Hotels near Magic City Casino: (0.53 mi) Sonesta Miami Airport (0.55 mi) Residence Inn by Marriott Miami Airport (0.51 mi) TownePlace Suites by Marriott Miami Airport (0.55 mi) Fairfield Inn & Suites Miami Airport South (0.61 mi) Courtyard by Marriott Miami Airport; View all hotels near Magic City Casino. For the first time in history, Florida gambling regulators have approved a request by the Magic City Casino, a greyhound racecourse in Miami, to do away with dog racing while still maintaining its.
- Located just five minutes from Miami International Airport, Flagler Dog Track has been the premier greyhound racing facility in Miami for over 50 years. Now owned by Magic City Casino, the property boasts an impressive array of table games, slot machines, and concert venues.
- Las Vegas style games, world-class entertainment, smoking hot Poker tables and more at Miami's Magic City Casino. Skip to Main Content. 450 NW 37th Avenue Miami, FL.
- Walk-around bet takers accepting wagers on horse racing, harness racing and jai-alai ★ $10 food & beverage minimum per guest. Guests must abide by all health and safety requirements, including the use of masks, social distancing and other measures as instructed.
This webpage focuses on the fascinating history of Magic City which started as West Flagler Kennel Club and later was referred to as Fabulous Flagler and Flagler as the city of Miami expanded further west. In the early days, West Flagler Kennel Club even had some Hurdle Races for greyhounds which packed the complex when a California couple came into town with their fascinating greyhound racing show which featured small trained monkey jockeys riding on the backs of greyhounds. The crowds were quite entertained by this and came by the thousands to watch these specialized races.
Flagler became known as a Racino (racetrack and casino) when Casino-style gambling was added to the entertainment options, and then in 2018 Flagler converted their greyhound racing license to a Jai-alai fronton within the Magic City Casino and began offering Jai-alai games using Jai-alai players mostly consisting of many former local college athletes including athletes from the University of Miami who were trained by professionals to play the game of Jai-alai. Magic City Jai-alai is an evolving short-court American Jai-alai program conceived by Scott Savin and has rapidly become a highly successful entertainment option at the Magic City Casino in Miami, Florida. A traditional American Jai-alai court is around 180-feet in length while the short-court at Magic City Jai-alai is 120-feet in length to fit an existing footprint at the Magic City Casino. The short-court version of Jai-alai is not new to amateurs and Jai-alai players as North Miami Amateur fronton has a short-court version at that facility. Thanks to Scott Savin for helping to save the sport of Jai-alai from fading away from the American landscape where Jai-alai frontons have been in existence for nearly 100 years. The interesting story behind this concept can be seen by watching the movie 'The Magic City Hustle.'
Magic City Miami
Here is a June 13, 2018 press release on the Magic City Jai-alai Casino opening titled 'Magic City Casino Jai-Alai Debuts July 1.'
Magic City is the only greyhound racing track that has ever converted from greyhound racing to offering Jai-alai games as an exciting wagering and entertainment experience. Magic City has a very fascinating history indeed as an entertainment complex over the years! SayHiLi.com will be providing more details of the historical timeline and photos of this 120′ short-court Jai-alai fronton with super hard tempered see-through glass panels for the front and back wall of the playing court. It's quite a magical place and easily understood why it's called Magic City! Hundreds of slot machines and Vegas-style games, Big Payoffs for Jai-alai and Slots, Big Money Jai-alai Singles and Doubles Tournaments, and lots of promotions along with big names in music and comedy and great food options make Magic City the place to be! Magic City Jai-alai is the site of the 2020 U.S. National Jai-alai Championship (tourney dates to be announced). The Sports Club at Magic City Casino is an excellent place to watch and wager on Jai-alai, greyhounds, harness and thoroughbred horse racing from across the country. No visit to South Florida is complete without stopping at Magic City Casino and Jai-alai in Miami!
Magic City Casino Miami Dog Racing Replays
Shown above are photos of greyhound racing programs from the current site of Magic City Casino which cover the span of nearly 60-years of greyhound racing history at this location. The oldest racing program featured above is from the 1937 West Flagler Kennel Club, a near mint condition item of Miami greyhound racing memorabilia from more than 80-years ago.
Miami Magic City Casino
Fronton and Center
Magic City Casino Miami Dog Racing Picks
Right-handed pitcher Darryl Roque threw for the University of Miami's College World Series winning team in 1999 before spending eight years in the minors for the Baltimore Orioles and Montreal Expos. After pro baseball, he became a teacher and baseball coach at Miami Southridge High. A couple of years ago, he and other former Canes got an email from Magic City Casino in Miami inviting them to try out for professional jai alai. 'Most of us thought it was a fake email,' he says.
Magic City Casino
They had good reason to wonder, given jai alai's decline. Akin to racquetball, jai alai originated in the Basque region of Spain, where kids grow up familiar with the wovenreed cestas used to throw and catch a goat-skin-covered pelota. The first professional jai alai fronton in the nation opened in Miami in the 1920s, and for awhile, the sport thrived. In Florida, Rhode Island and Connecticut, thousands packed frontons to wager on players in 'the world's fastest game.' (The ball is said to go upward of 180 mph.)
Times changed. Gamblers' tastes shifted toward the lottery, internet wagering and slots and blackjack at tribe owned casinos. Parimutuels — horse and dog tracks and jai alai — suffered. A jai alai players strike in the 1990s didn't help. In the 10 years before that email landed in Roque's inbox, parimutuel wagering in Florida had fallen by 38%, with the 'handle' — the total amount wagered — tumbling to $688 million. Professional frontons closed everywhere outside Florida, and Jai Alai beer, produced by Tampa's Cigar City Brewing, became more widespread than the sport from which it got its name.
The bright spot for Southeast Florida pari-mutuels was the coming of card rooms and slot machines at the tracks and frontons. That same year the former Canes athletes got that e-mail, pari-mutuels in Florida rang up $168 million in card room revenue statewide and $8 billion in slot revenue. The changing times are reflected just north of Little Havana in Miami at what used to be called Flagler Greyhound Track, now known as Magic City Casino. Once, thousands filled the grandstand to watch dogs race. By 2017-18, however, Flagler's racing revenue was down to $3 million on a $15-million handle. The gambling action had shifted indoors to the poker room and the slot machines in the casino, which in 2017-18 brought in $58.6 million in net slot revenue after the state's 35% tax bite.
Dog racing at that single track, however, still produced more wagering and tax revenue than all of jai alai in Florida. But, in an odd twist, the challenges facing dog racing and horse racing created an opening for jai alai.
Simply put, jai alai loses less money in a much smaller footprint than horse and dog racing. The business case for it owes to Florida's patchwork of gambling legislation. Outside tribal casinos, state law allowed casinos only at parimutuels in Miami-Dade and Broward that maintained dog, horse or jai alai operations. To keep the slots, they had to keep racing — and slinging pelotas.
Magic City is owned by the Havenick family, who also own the Bonita Springs dog track. Back in 2006, the family hired longtime Florida gambling executive Scott Savin — formerly president of one of Florida's remaining viable horse racing venues, Gulfstream Park — as COO to help convert Flagler into a slot-operating casino. Savin saw opportunity in jai alai. 'We didn't expect it to be money-making, but we knew it would lose less than dog racing,' Savin says.
John Lockwood, a Tallahassee attorney who represents many state pari-mutuels, went to court to win Magic City the right to switch from dogs to jai alai. He also discovered a quirk in state law that enabled more jai alai permits to be issued. 'It's an obscure little loophole, but it's completely changed the face of this activity in South Florida,' he says.
Here is a June 13, 2018 press release on the Magic City Jai-alai Casino opening titled 'Magic City Casino Jai-Alai Debuts July 1.'
Magic City is the only greyhound racing track that has ever converted from greyhound racing to offering Jai-alai games as an exciting wagering and entertainment experience. Magic City has a very fascinating history indeed as an entertainment complex over the years! SayHiLi.com will be providing more details of the historical timeline and photos of this 120′ short-court Jai-alai fronton with super hard tempered see-through glass panels for the front and back wall of the playing court. It's quite a magical place and easily understood why it's called Magic City! Hundreds of slot machines and Vegas-style games, Big Payoffs for Jai-alai and Slots, Big Money Jai-alai Singles and Doubles Tournaments, and lots of promotions along with big names in music and comedy and great food options make Magic City the place to be! Magic City Jai-alai is the site of the 2020 U.S. National Jai-alai Championship (tourney dates to be announced). The Sports Club at Magic City Casino is an excellent place to watch and wager on Jai-alai, greyhounds, harness and thoroughbred horse racing from across the country. No visit to South Florida is complete without stopping at Magic City Casino and Jai-alai in Miami!
Magic City Casino Miami Dog Racing Replays
Shown above are photos of greyhound racing programs from the current site of Magic City Casino which cover the span of nearly 60-years of greyhound racing history at this location. The oldest racing program featured above is from the 1937 West Flagler Kennel Club, a near mint condition item of Miami greyhound racing memorabilia from more than 80-years ago.
Miami Magic City Casino
Fronton and Center
Magic City Casino Miami Dog Racing Picks
Right-handed pitcher Darryl Roque threw for the University of Miami's College World Series winning team in 1999 before spending eight years in the minors for the Baltimore Orioles and Montreal Expos. After pro baseball, he became a teacher and baseball coach at Miami Southridge High. A couple of years ago, he and other former Canes got an email from Magic City Casino in Miami inviting them to try out for professional jai alai. 'Most of us thought it was a fake email,' he says.
Magic City Casino
They had good reason to wonder, given jai alai's decline. Akin to racquetball, jai alai originated in the Basque region of Spain, where kids grow up familiar with the wovenreed cestas used to throw and catch a goat-skin-covered pelota. The first professional jai alai fronton in the nation opened in Miami in the 1920s, and for awhile, the sport thrived. In Florida, Rhode Island and Connecticut, thousands packed frontons to wager on players in 'the world's fastest game.' (The ball is said to go upward of 180 mph.)
Times changed. Gamblers' tastes shifted toward the lottery, internet wagering and slots and blackjack at tribe owned casinos. Parimutuels — horse and dog tracks and jai alai — suffered. A jai alai players strike in the 1990s didn't help. In the 10 years before that email landed in Roque's inbox, parimutuel wagering in Florida had fallen by 38%, with the 'handle' — the total amount wagered — tumbling to $688 million. Professional frontons closed everywhere outside Florida, and Jai Alai beer, produced by Tampa's Cigar City Brewing, became more widespread than the sport from which it got its name.
The bright spot for Southeast Florida pari-mutuels was the coming of card rooms and slot machines at the tracks and frontons. That same year the former Canes athletes got that e-mail, pari-mutuels in Florida rang up $168 million in card room revenue statewide and $8 billion in slot revenue. The changing times are reflected just north of Little Havana in Miami at what used to be called Flagler Greyhound Track, now known as Magic City Casino. Once, thousands filled the grandstand to watch dogs race. By 2017-18, however, Flagler's racing revenue was down to $3 million on a $15-million handle. The gambling action had shifted indoors to the poker room and the slot machines in the casino, which in 2017-18 brought in $58.6 million in net slot revenue after the state's 35% tax bite.
Dog racing at that single track, however, still produced more wagering and tax revenue than all of jai alai in Florida. But, in an odd twist, the challenges facing dog racing and horse racing created an opening for jai alai.
Simply put, jai alai loses less money in a much smaller footprint than horse and dog racing. The business case for it owes to Florida's patchwork of gambling legislation. Outside tribal casinos, state law allowed casinos only at parimutuels in Miami-Dade and Broward that maintained dog, horse or jai alai operations. To keep the slots, they had to keep racing — and slinging pelotas.
Magic City is owned by the Havenick family, who also own the Bonita Springs dog track. Back in 2006, the family hired longtime Florida gambling executive Scott Savin — formerly president of one of Florida's remaining viable horse racing venues, Gulfstream Park — as COO to help convert Flagler into a slot-operating casino. Savin saw opportunity in jai alai. 'We didn't expect it to be money-making, but we knew it would lose less than dog racing,' Savin says.
John Lockwood, a Tallahassee attorney who represents many state pari-mutuels, went to court to win Magic City the right to switch from dogs to jai alai. He also discovered a quirk in state law that enabled more jai alai permits to be issued. 'It's an obscure little loophole, but it's completely changed the face of this activity in South Florida,' he says.
The number of state-authorized jai alai permit holders is up to 12 this year, compared to eight just a couple years ago. Calder, the Miami area horse track owned by Churchill Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby, now runs jai alai. Hialeah Park opened a jai alai fronton in Florida City near the south terminus of Florida's Turnpike. Isle Pompano, the harness track and casino owned by Eldorado Resorts, has taken a jai alai permit and expects to build a fronton this year.
