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.