A player in motion at Dania Jai-Alai in Dania Beach, Fla. (Oscar Durand/NYT INSTITUTE)

By BILL ANDREWS

With an airy “whoosh,” the game starts. The ball, or “pelota,” zooms at speeds as high as 180 mph, making a loud, reverberating smack every time it hits the wall. As each player catches the ball in his “cesta,” a long scoop attached to the right hand, he turns and throws it back against the wall in one fluid motion.

These were the sights and sounds inside the jai alai arena in Dania Beach, Fla., during a matinee of games this past Tuesday.

Players dived and rolled to make difficult catches. Sweat dripped off their foreheads during pauses in play. But the intensity of the competition was not enough to fill even a section of the stands. Only about 60 people sat inside an arena built to hold more than 10,000 spectators. Most of them appeared only mildly interested in the games. Many read newspapers or betting forms, and when a game ended, the crowd was silent.

It was a stark contrast to the heady days of the 1960s, when attending a jai alai game required a reservation weeks in advance. Over the past two decades, the popularity of the sport, which has been a tradition in Florida for 80 years, has plunged.

One indicator is the decrease in betting. In the 2008 fiscal year, bets on jai alai statewide fell nearly 16 percent from the previous year, to $68.7 million from $81.4 million, according to the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation.

“Jai alai is a great sport, and it’s underappreciated,” said Bruce Rawdin, a former professional jai alai player. “It’s just a shame.”

At Dania Jai-Alai, few spectators filled the arena's seats. The popularity of the sport, a tradition in Florida for 80 years, has plunged. (Oscar Durand/NYT INSTITUTE)

Jai alai, or “punta cesta,” was popularized centuries ago in the Basque region of Spain. Competitors, playing singly or in teams of two, score points when their opponents fail to catch and return the fast-moving pelota; games are played to seven or nine points.

For many years, jai alai — along with dog racing and horse racing — was among the few options for legal betting in Florida, said Marty Fleischman, the assistant general manager of Dania Jai-Alai. But with the rise of alternatives like the Florida Lotto, Indian casinos and gambling on cruise ships, the jai alai arenas, known as frontons, now face stiff competition.

A 2004 state law allowing the addition of high-stakes poker tables at Florida’s six frontons has helped the arenas survive. Now fronton owners are hoping to add slot machines to attract the crowds jai alai used to draw.

Fleischman said introducing more gambling options would be crucial in a state that offers so many opportunities for people to wager their money. To entice gamblers, Dania Jai-Alai turned an overflow-seating room into a poker room 10 years ago, and Fleischman wants to add slot machines, though he has hesitated because of the high state taxes that come with them. “What we’ve got to do is put more things in the building,” he said.

But not everyone involved in jai alai believes the slot machines are the answer.

Luis Daniel, the owner of American Amateur Jai Alai, a small arena in North Miami where many former professional players gather for fun and practice, has played as an amateur for 24 years. Daniel criticized the frontons for placing a greater priority on money than on the game. “It might save the fronton,” he said, “but it’ll kill jai alai.”

Cary Walowitz, another player at American Amateur, was even more blunt about the game’s decline. “Oh, yeah, it’s almost extinct,” he said. “Sad to say, I see the demise of it within 10 years.”

Although some purists may oppose turning frontons into would-be casinos, betting and jai alai have gone together since the game began.

“It was more than a sporting event; it was an opportunity to gamble,” said Carmelo Urza, a historian of Basque culture and the author of “Historia de la Pelota Vasca en las Americas” (“History of Basque Pelota in the Americas”).

The gambling aspect, Urza said, made jai alai more famous than it otherwise might have become. “In the Basque country,” he said, “gambling has always been an integral part of rural sports.”

The status of jai alai in Florida soared after Fidel Castro assumed power in Cuba and outlawed gambling, leading many jai alai players to leave the island. It took root in other parts of the United States as well. But now the sport’s future throughout the country has become uncertain, Urza said, noting that the game has disappeared from Connecticut, Missouri and Rhode Island, among other places.

Urza said that beyond the competition from other gambling options, jai alai has declined because it’s expensive — replacing worn equipment can cost more than $500 a month — and because training facilities are limited.

At Miami Jai Alai, a fronton near Miami International Airport built in 1926, the evidence of the grand old days is abundant. Many of its vast parking lots are empty, much of the elegant furniture is threadbare, and wrought-iron planters are dingy and faded.

“We’ve been very slow since the Lotto and the Indian gaming,” said Manny Rodriguez, an assistant food and bar supervisor, who has worked at the fronton for 31 years. “We need more business.”

Two areas of the arena, however, evoke its former glory. The first is the Crystal Card Room, which gleams like a stately hotel lobby. The second is a small trophy room in an empty corner of the building. Its walls are covered with framed newspaper clippings, almost all of them yellowed with age. In the middle sit three large trophies. The largest has a list of names and dates ending in 1989. The two smaller ones have no names on them — just blank spaces.

At American Amateur Jai Alai, attracting younger players is a perennial challenge. “It’s always the same faces,” said Daniel, the owner. “Not too much new blood.”

He and Rawdin, the former pro player, said the frontons should focus more on marketing jai alai and less on emphasizing the other betting games. Still, Rawdin said, shaking his head, “I don’t think it’ll ever come back the way it was in the old days.”

Ray Soriero, an 82-year-old World War II veteran in the crowd at the Dania Jai-Alai on Tuesday, claims not to follow the game, though he has been faithfully attending jai alai events three times a week for 39 years. “And I still can’t get a winner!” he said.

Soriero remembers when jai alai was a more lavish affair. “That balcony was full of people,” he said, pointing to a section that has been closed to the public for a decade. “You used to have to stand in line” to get in, he said, and spectators would dress more formally.

No matter what frontons do to revive the game, Soriero said, he doubts the sport will ever attract the same kind of audience. “Who would come?” he asked.