Delta’s partnership with DraftKings is now flying. First announced eighteen months ago at CES 2025, the companies teamed to bring “prediction” gaming to the cabin in the form of SkyPicks.
With Delta Sync, our goal is to create an onboard experience that offers something for every customer—one that’s connected to what customers love on the ground. For many of our customers, that includes sports. SkyPicks brings that passion onboard in a fun, free-to-play way, giving SkyMiles Members another way to engage with the games and conversations they love while they fly. – Ranjan Goswami, Chief Marketing and Product Officer, Delta Air Lines
Delta is very clear – multiple times in the press release – that this is not gambling. “SkyPicks is a completely free-to-play sports contest—no wagering, deposits, real money, miles, or currency involved, (emphasis in the original)” the company shares. Elsewhere it notes “no betting, deposit functionality, buy-in, miles or financial risk involved.” It also describes the offering as “Designed solely as an entertainment experience within Delta Sync Wi-Fi,” and suggests that it is about sports knowledge, not gaming nor gambling.
But it is also built on the DraftKings platform. SkyMiles members who want to play must open an DraftKings account and “agree to… applicable email communications.” To describe this as anything but a customer acquisition tool for DraftKings, with the hope of converting new members into gamblers on its platform, seems disingenuous.
Delta downplays that angle, instead insisting the DraftKings relationship gives “sports fans a new way to engage with the teams and leagues they love – letting them participate in the sports conversation, not just watch.”
The service is only available via users’ personal devices, not integrated into the seatback screen.
At the time of the announcement I suggested the move was morally questionable, while awaiting further details about what would actually roll out to passengers. Significant data has accumulated in the intervening period. None of it is favorable to the gambling companies or the practice in general:
- The rise of sports betting is a growing public health crisis
- Americans increasingly see legal sports betting as a bad thing for society and sports
- When legal sports betting surges, so do Americans’ financial problems
- Sucker: My year as a degenerate gambler
- Study Reveals Surge in Gambling Addiction Following Legalization of Sports Betting
Now we know what the product is, and my concerns are anything but alleviated.
Delta is now an active participant in the sports gambling ecosystem, encouraging its customers to engage with DraftKings in exchange for the miniscule chance to win a gift card. Presumably the carrier assumes that whatever fiscal mess people find themselves in as a result will be sufficiently limited to not reduce future ticket purchases, at least in the aggregate.
The company will probably win that bet. But it still seems to me like taking it at all is a bad choice.
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