Asier-Douglas look poised to take the second and final doubles tournament of the 2020 season at Magic City Jai-Alai tomorrow with their 2-win lead with only 2-games left. Should Diaz-Carballo win both of the doubles games (5 & 7), the tournament will be tied and could go to the team with the highest % ITM, which would be Asier-Douglas, unless there is some other arrangement planned by Magic City COO Scott Savin for the tie-breaker. The winning team splits $10k and second place team splits $5k.

Douglas has won every doubles tournament since he has joined the Magic City roster last year and will also take down the Magic City Singles Championship for most singles wins for a cool $15k. Douglas also won the singles championship for the 2019 season.

Prizes will be awarded after the performance tomorrow, including the the “Most Improved Player” award. Magic City Jai-alai players Ben and Jeden are likely a few of the top contenders for this award.

Stu Neiman also hinted at announcing a few of the roster changes coming for the 2021 season at tomorrow’s closing day performance.

Jai-Alai gamblers will want to be sure to wager the Mighty Ocho and the Jai-5 as both jackpots will be forced-out tomorrow as this is the closing day of the 2020 season. The Jai-5 jackpot (a Pick 5 wager) is already close to $3,000 and with added betting interest, expect at least $4,500 at a minimum to be paid out to lucky ticket holders with the most correct winners. This wager is $1 and starts game 3.

The Mighty Ocho is a $1 Pick 8 wager and has to be wagered before the start of Game 1. There is a guaranteed $3,000 paid out to the ticket holder(s) with the most correct winners in the 8-game sequence. Be sure to prepare early for this wager and pay close attention for any scratches or late changes that could affect your handicapping, so be sure to tune in early at 11:50 for the announcements or check this website earlier for more info. The performance starts game 1 at noon tomorrow. You won’t want to miss this action-packed short-court Jai-Alai tomorrow!

Magic City Jai-Alai player Jeden took top honors and captured the Golden Cesta Award Week 29 at Magic City Jai-Alai in Miami, Florida with 9-singles wins. This honorary award is given to the player with the most singles wins for the week. This was Jeden’s first Golden Cesta Award for the 2020 season. His last Golden Cesta Award was in Week 1 of the 2019 season.

Jeden is Magic City’s only Super Bowl ring holder as he was on the Indianapolis Colts team in 2005 which beat the Chicago Bears at Super Bowl XLI in early 2006. The Magic City Jai-Alai roster is mostly made up of former college and professional athletes from other sports who were trained on how to play Jai-Alai.

Congratulations Jeden and many more Golden Cestas!

El Barba joined the prestigious 100-win club at Magic City Jai-Alai in Miami, Florida today when he won game 3 at the Friday 4-pm performance. El Barba is the 4th player to reach this impressive 100-win mark for the 2020 season at Magic City Jai-Alai which started on May 1 of this year. Magic City players Douglas, RonRon and Bueno are the first 3-players, in order, to achieve the 100-win mark.

Congratulations El Barba on this achievement!

Bueno became the 3rd Magic City Jai-Alai player in the 2020 season to clear the 100-win milestone for singles game wins. Not only did Bueno join the distinguished club of 100-win players, led by Douglas and RonRon, but he also captured the Golden Cesta Award for Week 28 with 8-singles wins. Second best honors went to Ben and Douglas with 5-wins each for the week. El Barba is only 2-wins away from achieving the 100 singles wins with 98. Bueno currently sits at 106 singles wins. The 8-win lead Bueno currently holds over El Barba has made it more challenging for El Barba’s to catch-up in the quest for 3rd place $5,000 prize money for the Magic City Singles Championship with only 10-performances remaining in the 2020 season.

The Asier-Douglas doubles team leads the 2nd doubles tournament of the 2020 season with 14-wins while Diaz-Carballo have 11-wins and Juice-RonRon have 9-wins. These are the only realistic doubles teams in contention for the top two team prizes of $10k and $5k for first and second with only 20-doubles games left in the tourney. Fans of Magic City Short-Court Jai-Alai should expect to see some exceptional Jai-Alai play in this tournament in these final two weeks.

The 2020 season concludes on Sunday, November 29th, during which will be the 30th week of exciting Jai-Alai action at Magic City Jai-Alai in Miami, Florida. The season started on May 1 and has successfully survived the covid pandemic challenges continually being hurled its way. No doubt, Magic City Jai-Alai has been the most successful professional sport in operation in the USA during 2020.

Don’t forget that closing day will also feature the mandatory payouts of the Mighty Ocho and the Jai-5 Jackpot Wagers. Be sure to get your Free Magic City Fantasy Jai-Alai League picks entered for Week 29 before the start of game 1 at noon on Thursday, November 19th to get part or all of the $150 weekly cash prize. Also, the Jai-5 Jackpot currently has $769 in the carryover, however, there is still that $2,000 guarantee if you are the only winner with 5 of 5 correct winners on this $1 wager for games 3-8.

Although November 29th marks the end of the Jai-Alai meet in 2020, Magic City Jai-Alai has an additional 10-weeks of Jai-Alai in 2021 and will begin earlier than ever with an early February start next year.

Thursday noon kicks off Week 28 of Magic City Jai-Alai for 2020. Get your picks in for the Magic City Fantasy Jai-Alai League and don’t forget to set your reminders to watch the exciting action-packed short-court Jai-Alai games in HD on the Jai-Alai Channel!

Only 16-performances are left and Douglas looks to have cinched the Singles Championship Title for 2020 and $15,000 first place prize. RonRon will collect 2nd with a bonus of $10,000. Third place is a close contest between Bueno and El Barba dueling down to the wire.

The 3rd place prize of $5,000 could go to either player and should be interesting. Bueno has played 180-more games than El Barba this meet. El Barba’s win percentage is 15.3 while Bueno’s is 12.1, however, stats need to be put in perspective. Each of the players has played in early, middle and late games. El Barba has played more early games (345 early games played) and has an early game win percentage of 22.3 while Bueno (148 early games played) holds the edge with 25.7 percent of early games won. As for the middle game action (currently game 4), Bueno also holds the advantage with 16.9 vs 7.2 for El Barba, however, El Barba has fared slightly better in the late game competitive action where the top players dominate. El Barba has 4.3% wins in his 47-games compared to Bueno’s 2.7% wins in 364-games. Both players have had those frustrating missed game point opportunities recently and the 3rd place prize will likely come down to the player who can seal the deal more consistently on those game point opportunities. Either way, this should be an interesting duel to the finish for a $5k bonus and as usual, Magic City Short-Court Jai-Alai entertainment will not disappoint!

The team of Asier-Douglas looks well on their way to winning the second and final doubles tournament of the season where the winning team splits the first place prize of $10,000 and second place team splits $5,000. There are 32-doubles games left in the tournament and Asier-Douglas with 12-wins hold a 5-win lead over second place team of Juice-RonRon with 7-wins. This should be quite a contest as there are 5-other teams withing 3-wins of Juice-RonRon.

Sunday should be some larger betting pools at Magic City Jai-Alai with Dania Jai-Alai having a dark day with no performance that day. If you are busy with football plans, don’t forget that Magic City Jai-Alai starts before the games at 12 noon EST and you can catch a few Jai-Alai games before the football action and advance wager your Jai-Alai selections.

The Magic City Jai-Alai 2020 season concludes on Sunday, November 29th, and there will be a Force-Out of the Jai-5 and the Mighty Ocho. The Magic City 2021 season picks up an additional 10-weeks of Jai-Alai from February through the middle of April. This is great news for Magic City Short-Court Jai-Alai fans!

Fantasy League Notes: CRB plays Thursday both performances, but will be scratched from entries on Friday and won’t appear in the entries for Saturday/Sunday.

The Mighty Ocho was Forced-Out at Saturday’s 4-pm performance yesterday and one lucky winner collected $4,873.60 by correctly selecting 5 of the 8 winners. The wager started out tough for handicappers with Cool Fitness scoring back-to-back wins in games 2 and 3, plus top contenders Douglas and RonRon won just one game between them in their singles and doubles games.

This was a record payoff for the Mighty Ocho which debuted at the start of the 2020 Magic City Jai-Alai season. The previous high payoff was $2,833 to two lucky ticket holders on the June 28th Force-Out which paid on 6 of 8 correct winners. There was a total of $3,455 wagered by bettors into the Mighty Ocho Force-Out on Saturday’s performance.

The Jai-5 was also Forced-Out, with a guaranteed $2,000 to be paid out, even though the Jai-5 had been hit for $2,000 the previous performance. Saturday’s Jai-5 paid $166.60 on 3/5 winners to (12) lucky ticket holders. A total of $1,917 was wagered into the Jai-5.

These wagers resume on Sunday’s noon performance and will be Forced-Out again on the last day of the 2020 season on November 29th.

The Jai-5 and the Mighty Ocho Jackpots are being Forced-Out today at Magic City Jai-Alai. A Force-Out is when a Jackpot must be paid out in entirety to winning ticket holders with the most correct winners. The force-out is also commonly referred to as a “Mandatory Payout.”

The Jai-5 was hit at Friday’s Mat-2 4-pm performance yesterday, however, Magic City is guaranteeing $2,000 minimum to the Jai-5 ticket holders with the most winners correct, so be sure to get a piece of this action. The Jai-5 is a $1 Pick 5 wager and starts in Game 3 and ends with doubles Game 7.

The Mighty Ocho has been steadily growing since the last Force-Out and is currently at $2,109.60 with a guaranteed minimum of $3,000 to be paid out to winning ticket holders with the most correct winners. Jai-Alai handicapping at Magic City Jai-Alai has been easier for many bettors of Magic City Jai-Alai than at traditional long-court Jai-Alai. Bettors at Magic City Jai-Alai have had 7 of 8 winners three different times so far during the 2020 season on the $1 Mighty Ocho which is a Pick 8 Jackpot wager. One bettor was as close as game point on the wager, losing the game point in the first leg of the wager. The larger jackpot on the Mighty Ocho should generate some decent wagering action and SayHiLi’s resident expert, Steve M, predicts a jackpot payback in the $4,000 to $5,000 range.

Be sure to get your wagers in EARLY as the Mighty Ocho starts in Game 1 at this 4-pm performance today! As usual, check with SayHiLi to get those important early scratches so you can more effectively structure your Mighty Ocho ticket(s). The Saturday entries have been adjusted for 3-players who were scratched from Friday’s noon performance. Players CRB and Carballo who scratched in Friday’s second performance are in Saturday’s entries, so those are the current uncertainties. Anderluck may possibly be filling in as a sub for Carballo if needed. It’s anticipated if CRB scratches it would be for singles only. Magic City Jai-Alai differs from other Jai-Alai facilities as players at this short-court Jai-Alai are sometimes still allowed to play in doubles games depending on the nature and severity of the injury.

Today kicks off Week 27 of the 2020 season of Magic City Jai-Alai short-court action! There are two performances; one at noon and another exciting 9-games at 4pm EST. The exciting doubles tournament continues and those games are featured in games 5 and 7.

Be sure to get your FREE Magic City Jai-Alai Fantasy League selections entered for this week before 12-noon for your shot at the estimated $150.00 cash prize for first place.

The Jai-5 jackpot going into today’s noon performance is $816.80 and the Mighty Ocho jackpot is at $2,067.20. Both of these jackpots will be forced-out at the 4-pm performance this week on Saturday, November 7th.

Be sure to catch the action-packed short-court Jai-alai for FREE in HD on the Jai-Alai Channel on YouTube.

The Golden Cesta Award at Magic City Jai-Alai in Miami, Florida promises to be another “nail biter” for Week 25 with El Barba at 7-wins and Douglas right behind with 6-wins in singles games for the week. Bueno is the sole player in 3rd place with 4-wins. The Golden Cesta Award is an honorary award to the player with the most singles wins for the week.

El Barba is featured in 4-singles games, games 1-4, with post numbers 4-8-1-7, respectively, so his best shots are in game 2 post 8 (the SayHiLi best bet for the day) and in game 3 from the lucrative 1-post.

Douglas is featured in 3-singles games, games 6-8-9, with post numbers 7-2-7, respectively, so it will be a challenge to beat El Barba since he has the toughest post in Jai-Alai, the 7-post, in two of his three singles games.

Be sure to watch the exciting action-packed short-court Jai-Alai at Noon on Sunday for FREE on the Jai-Alai Channel to see who wins the Golden Cesta Award for Week 25! Should El Barba succeed this week, it will be 2-weeks in a row for him and two second place finishes the 2-weeks prior to that.

El Barba is also currently 4th in the 2020 Singles Championship and closing in on 3rd place prize money of $5,000. First place is Douglas with 153-wins, second is RonRon with 133-wins, and Bueno is 3rd place with 91-wins. El Barba and Ben are closing in on 3rd place with 83 and 82 wins, respectively. Jeden and Tennessee are the next closest with 69-wins and will really need to rally hard to get a piece of the pie. First place prize for the most singles wins is $15,000 and second place is $10,000. Kudos to Magic City Jai-Alai for offering some really attractive bonus money for the Singles Championship!

Be sure to check out the status of the Magic City Jai-Alai tournaments on this website, including the Golden Cesta Award history for the last two years. Look under “Wagering Info.”

Stu Neiman made mention during announcing of Magic City Jai-alai during Week 23 that there may be another Langhans joining the Magic City Jai-alai roster in the future. Matthew Langhans (the Magic City Wonderboy, player name Douglas) has a younger brother, Ben, who has a love for the sport of Jai-alai and has been practicing in North Carolina. It’s a good assumption that Matt’s younger brother has been getting some of that great coaching from their father, a former professional Jai-alai player who turned pro at age 17 in Barcelona, Spain and played at Daytona, Melbourne, Milford and Bridgeport. Stay tuned for another blog post with details on Matt’s father’s Jai-alai career. SayHiLi.com has confirmed that Jeff “Laca” Conway, the well-known avid amateur player, fan, Jai-alai museum owner and Jai-alai enthusiast & promoter of Jai-alai, has been shipping Jai-alai balls to North Carolina. These are the balls that Jeff has for sale on his new Jai-alai website, pelotapress.com.

Magic City short-court Jai-alai fans certainly would love to see the young Langhans on the court at Magic City Jai-alai and wish him the best in his quest to follow in the footsteps of the great family Jai-alai tradition and success on the Jai-alai court!

Stay tuned to SayHiLi.com for further developments and maybe even an exclusive story on this! If you haven’t yet visited pelotapress.com, then you are missing out on some great Jai-alai articles.

Magic City Jai-Alai’s Scott Savin announced three major events during Friday’s noon Jai-Alai performance this week:

The US National Jai-Alai Championship is now scheduled for Saturday & Sunday, December 5-6, shortly after the end of the Magic City Jai-Alai season which ends on Sunday, November 29th. There are currently 35-40 confirmed entrants with more coming in. Live fan viewing, if accommodated, is likely to be limited to family and/or friends of contestants but details are still being sorted out. This is great news for Jai-Alai fans as the tournament has been postponed several times due to the worldwide covid-19 pandemic. Die-hard Jai-Alai fans are surely hoping and expecting to see the father/son team of Benny & Chris Bueno who were previously entered in this tourney.

Also, Scott Savin mentioned the addition of 10-more weeks of Magic City Jai-Alai in 2021 from February through the first 2-weeks in April. This is great news for Magic City Jai-Alai fans wanting some more short-court action in 2021!

The third big announcement is the start of the final 2020 Doubles Tournament at Magic City Jai-Alai which starts on Thursday, October 15 at the noon performance. Teams were announced and there will be two doubles games each performance, games 5 & 7, not the usual three that we are used to seeing. The first place team splits $10,000 while the second place team splits an impressive $5,000. The 9-teams for the tourney are: Vuelo-Anderluck, Asier-Douglas, CRB-Ben, Jeden-Bradley, Cool Fitness-Ikeda, El Barba-Kubala, Juice-RonRon, Bueno-Tennessee, Diaz-Carballo. This tourney runs through the end of the 2020 season and should definitely provide some great competitive action for fans to follow.

Week 22 was an incredible week of short-court Jai-Alai action at Magic City Jai-Alai in Miami, Florida. Magic City’s Wonder Boy, Douglas, won the last game of the week on Sunday afternoon to gain a tie with El Barba for 10-wins for the week and edged out El Barba for the honorary Golden Cesta Award by having a higher % ITM. Game 7 on Sunday afternoon was an unbelievable display of talent for the team of Cool Fitness-Ikeda who ran a perfect game from post 6. If you haven’t seen this game, it’s a must watch game as Ikeda made numerous amazing catches pinned up against the back wall.

Week 23 promises to be another great week of the exciting short-court version offered by Magic City Jai-Alai! Early word is that Anderluck and Vuelo will be playing and Bradley is out with his nagging knee issues and could miss the entire week, but that remains to be seen. Bradley is out of the entries/program for Thursday and Friday.

The Jai-5 Jackpot is back to the $2,000 guarantee after getting hit by one ticket holder for $3,219.20 on Sunday’s matinee. The Mighty Ocho, a $1 Jackpot Pick 8 wager that works just like the Jai-5, has been inching higher and cleared the $1,000 threshold last week and is now at $1,085.60 heading into today’s noon performance, however it has a $3,000 guarantee to a single winning ticket holder. Look for action to pick-up on this wager that starts game 1.

The next doubles tournament, which will be the final doubles tournament of the 2020 season, will be starting soon so get ready for some more of the competitive doubles games where the winning team splits $10,000 and the second place team splits $5,000.

Don’t forget to get your selections in before the noon deadline for the FREE weekly Magic City Jai-Alai Fantasy League where weekly prizes have been going for $150 to a single winner (split among multiple winners) along with Magic City themed prizes.

Going into the final Sunday noon performance at Magic City Jai-Alai for Week 22 of action-packed short-court Jai-Alai will be an interesting battle to watch. Currently, Douglas leads the Golden Cesta Award competition for the most singles wins for the week with 8-wins while early & mid game contender El Barba is just one win behind with 7-wins for the week.

Be sure to tune in to the Jai-Alai Channel today to watch exciting Jai-Alai games in HD starting in game 1 where El Barba makes his first appearance. El Barba plays in singles games 1 through 4 and could possibly pick up an additional spot in games 5 and/or 6 perhaps if there are multiple scratches in those games as listed players Anderluck and Bradley are nursing some recent injuries and their return for today’s performance is questionable. Douglas is listed to compete in singles games 6, 8 and 9 and could also sub in game 5 if there are multiple scratches.

Today also wraps up the FREE weekly fantasy Jai-Alai league contest with $150 cash and Magic City themed prizes on the line for the winner(s). The Jai-5 is growing and the Jackpot carryover is currently at $1,665.60 and should easily pay $2,500 or more to a single winner of the $1 wager for games 3-7 where one must correctly pick the winners of those 5-games. Remember, if there are multiple winning tickets with all five correct winners, the Jackpot wager pays a consolation payout and the Jackpot continues to grow until it’s won by a single winning ticket holder.

Turn it on and Tune-in at Noon Today as Magic City Jai-Alai serves EXCITEMENT with nine games of short-court Jai-Alai!

Thursday, October 1st is the start of Week 22 and the sixth month of offering great short-court Jai-Alai action during a national pandemic. What an accomplishment for Magic to have offered this wonderful entertainment option in times like this!

Magic City Jai-Alai offers 9-games of Jai-Alai action at each of tomorrow’s performances starting at noon EST and 4-pm EST. The highly popular singles games are featured for 8-games of each performance.

The Jai-5 Jackpot wager was hit on Sunday’s performance but the $2,000 Jackpot guarantee is still in play for bettors wanting to take a shot at a BIG payoff. Plus the more challenging Mighty Ocho Jackpot wager offers a $3,000 guarantee to a single winner with 8 of 8 winners for games 1-8.

The Douglas vs RonRon singles game match-ups with the top talent of Magic City short-court Jai-Alai action can be seen in games 6, 8 and 9. Don’t forget to get selections in for the FREE weekly Magic City Fantasy Jai-Alai League before the noon EST post time for game 1!

The level of play has been phenomenal at Magic City Jai-Alai in Miami, Florida for Week 21 heading into Saturday’s 4-pm performance! Magic City phenom Douglas has a nearly perfect %ITM for singles games for the week with 8-wins in 12-games (record is: 12-8-1-2 for 91.7% ITM). Three other players, Ben, Bueno and Jeden all have 5-singles wins each and are still in contention for the Golden Cesta Award for the weekly winner of the most singles games. Top contender RonRon, has been win-less so far in his 12-singles appearances, but does have 4-places. RonRon was the Week 20 Golden Cesta Award winner with 12-wins. Kubala has been making a comeback and has shown some exceptional play this week with a record of 16-2-2-3 so far going into Saturday’s performance.

The 2020 Magic City Singles Championship which has a bonus prize of $15k to the winner of the most singles games currently stands at 127-wins for Douglas, 107-wins for RonRon, 78-wins for Bueno and 71-wins for Ben. Second and third place in this championship pays $10k and $5k and the competition has been intense between Douglas and RonRon for the top prize with Bueno and Ben battling it out for third.

Game 7 doubles games has been dominated by the team Anderluck-Kubala by winning 3 of their 4-games, however, with Ikeda being off for the weekend, there has been some re-arranging of teams. Fred is paired with Anderluck and CRB is paired with Kubala. The team of Asier-Douglas has a perfect record for %ITM (4-1-0-3) and is certainly one to watch with the high level of play seen from Douglas this week.

CRB and Cool Fitness are slated to play singles games this weekend, plus they are listed as subs for early games too. Cool Fitness has been out since June 28th when he suffered a concussion and subsequent ankle issue.

The Jai-5 jackpot has now gone 5-consecutive performances in a row without a single jackpot winner so watch for the jackpot to exceed the $4,000 threshold for Saturday’s 4-pm performance if won by a single ticket holder. Currently, there is a Jai-5 jackpot carryover of $2,457.20 going into Saturday’s performance. The season record for most consecutive performances without a jackpot winner is 10 times, which has occurred twice in 2020.

Be sure to tune in to the action-packed Magic City Jai-Alai excitement at 4-pm on the Jai-Alai Channel on YouTube. If you haven’t seen short-court Jai-Alai, you’ve been missing out on some great entertainment!

Game 3 at the September 12th 4-pm performance was a record for the times in United States 2020 Sports History. This game marked the 1000th Jai-Alai game played at Magic City Jai-Alai in Miami Florida for 2020. This is a tremendous accomplishment in sports history as Magic City Jai-Alai games started on May 1st of 2020 during the covid-19 pandemic and these amazing action-packed Jai-Alai games have been entertaining fans for the past 5-months. The current 2020 Jai-Alai season at Magic City Jai-Alai runs through the end of November. There are 9-games a performance for six performances a week from Thursday through Sunday.

Magic City Jai-Alai has been so successful in offering this entertainment on the World’s Fastest and Most Sensational Sport during the covid-19 pandemic because they have closed the Jai-Alai fronton to fans and have also taken extremely important precautions to protect players and support staff. Fans around the country have been able to view all the games for FREE on The Jai-Alai Channel on YouTube. There is also a FREE weekly Fantasy Jai-Alai league where fans can compete for at least $150 in cash prizes along with Magic City themed merchandise. Fans wanting to wager on this amazing Jai-Alai action can go to watchandwager.com and open an on-line account, restrictions may apply.

Congratulations Magic City Jai-Alai for providing this great entertainment option in these unusual times!

Go to MagicCityCasino.com for more information on Magic City Jai-Alai.

Week 18 was incredible at Magic City in many ways; here are some but certainly not all we’re sure:

Ben won his first Golden Cesta Award for the most singles games wins in the week! Ben had 13 wins and seasoned pro RonRon was an extremely close 2nd place with 12 wins. Congratulations to Ben for this accomplishment!

Top % ITM for singles games breakdown was a follows for early games (1-4) and for late games (5,6,8,9):

Early games top percent went to Ben with 67.9% ITM (28-13-1-5) and second place to Bueno with 59.1% (22-4-4-5). Diaz was 3rd with 46.4% and Anderluck a close 4th with 44.4%. This was a great comeback for Diaz who has been out-of-action for a while and was his 2nd week back.

Late games top percent went to Douglas with 75.0% ITM (28-8-9-4) and second place to RonRon with 60.7% (28-12-4-1). Anderluck was 3rd with 44.0% and Ikeda 4th with 39.3%.

There were no scratches of any players during Week 18, this was great news for the bettors! One lucky bettor scored the entire trifecta pool on a 50-cent ticket on the 5-4-3 trifecta combination on the Friday Mat-1 performance for $932.60 (perhaps longtime Jai-Alai fan and bettor PelotaPete as it’s well known that 543 is one of his favorite numbers).

The popular Jai-5 was hit 4-times in the 7-performances this week. The highest payoff was $2,468.40 at the Saturday 4-pm performance and the other 3-scores were all in the final 3-performances of the week. Lots of favorites were winning in the Jai-5 games, games 3-7, so it was surprising the jackpot was paid-out to a single winner so many times. There was an average of $1,283 wagered per performance on the Jai-5 wager.

A record trifecta pool for the 2020 season occurred for game 9 of the Sunday matinee. There was a total of $2,032 wagered on that game. This was the first time the Trifecta pool exceeded the $2,000 threshold this year. The previous season high Trifecta pool was $1,986. Congratulations Magic City Jai-Alai as this is a good indicator of the rising popularity of Magic City Short-Court Jai-Alai.

Magic City Fantasy Jai-Alai League Week 18 winner was sheffwed, one of the longtime level-headed posters on the Jai-Alai blog site, Tiger’s Chalk Talk. Kudos to sheffwed for taking down the entire $150 prize in the FREE Fantasy Jai-Alai contest with his winning selections!

Oh, and last but certainly not least, the amazing Douglas reached his 100th singles win of the season early in the week!

Week 19 will be another exciting week of action-packed Jai-Alai at Magic City Casino & Jai-Alai and kicks off with the first performance at noon EST (called Mat-1) on Thursday, September 10th with another performance at 4-pm (Mat-2 or also referred to as “Twilight” by some). Don’t forget the Mighty Ocho is now a $3,000 guarantee and certainly not out-of-reach with Magic City Jai-Alai becoming known as a “Jai-Alai Handicapper’s Heaven.” Also there is a new $1 Late Pick 3 for games 7-9.

Thanks to Magic City Jai-Alai players and support staff for putting on a great display of Jai-Alai entertainment! Jai-Alai, just say “Hi-Li” and you’ve pronounced the name of the world’s fastest and most sensational sport!

co-sponsored blog post by Susie and Steve M

Sunday is the end of the Edgewater Meet at Magic City Jai-Alai and the Jai-5 and the Mighty Ocho will be forced out to the bettors with the most correct winners for both of these jackpot wagers. Mandatory Payouts are the best time to wager on these exotic wagers!

Make sure you have your Mighty Ocho wagers in before noon on Sunday as it starts on Game 1. The Jai-5 starts on Game 3.

The last time the Mighty Ocho was a mandatory payout, there were two winning tickets holders with 6 of 8 winners that paid $2,533 each! The Jai-5 also paid-out a nice price of $808.70 to ticket holders with 4 of 5 winners.

When the Mighty Ocho resumes on September 3, the jackpot guarantee will increase from $2,000 to $3,000. Also another Pick 3 wager is being added for games 7 through 9.

Magic City 2019 Singles Championship winner, Douglas, returned to play Week 13 from medical leave and stunned fans with an amazing 14 wins in 28 games, clinching the Golden Cesta Award, his first one for the 2020 season at Magic City Jai-alai. The Golden Cesta Award is an honorary award for the player with the most singles game wins for the week.

Douglas was leading the quest for the 2020 Singles Championship when he fell victim to covid-19 and had to quarantine for several weeks. During that time, RonRon took over the lead for the coveted Singles Championship title where the player with the most singles game wins for the season is awarded a bonus of $15,000. Douglas came roaring back and closed Week 13 on Sunday, August 2, by winning all four of his singles games, and they were all from the difficult post numbers 5, 6 and 7. The stunning 14-wins for the week brought Douglas closer to tough competitor RonRon. RonRon still leads the Singles Championship with 54-wins while Douglas has 48-wins, only 6-wins behind. Bueno, son of famous Jai-alai player Benny Bueno, is currently 3rd in the Singles Championship with 41-wins. The Singles Championship pays $10,000 to the player with the 2nd most wins and $5,000 for 3rd most wins at the end of the season.

Mandatory payouts of the Jai-5 and Mighty Ocho resulted in some hefty payoffs for winning ticket holders on those wagers today.

Nobody correctly selected all 5-winners on the Jai-5 so 4 of 5 winners paid a really nice payoff of $808.70 for each of the 8-winning tickets. There was $4,834 wagered into the Jai-5 today which had a jackpot carryover of $2,603 after the Saturday 4-pm performance. Posts 1, 2, 5 and 7 were all live tickets going into the final leg which was won by the longshot team of CRB-Vuelo from post 4. Post 1 team of Asier-Kubala had a single winning ticket that would have paid $6,470 to a ticket holder had they won the game. Post 1 won a show playoff to finish 3rd in Game 7. Posts 2, 5 and 7 were all covered for 5 of 5 with 2-winners on each of those posts and will-pays reflected a $1 price of $3,235.

Likewise, there were no winners with all 8-winners on the Mighty Ocho wager, the new $1 Pick 8 wager that works exactly like the popular Jai-5. There were 2-winning tickets that had 6 of the 8 winners and each ticket paid a “Mighty” amount indeed of $2,533. There was a surprising $4,293 wagered into this carryover jackpot of $1,632 going into today’s mandatory payout of the Mighty Ocho. Going into the final game 8 leg today Kubala in post 3 was the only post covered for a 6 of 8 payoff. All other posts were paying on 5 of 8 winners had they won with prices for 5 correct winners ranging from $1 payoffs of the lowest one for $163.40 with Carballo in post 1 up to $2,533 for some others. Three of the posts, the 4, 5 and 8 were all paying $2,533 each for 5 of 8 winners. Kubala came through and won game 8 for the two lucky ticket holders. Prior to today’s mandatory payout there have been four occurrences where someone has had 6 of the 8 winners correctly picked on Magic City’s Mighty Ocho. The Mighty Ocho lives up to it’s name as it’s mighty hard to hit 8 of 8 winners.

Magic City has increased the guarantee for the Mighty Ocho starting with the Wednesday July 1 noon performance to $2,000. The previous guarantee was $1,000.

The Jai-5 and Mighty Ocho jackpots are both being paid-out today to the ticket holder(s) with the most correct winners on their ticket. This is referred to as a “mandatory payout” in the pari-mutuel industry. The current carryover jackpots plus the added 80% of Sunday’s wagering pools on these bets are paid-out entirely.

According to SayHiLi.com’s Jai-alai industry expert, Steve M, watch for at least $5,500 total to be paid back on the Jai-5 and at least $3,500 total to be paid back on the Mighty Ocho. This means a total of $9,000 to be paid back to lucky ticket holders according to Steve’s projections. Going into Sunday’s Jai-alai performance at Magic City Jai-alai, the Jai-5 carryover jackpot is $2,603 and the Mighty Ocho is $1,632, so expect to see some big fan wagering action! Be sure to get your Mighty Ocho wagers in EARLY as this bet starts Game 1. The minimum bet costs are $1 each for both of these jackpot wagers.

These jackpots wagers are not the only big payouts today at Magic City. Today marks the conclusion of the first of three doubles tournament for 2020 at Magic City Jai-alai. The team of Limonte-Douglas have already clinched first-place victory and the $10,000 team prize, however the 2nd place team prize of $5,000 is still up for grabs.

The teams of Juice-Carballo and Bueno-Tennessee are both tied at 20-wins each for second place. Tennessee injured himself at Friday’s second performance in game 2 so he has been sidelined and recovering from a rib injury, thus Bueno has been teamed-up with a substitute partner. Tournament rules do not count wins when there is a substitute player on the team, so Bueno-Tennessee can’t add to their win record. Juice-Carballo have three opportunities to win 2nd place outright today and seize the $5,000 second place team prize. These opportunities are in doubles games 3, 5 and 7. Game 3 they have a decent post number, the 3-post, so they will likely have opportunities in the second round too, and perhaps a third round even. Game 5 is also another good opportunity from the 7-post. Typically the 7-post is the least desirable post number in Jai-alai (statistically the lowest win % if all teams are equal), however the doubles games were adjusted to 7-post games when they resumed yesterday as 16-players weren’t available to play the typical 8-post doubles games. The player shortage was due to player illnesses and precautions taken by Magic City management. This adjustment to a 7-post game makes the 7-post the equivalent of the 8-post in a typical Spectacular 7-point game, where a perfect game can be accomplished by winning four match-ups in a row. The final tournament game chance for clinching second place comes in Game 7 where Juice-Carballo are playing from the 5-post. Should they have not yet reached their 21st win for the tourney in game 3 or 5, this game will be a significant challenge as Bueno and his substitute player, Legend or Bradley, are playing in the lucrative 2-post and Limonte-RonRon are playing from the 7-post. RonRon, a top contender at Magic City Jai-alai, has been playing exceptionally well this week while Bueno will be pulling all the tricks out of his bag to spoil a second place doubles victory for Juice-Carballo.

Should Juice-Carballo not succeed today in their quest to win at least one of the three doubles games, the tournament will end in a tie today and the second place prize money winners will be determined in the future in a winner-take-all partido-style Jai-alai game where the two teams will face-off after Tennessee has fully recovered from his rib injury. Most likely, a face-off like this will be a game to 7-points with all points being single points.

Also, the Magic City Fantasy Jai-alai winner for this week, Week 9, will receive a Magic City themed prize autographed by the winning tournament team of Limonte-Douglas. Get your friends and family to join the Magic City Fantasy Jai-alai league as there will be cash prizes awarded once there are 200 entries!

Don’t forget about the expanded Magic City Jai-alai schedule starting in Week 10 with the addition of Wednesday noon performances starting July 1 and Saturday 8-pm performances starting on July 4. Thanks Magic City for specializing in excitement!

The largest Jai-5 jackpot of the 2020 Jai-alai season, a single winning ticket worth $6,761.60, was won by a very lucky Jai-lai bettor who is still counting their lucky stars today and bowing down to the Jai-alai gods! There was $2,452 wagered on the Jai-5 by bettors chasing the $4,800 Jai-5 jackpot carryover from Sunday for the first performance of Week 8 at the Thursday noon performance. Juice, who nearly missed arriving in time for the first game of the performance was the first stroke of luck for the lucky Jai-5 winner as he was running late due to tire problems, however, that didn’t seem to affect him as he won game 1 singles and went on to win the first 2-doubles games of the Jai-5 sequence with his doubles partner Carballo, who has shown solid improvement in recent weeks.

Cool Fitness won singles game #4 from post number 1 in the second leg of the Jai-5 sequence and was not the public favorite with stronger contenders Legend, El Barba and Diaz also drawing good post numbers 2, 3 and 8, however Cool Fitness benefited from the low post draw by getting up for a third time in game 4 with his second game point opportunity after having lost game point in his first chance up after points had doubled.

Hot player Ikeda, currently 2nd right behind the Amazing Douglas in the quest for the Singles Championship, won the leg 4 singles game #6 in post number 3 and that was no surprise for anyone in-the-know on Magic City Jai-alai. He could have easily been a singleton on the winning pick 5 wager. Other strong players in game #6 were Carballo in post number 4 and RonRon in post number 8, who lost game point for a perfect game. The trifecta for game 6 was a handicap special 3-8-4 which paid $54.90 for the $1 trifecta price, a low price but yet an overlay for this game.

When Jai-5 will-pays were shown for the final leg of the sequence, game 7, there were 3-teams live for 5 of 5 with a single winning ticket for $6,761.60; post numbers 1, 2 and 6, the teams of Diaz-Anderluck, Asier-Kubala and Bueno-Tennessee. Surprisingly, the top doubles team of Limonte-Douglas in post number 5 was not covered, nor had the team of Juice-Carballo in the lucrative post number 8, already successfully used in 2-other earlier doubles games by the lucky bettor, been used on their ticket in the final leg.

The Jai-alai gods were shining on this lucky bettor in more ways than one, but it does take luck along with some skill to win these exotic wagers and luck indeed came into play this day. Post #1 team Diaz-Anderluck ran 3-straight points to begin the game, then Limonte-Douglas ran 3-points and were stopped by the 8-post of Juice-Carballo, who were on their way to a perfect-game victory which would have crushed the dreams of the lucky Jai-5 bettor when Juice under-served on game point. Jai-5 jackpot fever came to an stunning conclusion for fans when post number 1 had game point and the Jai-alai gods grinned a final time and handed victory to the lucky bettor when Pauly’s “the pad is bad” came into play as Bueno from the front-court threw a return shot low into the front pad, sealing the victory for Diaz-Anderluck in post 1 and lining the pockets of the lucky Jai-5 bettor with the single winning ticket of $6,761.60, the largest Jai-5 payoff of the 2020 season.

The winning Jai-5 sequence was 4-1-1-3-1 which are all decent post numbers. The “grape vines” are hinting that this lucky Jai-5 winner is a long-time member of Tiger’s Chalk Talk forum, a “blog” mostly consisting of fans very strongly opinionated on favoring the older and more traditional style of U.S. Jai-alai courts (longer courts) with intense negativity on the shorter-court American Jai-alai programs such as Magic City Jai-alai. The longer court Jai-alai frontons have been fading away from the American landscape and Dania Jai-alai is the last fronton of this type still in existence where wagering is legally allowed (Note: Dania Jai-alai was closed due to covid-19 pandemic since March 15 with current plans to re-open September 16). Members of this mostly “traditional U.S. Jai-alai” forum, operated by Ralph Butts (aka Tiger), are commonly referred to as “Chalkies.”

The Jai-5 produced a single jackpot winner for the Thursday, 4pm performance for $2,000. The lucky Jai-5 winning ticket was a $1 combination with one selection in each leg according to “grapevine sources.” The winning post numbers were 6-8-2-2-5 for the 5-game sequence for games 3 through 7. Game 3 winner was the team of Limonte-Douglas, so that was no surprise as they appear to be the runaway winners of the first of three doubles tournaments for the 2020 Magic City season. Game 4 winner was Tennessee from post 8, another strong player for the early game players (early games are games 1 & 4). Game 5 winning team was Diaz-Anderluck from post 2. Game 6 was won by Kubala in post 2 and no surprise there as it’s a rare occurrence for Kubala to play in a mid-player game (those games are games 2 & 6). When Jai-5 will-pays were shown for the final leg, game 7, there was one doubles team live for the $2,000 jackpot guarantee, the team of Juice-Carballo in post 5. The 5-team won one point in round 1, then went on to win three-consecutive times in round 2 to clinch the doubles victory, which also resulted in a single Jai-5 winner.

Like Pauly would say after a Jai-5 was won “You know who you are.”

The hard-throwing Anderluck captured the Golden Cesta Award with 5-singles games wins for the week for Week 5 of the Magic City 2020 Jai-alai season. Tied for second place with 4-wins each were Bueno and Douglas. Anderluck came from behind going into today’s performance and won the award by winning two of his singles games on the Sunday matinee performance. Bueno was leading with 4-wins at the start of the day.

Congratulations Anderluck!