When it comes to gambling while traveling, we all know that many cruise ships offer gambling when in international waters or certain ports that allow gambling while cruises are in port. We also know that the Las Vegas and Reno/Tahoe airports offer slot machines. Can it go a step further?
Do you think it would be legal to gamble in a plane? Like a boat once it’s up in the air right?
Tina L.
As far as the United States is concerned (which will be the focus of our reply), gambling is not allowed on planes, whether a flight flying within the United States or one that’s departing or arriving in the U.S. to/from another country. These laws are set at the federal level, so any changes to permit gambling on planes in the future would start there.
That’s not to say there haven’t been attempts to offer gambling on planes. Singapore Airlines tested special slots that were built to be lightweight (since weight matters on an airplane), but the machines, while popular, proved too unreliable, and created other considerations due to their popularity. Other airlines have explored digital gambling options, but none have made it to the point where they were installed onto planes as an available option.
Delta announced a partnership with DraftKings this year, but their partnership, due to current laws, don’t allow for gambling, so for now they’re partnering on non-gambling opportunities.
If the federal law changed, there’d still be hurdles, however. Gambling in the U.S. today is generally activated state by state. Only certain states have legalized commercial casinos (other states may have casinos where tribal gaming facilities exist, which is authorized separately).
The same goes for online gambling and sports betting, both of which don’t require physical equipment other than a device like your phone. The way they manage to offer these is through something called geofencing, which means you need to be geographically in the state that has legalized it to be able to play (notably, you don’t have to be a resident).
These tools are imperfect, however, and err on the side of caution. If you are on Amtrak’s WiFi going through states like New Jersey or Pennsylvania, where iGaming is legalized, it will still reject you, because it can’t with 100 percent certainty know which state you’re in because of the way Amtrak’s WiFi works.
The same problem would exist with planes, where they’re tens of thousands of feet in the air and connecting to satellites to get their Internet connection. By comparison, cruise ships are managing physical machines, and know where they are relative to the coastline of a given country, so they know when they can open the casino.
As such, we don’t expect the ability to gamble on a plane anytime soon, due to the legal and technical issues that would need to be resolved before such an option could become available.
That doesn’t mean some aren’t looking ahead to that potential. A bill in Connecticut was proposed to legalize sports betting on planes while in the state, should the federal bans be lifted. So it’s not to say it could never happen, but the odds aren’t great at the moment.
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