Rush Street Interactive Partners With Magic City Jai Alai

Rush Street Interactive (RSI) is attempting to bolster its sports betting offerings with another partnership. On Monday, the Chicago-based gaming company announced a deal with Magic City Jai Alai, giving RSI access to use Magic City Jai Alai's official league data and streaming feeds to allow bettors to watch and wager during live games in real-time.

Jai Alai is a sport involving bouncing a ball off a walled space by increasing it to high speeds with a hand-held wicker cesta. The sport is played worldwide, but is popular in Spain, southwest of France and Latin American countries.

Betting on the sport is starting to be available on BetRivers Sportsbook.

Jai Alai Growing In Popularity

It debuted earlier this year in Illinois and Iowa, allowing bettors in those states to be the first in the country to legally bet on Jai Alai games. Other states are expected to offer the sport in the future.

“RSI is excited to partner with Magic City Jai Alai to pioneer this new fast-paced format of play for Jai Alai, a sport which has long been a betting favorite and has a storied history in Florida dating back to the 1930s,” Richard Schwartz, CEO of RSI, said in a media release. “As a result of these modern H2H matches transitioning away from the traditional parimutuel style of play into a brand new fixed-odds betting format where every action-packed point matters, customers can wager directly on the head-to-head matchups, set-by-set or even point-by-point just like in the popular betting sports of tennis and table tennis.

“Jai Alai is the fastest sport in the world, with ball speeds exceeding 150 mph, and with this new electrifying format, we are really excited to offer bettors a unique way to watch in real-time and bet in-play on a sport we know they will love.”

Magic City Jai Alai opened in 2018 after being approved by the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation. The company conducts training programs and background checks on athletes, staff and officials, in addition to contracting with a third part integrity firm to independently monitor and analyze all betting and event activity.

“The league’s commitment to integrity and fair play impressed us from the outset,” Schwartz said. “At the end of the day, RSI wants to offer our players engaging and high integrity betting content and we’re thrilled that Magic City’s league is able to achieve both of these goals.”

The Magic City Jai Alai schedule started on Sept. 11 and has continued to hold contests throughout the month. The league offers singles and doubles matches.

“Working closely with the RSI team, we are excited to pioneer a new twist on an old favorite and offer fans exciting and different ways to engage with Jai Alai while modernizing the sport to a whole new digital betting audience,” said Scott Savin, Magic City COO. “From day one, we’ve made it our mission to create an innovative and modern-looking league where the integrity of the game and its athletes have been our focus to earn and retain our bettors’ trust.”

Magic City Parent Company Challenging Florida Sports Betting Compact

The parent company of Magic City is West Flagler, which is currently attempting to challenge Florida’s compact online sports betting authorization in two federal lawsuits.

Online sports betting in Florida was previously scheduled to launch on Oct. 15, but it is now being challenged by West Flagler Associates, which operates the Bonita-Fort Myers Corp. and the Bonita Springs Poker Room, in addition to the Magic City Casino.

West Flagler filed the suit against the U.S. Department of the Interior on Aug. 16, believing the new compact would harm their businesses and violates the law.

With the hearing scheduled, the launch of online sports betting in Florida could be delayed until Nov. 15.