A group of committed enthusiasts in Miami is doing all it can to save jai alai, the world's fastest ball sport.
Dennis Dalton, known by the moniker"El Barba," Spanish for"The Beard," competes in a doubles Jai Alai match in the fronton at Magic City Casino, Sunday, March 13, 2022, in Miami. What could be Jai Alai's last stand is taking place at Magic City Casino, where a small group of committed enthusiasts are doing all they can to save the game that originated in the Basque region of Spain and France but took root in Miami during the go-go days of of the 1970s and 1980s.
The fate of the sport depends on the shoulders — and overextended rotator cuffs — of Magic City’s roster of 28 athletes. Seven of them — from Spain, France and the Philippines — were hired after a nearby fronton atOne of the foreign players, Inaki Goitiandia, took up the sport at age 10. Jai alai was a favorite pastime growing up in the small town of Markina-Xemein in northern Spain.
The goal is to reach younger, online bettors for whom win-place-show wagering is a bygone era. Content deals on free, advertising-supported platforms means games are reaching a potential audience of 115 million households and Magic City has teamed with platform BetRivers for online betting in seven states.
In what appeared to be the death knell for the game, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a deal last year giving the Seminole tribe, which already runs the state’s biggest casinos, a monopoly over online sports betting. To level the playing field, casinos are no longer required to carry costly pari-mutuel sports in exchange for being allowed to offer slot machines and poker.
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