Can Delta & Draft Kings Partnership Take Flight?

At CES 2025 in Vegas, Delta CEO Ed Bastian announced that Delta was partnering with Draft Kings to provide services via Delta sync and seatback screens. What those services are isn't quite clear yet, but if the plan is to offer gambling services they'll run into a big problem.

In-air gambling is currently illegal in the US. And has been for a long time now. So what does this mean for the partnership? Is it DOA or can we see the two skirt around the law by entering an emerging space in the industry like sweepstakes gaming?

How Is Gambling In The Air Illegal?

Without getting too technical or requiring you to dive into Congressional archives, gambling has been illegal on airlines since the Johnson Act of 1962, an amendment to the Transportation of Gambling Devices Act of 1951. That ban was taken a step further in 1994 with the Gorton Amendment of the FAA Act which banned onboard gambling for international carries.

So by 1994, it was illegal to gamble on flights within the US, on flights leaving the US, on flights arriving in the US, or flying through US airspace.

Which then begs the question, why would these two giants of their respective industries announce a partnership they know is currently illegal?

Will The US Legalize In-Air Gambling?

There has been a case for the US to repeal some of these bans for a long time. The International Coalition on the Rule of Law, a group of 10 international airlines such as Air France, Lufthansa, and Japan Airlines, had been calling for the US to repeal the Gorton Amendment since 1996.

That same year the Department of Transportation published a study on the feasibility of repealing a portion of the Gorton Amendment, specifically allowing US carriers to offer gambling on international flights. While that study didn't reach a definitive conclusion it did see a way for the practice to be legalized with the right regulation and enforcement.

But can a Delta-Draft Kings partnership repeal domestic laws banning gambling for US carriers? At the moment that doesn't look likely, not only are some US lawmakers like Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) coming out against the partnership, but a Delta spokesperson shot it down recently saying "the ability to gamble is not currently part of that exploration [between Delta and Draft Kings]".

The likely outcome of this partnership, at least in the immediate future, is for Draft Kings to offer Delta games in which customers can "gamble" using SkyMiles as a form of currency. Delta CCO Tim Mapes all but confirmed this recently: "The DraftKings announcement we made: 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,"

This pivot if you will is a growing trend in the industry called sweepstakes gaming.

What Is Sweepstakes Gaming?

Sweepstakes gaming (or social gaming as some have started calling it) has been around for a long time and is effectively a form of gambling using virtual currencies with no chance of winning actual money. However, some sweepstakes games allow players to pay to acquire more of the virtual currency to play.

It's a clever way to get around the regulators of the gaming industry and perhaps this is what the Delta-Draft King partnership is aiming for, but without any clear intent from both parties, we can only speculate as to the nature of their partnership.

Sweepstakes gaming is growing in popularity and as such is on lawmaker's radars. Recently New York Gaming Commission Chair Brain O'Dwyer stated he and commission staff alongside law enforcement are building a case to bring within the scope of NY's laws, meaning any loophole might be closed, at least in the Empire State and perhaps more going forward.