Does Delta Air Lines want to bring the high stakes of sports betting to air travel?

A June 20 Reddit post shares a Delta inflight survey asking SkyMiles members to choose which features they would like to receive through Delta WiFi. One of the choices is: "Exclusive access to sports gambling (sportsbook) opportunities."

Delta partnered with DraftKings in February to bring free-to-play games to customers. The survey suggests that there could be loftier goals in mind.

Take your pick

Lemonsqueezy19's post of the Delta survey showed several options to choose from to the question: “Which of the following offers would you like to trial or explore on your personal device through Delta’s Wi-Fi portal? Please select all that apply."

Delta offered 15 options, including free access to news content, free access to music, and free access to live professional sports. The final option was "None of these."

It should be noted that the sports betting option was second on the list, just under "free access to games."

During his keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, Delta CEO Ed Bastian said gamblers “shouldn’t have to hit pause just because [they’re] in the sky.”

“From fantasy sports to online adventures, gaming has become a regular part of the daily lives of millions of our customers.” 

There is interest

Delta’s partnership with DraftKings does not currently include in its framework details for sports betting operations. It is expected to launch only free-to-play games at a later date this year.

That said, the airplane company – which grossed $61.6 billion in revenue in FY2024 – has struck a deal with one of the two largest sports betting operators in America.

There’s also support for inflight gambling outside the airline industry.

In January, Connecticut Democrat Rep. Christopher Rosario introduced a bill to allow inflight sports betting for flights that begin or end in Connecticut. The bill, though, did not make any progress after it was referred to the Joint Committee on General Law.

How would it work?

Of course, before sports betting could be added to flights, there would need to be discussions on legality, regulation, and reporting. Thirty-eight states currently allow legal sports betting, which means the other 12 do not.

Flights that start and end in states with legal sports betting but cross states that do not have legal markets would theoretically be unable to offer betting odds whenever the plane was over illegal jurisdictions.

There’s also the question of which state regulators would be required to monitor bettors on flights that start and end in different jurisdictions. Revenue could also be theoretically generated over different states during the flight, which would affect which states report the transactions and receive tax revenue from the wagers.

There are also federal regulations that would need to be amended to allow for gambling on aircraft.