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