrieta team wins $7,500 for 1^st place

Goixerri-Minte team wins $2,500 for 2^nd place

Day 1 of the 2020 US National Jai-Alai Championship was a huge success at Magic City Jai-Alai in Miami with singles and doubles games displaying the Jai-Alai talents of U.S. citizens ranging from amateurs to professional players from all the active Jai-Alai frontons in the USA. The play was watched by hundreds of Jai-Alai fans across the country in HD on JAC (the Jai-Alai Channel) and lasted for 6-hours. Tournament announcer Stu Neiman and side-kick Andrew Blechman did a tremendous job announcing the tournament and should be commended for their professionalism and background knowledge of the participants provided to the JAC viewers. The brackets were shown numerous times throughout the tourney and the event was easy for fans to follow. Live tournament viewing at Magic City was not allowed to make the event safer for all in these trying times. The finals start at 10 am on Sunday and Jai-Alai fans won’t want to miss this with $20,000 in prize money on the line along with some exceptional short-court Jai-Alai match-ups!

Here are the scores for all the singles and doubles matches for the first day of short-court tournament action from Magic City Jai-Alai on December 5th. Alternating serving was used for the tournament.

I cannot guarantee that in doubles games the front court player is listed first in all cases (it should be accurate for Magic City and Dania players). Score for one of the matches may have been missed. These scores are provided by SayHiLi.com from Steve M’s documentation of the games on the JAC during the first day of the event.

2020 U.S. National Jai-Alai Championship Singles Games for Saturday, Dec 5, games to 6-single points:

Bradley beat Gallo 6-1

Arrieta beat Casio 6-4

Frank beat Rey 6-2

Angel beat James 6-5

Minte beat Matt 6-3

Goixerri beat Gitty Up 6-0

Anderluck moves on over Belota (conceded due to injury)

Tevin beat Super Jules 6-0

Spinner beat Bernhard II 6-1

Goitia beat Cachin47 6-1

Ari beat Gorka 6-4

Ant beat Larrea 6-5

Douglas beat Chris 6-0

Kubala beat Beach 6-1

Barracuda beat Chia 6-4

Ikeda beat T-Bone 6-0

Bueno beat DeCarlo 6-2

Jeden beat Monte 6-4

El Barba beat Jay 6-4

Petro beat Ben 6-4

Carballo beat Unterria 6-0

CRB beat Navarro 6-3

Singles Playback Rounds:

PB 1:  Casio 6, James 4, Rey 2

PB 2:  Matt 6, Gitty Up 3, Super Jules 1

PB 3:  Cachin47 beat Barnhard II 6-0

PB 4:  Chia beat Chris 6-4

PB 5:  DeCarlo beat T-Bone 6-5

PB 6:  Monte beat Jay 6-4

PB 7:  Ben 6, Unterria 1, Navarro 1

2020 U.S. National Jai-Alai Championship Doubles Games for Saturday, Dec 5, games to 6-single points:

Frank-Gallo beat Chris-Gitty Up 6-4

Angel-Ikeda beat Barracuda-King 6-1

Jeden-Tevin beat Beach-Matt 6-0

Johan-Gorka beat Chuch-Super Jules 6-2

CRB-Spinner beat DeCarlo-James 6-1

Jairo-Larrea beat Belota-Ant 6-1

Anderluck-Bradley beat Bernhard II-Navarro 6-0

Paul-Kubala beat Casio-Petro 6-4

Bueno-Douglas beat Monte-T-Bone 6-1

Chia-Ari beat El Barba-Tennessee 6-2

Doubles Playback Rounds (first team to 6-single points wins):

PB1:  Matt-Beach 6, Barracuda-King 5, Chris-Gitty Up 0

PB 2:  Ant-Belota 6, Chuch-Super Jules 4, Casio-Petra 4

PB 3:  Monte-T-Bone 6, El Barba-Tennessee  4, DeCarlo-James 4, Bernhard II-Navarro 1

The brackets for the singles and doubles tournaments of the U.S. National Jai-Alai Championship on Saturday and Sunday, December 5th and 6th, have been released and here are some photo snapshots of those direct from Magic City Jai-Alai:

Magic City’s Andrew Blechman stopped by for a few hours this afternoon for the practice sessions. Spinner and Jairo from Dania were on the court when Andrew arrived and Magic City’s CRB was on the court with them. CRB kept us well with them according to Andrew.

The 2nd Dania group of Goixerri, Minte, Arrieta and Goita were pretty impressive according to Andrew and once Goixerri adjusted his serve to accommodate the Magic City court he looked even better. The Dania crew adjusted well to the court very well and Andrew said he was really impressed with Goixerri. The team of Goixerri-Chasio had participated in a 15-point partido at Dania Thursday evening and beaten the huge 1/9 win favorite team of Erik-Ladutxe which had come down to a 14-14 tie at the end.

Most of the Magic City players practiced on Thursday for the national tourney.

The tournament starts at 10 am EST on Saturday morning and can be seen live on JAC (the Jai-Alai Channel on YouTube). The tourney concludes on Sunday with start time also 10 am that day.

This is an event you won’t want to miss!