Is Fixed Betting the Future of Jai-alai?

It was a historical evening in the sport of jai-alai – Monday, August 16, 2021 .  For the first time in history, a legal bet could be made on the sport that was not in the form of pari-mutual wagering that has been around for decades.

Pari-mutual wagering is how jai-alai, horses and dog tracks operate.  It is a system of placing bets where winning players divide the total amount of bet in proportion to their individual wagers less a fixed “management expense” or house profit.  In jai-alai today, that fee is usually around 25%.  Pari-mutual wagering was first invented by a Frenchman named Piere Oiler in 1865 and was first used for horse racing in the United States in 1871 in New York.  Florida first allowed it in 1935 and allowed jai-alai to have a long successful run for many decades, mainly in the 1970s and 1980s. 

Today, anybody in the state of Iowa could bet on Magic City’s H2H performance this afternoon.  Many jai-alai fans were wondering what was the purpose of these head to head matches that Magic City was holding  –  partidos at some strange hours – including Monday and Tuesday late afternoons.       

As Straymar first reported today on his Say Hi Li site and the Pelota Press, jai-alai sports betting history was made today at 5pm EST with four Magic City H2H singles matches on the sports betting menu on BetRivers.com in the state of Iowa.  They already have sports betting in the states of Illinois, Indiana, Colorado, West Virginia, Virgina and New Jersey and this jai-alai betting might open in those states as the approval process is completed.

Is this the future of jai-alai?  That is the big question.  Magic City has been hosting a lot of H2H games in order to build up numbers to present to the public a statistic to make bets with.  Magic City is already promising $100,000 in prize money to the players – just for this occasion.  Their schedule is set to not compete against many other sports betting activities at that time.  Betters will bet no matter what.  Heck, ping-pong in China has a lot of people betting on it because of their time difference and no competition.      

Magic City Jai-alai is thinking ahead here and we really hope it works out.  Nothing beats Partido betting.     

As you can see from the image, a game featuring Ikeda vs. Spinner both went of at -117 odds.  The following game featured Carballo vs. Douglas with Douglas +200 and Carballo -286.  Pretty cool stuff! 

We all wish Magic City and Scott Savin the best in this new betting formation of jai-alai.