The exciting Magic City pelota games concluded another week on Tuesday, March 8.  Bueno captured the Golden Cesta Award for back-to-back weeks now by winning 3-singles games in his 8-appearances for week 4. The award goes to the player winning the most singles games for the week.  This is Bueno’s 6^th GC award since joining the roster at the start of the 2019 season.  He joins an elite group of four other players with 6-GC Awards in their Magic City careers; Anderluck, Ben, Carballo and El Barba.  Douglas leads with 34 awards and RonRon is second with 16 awards.  Currently, the pelota game players compete in 6-singles games each week if there are no scratches.  Note that “Pelota” is a distinction used by Magic City which started this year to distinguish between the Magic City Jai-Alai pari-mutuel games (pelota games) and the H2H games with sports wagering.

El Barba is back and plays in early game singles (ga 1,2).  He lost a game point for a win but did manage to place in one of his 6-appearances, but was struggling on his first day back from knee surgery plus was trying to break-in a new cesta.  RonRon was back and has been featured in doubles games only for starters.  The team of Vuelo-RonRon played in 5-games and had a respectable win and a place.  Their place came on RonRon’s first game back since being out since July 27^th of last year (back issues).  Cool Fitness was scratched for week 4 and is not listed in the week 5 entries due to his hamstring injury.

Bueno currently leads the Singles Championship with 8-wins with Douglas and Goixerri on his tail with 7-wins, fighting it out in the late feature singles where the two best late players have a combined 14-wins in 22 late singles feature games for 2022 (a combined 63.3% wins in games 6/8).  Ikeda-Bradley continue to lead the first 2022 Doubles Championship with 5-wins, a two win lead over the second place teams of Anderluck-Benny and Jeden-Goixerri with 3-wins each.

Pari-mutuel betting pools continue their rise in popularity for 2022.  Trifecta pools are averaging nearly $2100 per game for the week and exacta pools have grown significantly too.  The average exacta pool for week 3 was $430 with a record high of $610 for Tuesday’s game 8 feature game.  The trifecta average $1 payoff was a respectable $217 for week 4 over the 24-games, down from the week 3 average but the average $1 trifecta price for 2022 remains a whopping $261.60!  Sunday’s late Pick 3 pool was a 2022 record at $883 where one lucky winner scored for $705.60 for the $1 ticket! Don’t forget that Magic City Jai-Alai offers $0.50 trifecta wagers and $1.00 Quiniela/Exacta/Win/Place/Show betting, plus the low takeout rate of 20% on their Pick-X wagers which includes the $1 Mighty Ocho (Pick 8 Jackpot game 1), $1 Jai-5 (Pick 5 Jackpot game 3), $1 Pick 3 (two of them, games 2 & 6) and the early $2 Daily Double game 1.  The late Daily Double was dropped from the Magic City wagering menu.

Here are the players leading the pelota game stats for 2022 thru week 4:

All Singles and Doubles Games Combined for 2022 – highest win %:

1. Goixerri 27.0%
2. Ikeda 25.7%
3. Bueno 23.8%
4. Bradley 23.4%
5. Carballo 23.1%

All Singles and Doubles Games Combined for 2022 – highest ITM %:

1. Ikeda 60.0%
2. Goixerri 56.8%
3. Carballo 56.4%
4. Inaki 50.0%
5. Bradley 44.7%

Singles only for 2022 – highest win %:

1. Douglas / Goixerri 31.8% (7 wins in 22 ga)
2. Bueno 28.6% (8 wins in 28 ga)
3. Carballo 27.3% (6 wins in 22 ga)
4. Ikeda 20.0% (4 wins in 30 ga)
5. Bradley 19.4% (6 wins in 31 ga)

Early Game Singles (ga 1,2) – highest win % (excludes mid-game sub players):

1. Tennessee 18.2%
2. CRB 13.6%

Early Game Singles (ga 1,2) – highest ITM % (excludes mid-game sub players):

1. Cool Fitness and CRB 50.0%
2. Jeden 36.4%

Mid Game Singles (ga 3,4) – highest win %:

1. Carballo 27.3%
2. Bueno / Ikeda 20.0%

Mid Game Singles (ga 3,4) – highest ITM%:

1. Ikeda 65.0%
2. Carballo 63.6%

Late Game Singles (ga 6,8) – highest win%:

1. Douglas / Goixerri 31.8%
2. 3-players tied  9.1%

Late Game Singles (ga 6,8) – highest ITM%:

1. Goixerri 63.6%
2. Douglas / Inaki 50.0%

Doubles Tourney #1 (ga 5,7) – highest win %:

1. Ikeda-Bradley 33.3%
2. Jeden-Goixerri / Vuelo-RonRon 20.0%
3. Anderluck-Benny 18.8%
4. Bueno-Julen 14.3%
5. Robin-Ben 13.3%

Doubles Tourney #1 (ga 5,7) – highest ITM%:

1. Ikeda-Bradley 53.3%
2. Inaki-Tennessee 50.0%
3. Jeden-Goixerri 46.7%
4. Carballo-Kubala / Diaz-Nicolas 43.8%
5. Juice-Manu / Vuelo-RonRon 40.0%

Doubles  Tourney #1 – Most Wins:

1. Ikeda-Bradley – 5
2. Anderluck-Benny / Jeden-Goixerri – 3
3. 3-other teams – 2

Singles Championship for Early 2022 Meet  – Most Wins:

1. Bueno – 8
2. Douglas / Goixerri – 7
3. Bradley / Carballo – 6
4. Ben – 5

Get ready for Week 5 of exciting pelota game action from Magic City Jai-Alai in Miami, Florida on Sunday, March 13^th at 1:30-pm EST.  Fans will be on edge to see if El Barba scores his first win in his second week back from knee surgery.  He’s definitely getting off the court quicker now!  Fans are allowed in the Jai-Alai fronton area only for Sunday’s games and also for the incredible Battle Court H2H games which follow at 5-pm EST.   Should you reside in south Florida or planning a trip there be sure to take advantage of the Sunday H2H promo “5 At 5” where you could win up to $1,000 for correctly selecting the 5-winners of the Battle Court H2H matches at 5-pm and it’s FREE to enter.  Don’t forget to enter the FREE online H2H contest for the 15-matches from Sunday thru Tuesday where the top cash prize is $100 if you are the only winner with the most correct selections.

The Jai-5 jackpot wasn’t won in week 4 and has grown to $3,468 for the Sunday, March 13 opener for week 5. Big jackpot fans won’t want to miss out on this!

Steve M (aka straymar)