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.