Get ready to place your bets, cruise travelers. Carnival Corp. is partnering with sports betting and gaming entertainment company BetMGM to offer sports betting and iGaming across three of its cruise lines, the company announced Friday.
Retail and mobile sports betting and iGaming – which involves betting online – will be available on more than 50 U.S.-ported ships on Carnival Cruise Line, Holland America Line, and Princess Cruises.
Carnival Corp. will have “BetMGM-branded digital and cash-based sports betting, as well as digital real-money gaming products onboard Carnival’s U.S.-branded ships in international waters,” according to a press release.
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Sports betting, iGaming ‘going like gangbusters’
Marty Goldman, Carnival’s senior vice president, Global Casino Operations, told USA TODAY that in addition to traditional games, “we’re also looking for what’s most popular in every market we serve, so obviously sports betting and iGaming is going like gangbusters right now throughout North America and we wanted to be a part of it.”
Goldman said the company will roll the offerings out in phases, beginning with Carnival Cruise Line ships, likely in the first quarter of next year.
The announcement marks an expansion of the cruise line operator’s sports betting offerings, after Princess Cruises began offering the activity last year via Ocean Sportsbook. Goldman said that will eventually be replaced by the new offerings.
“We’ve found an ideal partner in Carnival Corp. and look forward to providing our sports betting and iGaming products to its millions of passengers,” BetMGM’s CEO Adam Greenblatt said in the release. “This is another great opportunity for us to further expand BetMGM’s footprint.”
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After the Supreme Court struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act in 2018, sports betting has exploded across the country. In a December survey from Morning Consult, among U.S. adults 21 and older, 18% said they bet on sports once a month at minimum, representing an 80% increase from a January 2021 survey.
