Sweat the games, not the flight
At the end of July, Delta Airlines launched a new free-to-play sports betting contest in partnership with DraftKings. Called SkyPicks, the in-flight game allows U.S. domestic passengers to test their sports-picking skills against other travelers around the country for a chance to win Delta gift cards.
As noted, SkyPicks is free-to-play – there is absolutely no real money involved. That said, passengers must be at least 21 years old have a DraftKings login to participate. Only people currently on a Delta flight and hooked into the airplane’s Wi-Fi can play.
I had heard about SkyPicks, so I was looking forward to trying it out this weekend while flying to take my daughter back to college. It took me a little while to find the game, so I’ll save you some time: you access it through your phone or laptop, not on the seatback entertainment screen.
When I connected to the plane’s Wi-Fi, I brought up the in-flight homepage on my phone’s browser, and a SkyPicks link was right there. Clicked it, logged in with my DraftKings info, and it was time to enter a contest.
Limited options
I was a little disappointed to see that there was only one contest available and it was limited in its game selection, at that. My flight was on a Saturday, but instead of offering a contest with picks for Saturday night’s baseball games or even Sunday’s games, it had picks for just two games – Cubs vs. White Sox and Dodgers vs. Rockies – on Monday night. The next contest is for Thursday’s MLB games.
That said, I clicked the contest and made my picks. There were 11 total decisions to make, a mixture of straight bets and prop bets. Again, no money on the line and no odds to worry about. Just things like “Which team will win?” and “Which player will have the most hits?”. There was also a tiebreaker question at the end, just in case.
It was easy, not much thought required, although I did check some players’ stats to try to make more informed choices. I locked in my picks and that was that. SkyPicks can only be played in-flight, but if you have made your picks, you can edit them after you have landed, provided the games have not started.
I was confused as to how to view my results (to be fair, I probably just failed to read every instruction), but found a SkyPicks confirmation e-mail in my inbox, which gave me a link to the contest. It is also this link via which I could have changed my picks.
I did ok, getting seven of my 11 picks correct, good for 175th out of 500 entries. It wasn’t good enough for any prizes, though. This contest awarded $300 in Delta Airlines gift cards – $150 for 1st place, $100 for 2nd place, and $50 for 3rd place.
A few minutes of entertainment
All in all, I would describe the Delta SkyPicks experience as “fine.” Once I realized the game was on my phone and not the seatback screen, everything was easy, though it would have been nice to not need a DraftKings login (of course, SkyPicks wouldn’t exist with DraftKings, so perhaps that is too much to ask).
Once I made my picks in the only contest available, there was nothing else to do. No other contests, nothing interesting to peruse. One batch of picks and done. So as a sports fan, it was a fun little distraction with a chance to win something of value against a fairly small field, the entertainment was short-lived.
Is it worth it? Yeah, sure, if you already have a DraftKings login. I wouldn’t create one just for this, though. And while there is certainly the argument that this is just another gateway to problem gambling, if you’re already familiar enough with sports betting to have a DraftKings account, SkyPicks is a fun enough piece of brief entertainment to make it worth your time on a flight.
Image credit: Delta Airlines
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