To see the challenges South Florida racetrack casinos face, one need only look at two media events: one in Miami, rolling out jai-alai at Magic City Casino, and the other in Hollywood, marking a milestone in the building of a $1.5 billion guitar-shaped hotel.
The Magic City Casino property opened in the 1930s as Flagler Dog Track, and has continued to offer dog racing because that allows it to have a slot license. The racino is among the better-performing in South Florida, averaging about $7 million per month in slot revenues since the slots opened in 2009.
But dog racing is dying, so Magic City COO Scott Savin and others had an idea: swap in jai-alai, and recruit former U.S. college athletes to learn and play the game. Magic City has been owned since 1952 by the Havenick family, which has long-time ties to the University of Miami.
So Magic City brought in jai-alai experts to train potential players. Seventeen were selected to be on the roster for play that began July 1. They included former UM quarterback and professional baseball player Kenny Kelly, plus athletes not only from football but also baseball, lacrosse, and track.
“All I knew about jai-alai before this was that it was part of a Dos Equis beer commercial,” Kelly said.
Magic City officials invited the media to come see their new game on June 30th. Media coverage was tepid, to say the least, although The Miami Herald did send a senior sports reporter. Four players took the court and traded slings to the wall. There’s still a way to go to catch up to the professional players at other courts, who have played all their live, everyone admits.
By contrast, on July 9, the Seminole Tribe of Florida held a “topping off” party for their new hotel, as hundreds of onlookers packed into an outdoor tent, with hundreds of construction workers jammed in the back, receiving plaudits from every speaker. As a DJ blasted music, models in construction hats, boots, shorts and close-cropped T-shirts provided more, um, atmosphere.
The July 9th event got a mention on the front page of the Miami and Fort Lauderdale newspapers, as well as television coverage. With reporters crowded around, Seminole CEO James Allen assessed the Seminoles’ competition with racetrack casinos: “Their business model has been broken since the 1970s.” (The Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood has more gambling revenues than the eight South Florida racetrack casinos combined.)
Operators of horse tracks, dog tracks, and jai-alai frontons have known they’re in a losing battle for decades. They even used that fact back in 2004 when they argued for slots as a way to prop up those pari-mutuels.
And now several statewide votes in November could further disrupt things. Amendment 3, which is supported by the Seminoles and Disney (which is trying to protect its Orlando tourism business), would require any gambling expansion to clear a vote by the public – unlikely, given that the legislature has been unable to work out anything significant in recent years.
Another amendment on the ballot calls for the end of dog racing. If that amendment passes (polls indicate it will), then Magic City Casino might have shot itself in the foot by dumping dogs for jai-alai. A ban on dog racing could have triggered decoupling, meaning the property could have continued its slot operation while not offering any pari-mutuel activity at all.
Still, the shift away from dogs has some immediate benefits. First off, Magic City now has about 7 acres of property available, including a spacious area for concerts and even a festival or two (a dog track is much larger than a jai-alai court). And jai-alai fits into Savin’s overall idea: offer a variety of activities – food, music, gambling other than slots – so that even if a visitor only drops $20 into a slot machine, that’s $20 more than nothing.
“Today, in 2018, what you find here at Magic City Casino Jai-Alai is a new era in the sport of jai-alai,” Savin said. “This fresh approach takes the best features of the ‘World’s Fastest Game,’ combines it with a state-of-the-art jai-alai court and weds these to the skill sets of many University of Miami athletes.”
