Jai-alai was supposed to be on the way out in South Florida. Attendance has declined since the Florida Lottery began, then further with the arrival of professional sports teams, and yet further when casinos came to the area.
The frontons that have stayed open have been lucky to get 100 live patrons on weekend nights in recent years, compared to the 5,000 or so that showed up twenty years ago.
But now jai-alai is a savior of sorts down here, thanks, of course, to state law. To open even a card room, an operator must offer a pari-mutuel activity. And it seems that horses are too big and dog racing is too gross.
So now we have:
Kings Court, a jai-alai fronton that opened in June in Florida City (the intersection of South Miami and the Florida Keys), after Hialeah Park acquired an extra pari-mutuel permit under an arcane 1980 law. Hialeah owner John Brunetti bought 38 acres in this low-income town of 12,000, and a Spanish company erected a 36-meter court. (The usual distance is 54 meters, but there’s a trend toward miniaturization – read on.) Kings Court borrowed players from Dania Beach for the first year, but will eventually have a slate of players on its own. The card room operates daily next door, naturally.
Magic City Casino is converting its pari-mutuel requirement from dog racing – it had been known as Flagler Dog Track – to jai-alai on July 1. Management is revamping its concert hall, called Stage 305, and inserting one of those 36-meter courts. “It allows us to operate our business in a more efficient manner,” Magic City president Alex Havenick says. To get players, Isadore and Alex Havenick, law school graduates at neighboring University of Miami, put out a request through the Hurricanes’ athletics department, looking for former athletes. “The players are training now, going through skills drills,” said Dan Liccardi, a 40-year veteran of the jai-alai industry. “It’s been a remarkable process. They’re quick studies, from cornerbacks to offensive linemen, to a lacrosse player and baseball player, to a high hurdler.” The jai-alai will allow the Havenicks to keep their slots spinning and poker cards flying.
Meanwhile, Magic City has announced plans for another 36-meter jai-alai court, in east Miami, where the city action is. That would enable them to open a card room in one of the city’s more favorable locations. The project still needs some approvals.
Then there’s Calder Casino, which in 2014 made an agreement with Gulfstream Park to drop its own horse racing enterprise and host 40 days of Gulfstream Park racing. That turned out to be a misstep; the casino lost its card room license when the state ruled that Calder needed 80 days of live-action pari-mutuel activity on its property to offer poker. So Calder now wants … you guessed it, a jai-alai permit. If they get it, they can break off from Gulfstream Park, and save a nice amount of money.
At the moment, the Florida Legislature is in mid-session, facing its usual (and virtually impossible) challenge of balancing the wishes of Seminole Tribe of Florida, pari-mutuel interests in South Florida and the rest of the state, and those who are opposed to any form of gambling expansion. It’s a long shot that they’ll approve decoupling, allowing casinos to stop offering jai-alai. So it’s likely that state residents will still have lots of opportunities to see (and to bet on) that weird game that most of us first encountered while watching Miami Vice.
