One of Royal Caribbean’s 30 cruise ships has the luckiest casino at sea, according to a recent study done by Casinos.com. The study analysed over 5,000 Tripadvisor reviews, with Wonder of the Seas having the luckiest cruise ship casino.
Carnival Cruise Line’s Mardi Gras had the highest raw luck rate at 36.36%, based on just 66 reviews. Casinos.com used a Bayesian luck score to determine the luckiest casinos.
They analysed keywords including lucky, luck, won, winning, success, jackpot, hand pay, winner, bonus, profit, good fortune, hit big, cashed out, progressive jackpot, big win, high roller, free room, comped, free night, and generous to determine which cruise casino was the luckiest.
The 10 luckiest cruise ship casinos are:
- Wonder of the Seas
- Norwegian Bliss
- Sky Princess
- Anthem of the Seas
- Carnival Mardi Gras
- Carnival Vista
- MSC Meraviglia
- Norwegian Epic
- Azura
- Celebrity Infinity
Wonder of the Seas logged 36.13 luck-keyword mentions per 100 reviews.
Methodology
The raw luck rate is total keyword mentions divided by total reviews. A Bayesian adjustment was then applied for sample-size imbalance: Bayesian Score = (n x R + m x C) / (n + m), where n is the ship’s review count, R is its raw luck rate, m is the median review count across the 17 ships (340), and C is the fleet-wide average luck rate (0.251). Scores are expressed per 1,000 reviews.
The methodology counted keyword frequency in more than 5,000 reviews on Tripadvisor.
A version of the ranking using only the gambling-specific keywords produces a very similar order, with Sky Princess rather than Wonder of the Seas at number one.
Michael Graham, casino expert at Casinos.com, gave the following statement:
“Gambling at sea is the least transparent form of casino gambling most people will ever try. On land you can look up Nevada’s slot hold or Pennsylvania’s statutory minimum paybacks. At sea there is no equivalent number, because nobody is required to publish one.
“What that means in practice is that the only information a passenger has is the room itself. Is it busy, is it staffed properly, is there a tournament schedule, are the table limits and the payouts posted clearly? Look for 3:2 blackjack rather than 6:5, and check the roulette wheel for a single zero before you sit down, because at sea you will often find double zero as standard.
“And remember the casino only opens once the ship is out of territorial waters. On a port-heavy itinerary that can mean very little playing time, which is no bad thing for anybody trying to keep a holiday budget intact.”
Looking for the Best Cruise Deals?
Search Multiple Sites at Once
Instant Real Time Pricing
Search Now
