Magic City to Open 5th Season Valentines Day

Magic City is getting prepared for its 5th season, which starts this Valentine’s Day. Players have started practicing Tuesday.

The schedule is a little different this year, with performances Sunday, Monday and Tuesdays. Pari-mutual Wagering Performances will start at 1:30pm and H2H Sports Betting Performances will start at 5pm. The Saturday performances are gone. The H2H betting is only available in a handful of states as of now, with this clearly being the future of Magic City jai-alai. Fans will only be allowed in on Sundays for both performances with special admittance if you request it in advance.

It is obvious that the are targeting the sports betting end of it and have acknowledged they will lose money this year. The goal is to have as many states as possible on board that offer sports betting. The days and hours of play has irritated many longtime pari-mutual betters, but these hours and dates (Sunday, Monday and Tuesday) are clearly an attempt to get betters who would normally not have many options at this time. In fact, there is likely nothing being offered by the major 4 sports at those hours with football over with, Sunday MLB games over with, while hockey and basketball games are starting a couple hours later.

Folks, people will bet on anything. There are likely hundreds of thousands standing by wanting to make a bet on something, but in the United States your options currently (Sun-Tue 5pm) are nil. Your options are on events like ping-pong in China. Perhaps darts, cricket or rugby if you’re lucky. The money bet on events like this is amazing and therefore Magic City is giving it a try. Go to the Betrivers website and see for yourself. And yes, jai-alai is a sport they are promoting. Magic City has realized that pari-mutual wagering in jai-alai will never be profitable. Even if they are the only game in town – or shall we say in the United States.

I do have an idea, Magic City. Keep the pari-mutual wagering going if you can. How about running it after the 5pm H2H games and start at 7:30 or 8pm? You would reach a lot of more people at those hours.

As we have noted before, the court has been stained black and it looks good. Special thanks to Kyle Kubala for the photos.