USA Casino Cruise Ships Guide

Those who love to see the world and also like to gamble can choose from over 80 casino cruise ships which depart the U.S all year around – operated by various cruise companies globally. Once in international waters cruise ships can open their casino games to their thousands of guests.

On some cruise ships, you can even gamble for Cash anywhere on board, without having to even visit the casino! For example, on a number of Princess Cruises ships it’s possible to wager for real money on slots, poker, bingo, roulette and more via the company’s MedallionClass app from anywhere on the ship, including in your stateroom.

On this page we list the major casino cruise operators as well explaining what you can expect to find in a USA casino cruise ship.

The only major cruise company that doesn’t offer gambling is Disney Cruises

Which casino games are usually available on cruise ships?

Games on offer on board casino cruise liners include table games, live poker (sometimes cash-games on cruises are played on a video-poker terminal with other players – or sometimes with real dealers), video poker, slots (with games from top slots suppliers like Aristocrat Gaming), roulette (European with one Zero, and American roulette with two zeros), baccarat, blackjack & more.

Are lessons available for Casino newbies in casinos on cruise ships?

Lessons are usually available to introduce the uninitiated to the rules and mechanics of each specific casino game. Check with your cruise host or casino manager for details. Usually you will be given reference material, an intro to the game rules, and play chips or play-money to use during the lesson – and until you understand the basics of the game.

Once you’re confident – it’s time to hit the real money casino games like slots, table games and electronic poker tables.

Casino Odds On Cruise Ships

Of course, as in all casinos – the odds are always in the house’s favor. That’s even more true on a cruise.

For example, usually poker machines table will indicate the payout on the machine is “9/6” — that’s a pay out of nine credits for a full house and six credits for a flush. This results an expected payout of 99.5% if correct poker strategy is used over the long run. On cruise ships you will often find “6/5” video poker machines, with a reduced payout of 94.9% over the long-run.

For blackjack – the gold standard is 3-to-2. However on cruise ships tables that pay 6-to-5 on blackjack instead of the normal 3-to-2 are very common at low to medium stakes. If you move to higher limit tables, it mayb be possible to find 3-to-2 blackjack payouts.

If your plan is to get the best payouts on games vs the house (as opposed to cash poker games), then you are are quite often better off playing at land-based casinos.

Poker on cruise ships

Poker comes in three distinct flavors:

• Video poker – where the player plays against a RNG “house” aiming to hit a Royal Flush to win a Jackpot
• Poker Cash Games – where the player competes against other competitors on a single table in a real money cash game (usually Texas Hold’em or Pot Limit Omaha)
• Poker Tournaments – the player competes against other competitors in a tournament format (Tournament chips, and a tournament payout schedule that usually pays the top 12% – 15% of the field

Casinos on cruise ships are laden with hundreds of electronic gambling machines – with video poker terminals even embedded into the bars at the casinos.

If you want to play Texas hold’em cash-games or tournaments with other travelers, sometimes your options may be quite limited.

A lot of cruise companies (e.g. Princess Cruises) and Carnival Liberty Cruises have eliminated human-dealt poker altogether – instead players play against each other using an electronic poker table games (ETGs) to do the dealer’s work (dealing, paying winners) as well as auto posting blinds for players who are sitting in.

On these electronic poker tables on cruise ships players can buy chips and cash them out from these electronic poker tables with their cruise card. The main problem that can arise when these tables are the only poker tables on offer is that if they break while at sea, it might take up to a week for an engineer to fix the problem – leaving only video poker or slots or table games as gambling options on the ship.

What age do you need to be in order to gamble at a cruise-ship casino?

Most US cruise ships are flagged in foreign countries – which means that when they are in international waters they can effectively set their own rules in terms of what age you need to be to drink and gamble at the on-board casino.

Royal Caribbean and Carnival Cruises policies both allow people 18 years or over to gamble in the on-board casino (in contrast with the age of 21 which is law in most US states). These companies’ Alcohol consumption policy on the other hand follows American law – which only allows people ages 21-and-over to drink alcoholic drinks on board.

USA Casino Cruise Ship Companies

There is a vast selection of cruise ships with casinos departing the U.S regularly: