Back in the old days 1976-81 at Bridgeport Jai-Alai, the tickets
windows on each floor had white signs over them indicating what
kind of tickets were sold there. $3 Trifecta Tickets and $3 Perfecta
Tickets were sold at $3 windows. There were other windows for
$9 Trifecta Box which was introduced in 1977-78. $2 Quiniela tickets
were sold at many others. A couple of windows sold W-P-S tickets
in addition to $2 Quiniela. There was a $10 window for bigger
betters for WPS and Quiniela bets. There were 4 or 5 cashier windows
in the middle of the floor. You had to get into a separate line
to cash than you did to bet, so if you needed the money from your
winning ticket to bet with in the next game, you had to stand
in two lines. The tickets were on thin cardboard. The Trifecta
Tickets and the TriBox tickets were on longer paper because the
paper could not fit three numbers across. I have a picture on
my iPhone of an old ticket from 1981 that I have on my bulletin
board at work, but I don't know how to post that picture here.
The Buy and Cash windows started in Milford in May of 1981 I believe,
and Bridgeport followed suit in 1981-82. After that, you could
buy any ticket at any window, and every teller was also a cashier.
I can still hear Jeff Brand in the memory of my mind say the following
over the public address system whenever there was a big payoff:
"Trifecta 8-7-4 returns one thousand six hundred eighty-four
dollars and sixty cents. The winning nine dollar Trifecta box
ticket reads 4-7-8 and returns eight hundred forty-two dollars
and thirty cents. A reminder that all winning trifecta tickets
must be cashed at verification window 101 on the Main Line. And
federal law states that for any winning trifecta ticket over $1,000,
the association must deduct 20% for tax purposes."
