Airline passengers have an infinite amount of ways to while away the hours during that unusually lengthy taxi to the runway and the insufferable delay waiting for American 575 from Phoenix to clear the gate in front of them.
Podcasts, movies, wondering why the person next to them thought it was alright to remove their shoes.
Then there’s the seatback poker where everyone’s a card sharp.
Now, Delta is polling customers as to whether they’d be interested in legal, real-money sports betting.
Questions remain whether it’s wanted (don’t know yet), legal (not right now), or even feasible (Delta has had a partnership with DraftKings since January). But in an era where 41 United States jurisdictions have legalized and regulate sports betting, the world’s largest airline in terms of revenue, total assets, market capitalization, and brand value asking questions about making the skies the limit is noteworthy.
A recent survey sent to Delta customers inquiring about potential new perks listed “Exclusive access to sports gambling (sportsbook) opportunities” on personal devices via a WiFi portal.
The response from the r/delta subReddit was overwhelmingly negative:
From lemonsqueezy19: “What an absolutely terrible idea. Let’s give people captive and bored on a plane the ability to gamble on their phone.
“I hope this is just one of those weird survey questions and not something they are actually thinking of doing.”
And from rbad8717: “This sports betting [redacted] is getting out of hand. Its bad enough I have to watch Kevin Hart dance every commercial break of the NBA finals, but the last thing I want is to make bad parlays and future bets on a redeye 30000 in the air half drunk and half asleep.
“Not to mention what’s the legality? My state of WA only has sports betting legal on indigenous casinos.”
You’re not free to bet about the country
Short answer for rbad8717: it’s been illegal in the U.S. since the passage of the Gambling Device Act of 1962. There have been various attempts by airlines to at least consider legalization domestically, according to the View From the Wing trade publication, which noted:
“In 1996, [the Department of Transportation] concluded that airlines could earn $1 million per aircraft per year by offering gambling, $1.6 million in 2020 dollars or $1.3 billion per year for an 800 plane airline. (Airlines have argued that the potential economic impact is even greater than this.) Delta’s fleet is nearly 1,000 aircraft.”
With so much potential revenue, there could be a workaround, but not for domestic flights. Carnival and Princess cruise lines offer onboard mobile sports betting once ships are in international waters to begin taking bets. International flights could operate in the same manner, theoretically.
In a January interview with airline industry publication The Points Guy, Delta Chief Communications Officer Tim Mapes suggested that the future of the DraftKings partnership could entail flyers gambling with frequent flier miles.
“If you played that forward — and I’m not saying this is where we’re going — but if you played that forward, international flights could have gambling. International flights could gamble with SkyMiles as a currency,” he said.
Ultimately, any integration could be a means for DraftKings to advertise in-flight, and perhaps add new customers to its database who could eventually bet legally once on ground in a state where it operates. DraftKings has not yet responded to an InGame request concerning its possible future activation with Delta.
No exit row for sportsbook at 35,000 feet
Keith Whyte, the founder and president of Safer Gambling Strategies, said a boring airline cabin with a hand-held sportsbook could be problematic for someone struggling with a gambling addiction. The former executive director of the National Council on Problem Gambling noted anecdotal evidence from the 1990s when Missouri law forced riverboat casinos to undertake two-hour cruises, trapping gamblers with problematic behavior aboard and increasing the number of harmful episodes.
In those cases, the gamblers chose to patronize a gambling hall. Future Delta passengers would just be hoping to arrive in another city on time, healthy, and with their luggage.
“An airplane cabin is a highly pressurized environment, and putting someone with a gambling problem in that environment, with access to high-speed, high-stakes gambling, but no way to get away, could ramp up that pressure,” Whyte said.
