As best as I can recall...mind you, this is about 30 years
ago, in the early or mid 80's, and I actually stayed at Bally's,
and I clearly remember being in the elevator, and there was a
button on the elevator that said JAI ALAI. My dad turned me on
to jai alai back in the 80's, and while in Vegas, he was with me,
while in the elevator for the first time, I said, "Look,
Dad...JAI ALAI!" A hotel employee was in the elevator and
he said the jai alai was closed (it was out of season I guessed),
and he went on to say it did not go over well at all...in fact,
it flopped. Vegas was not the place for jai alai.
I do know for a fact GOITIZ did play at this facility, so perhaps
he has more information.
I also think I was told the facility actually underground. The
hotel never originally was designed to house a jai alai court,
but somehow, they got one in there, probaby in some banquet hall
or something like that, or a huge showroom. Because it was closed,
you could not go to that level of the hotel, so I never saw it.
I was so green to jai alai back then, that I wasn't even really
concerned with seeing it. I wonder what ever became of that part
of Bally's? I know some parts of Bally's are totally unchanged
to this day, such as the JUBILEE theater, which has housed that
show since the 80's, and it is STILL playing in the same theater,
as the theater was designed for the show, with 3 story undergound
sets and all.
