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On the night we went, 14 games were played; several were
doubles in which two-man teams competed. Six to eight minute
breaks between games allow time for betting, eating, and drinking.
Beer and wine are cheap, and the food, although typical sporting
event's fare, isn't bad. Games can be viewed from The Terrace, the
upstairs in-house restaurant, but we opted out of the $3 admission
charge and the mandatory $7.50 per person minimum purchase.
After watching a few games from the sticky, sparsely filled
stands, we decided we were ready to bet. Our strategy was naive;
we had noticed that three players seemed to win more often than
others, and we decided to place our money on Aperri, Iru, and
Bascaran for the next few games. A cranky cashier corrected us
when we attempted to place a "quintiela" box instead of a quiniela
box, but we didn't mind; we knew we were green.
Surprisingly, we found the betting jargon easy to decipher.
Although boxing the quiniela increased the cost (from $1 to $6), the
improved odds seemed well worth it.
Three hours and several drinks later, and $347 richer, we
stumbled out of the fronton and into the parking lot. I remember
jamming dollar bills and change deep into my denim pockets and
looking around nervously, not because the warnings I had heard
about the seedy nature of Jai Alai and its fans were echoing in my
thoughts, but because something didn't feel quite right. I was in
Orlando; I wasn't supposed to be ending my night with six times the
cash I had at 7 p.m.
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