Virgin Voyages’ casino onboard the Resilient Lady ship offers interesting Blackjack and Craps gambling opportunities paired with credit card rewards, but the awful Video Poker paytables told me to abandon ship — or at least the casino.
Ahoy! I’m currently cruising with Virgin Voyages thanks to a status match promotion with Ocean Casino Resort — not Oceans or Ocean’s — in Atlantic City. I paid about $300 for the cruise, which includes taxes & fees and premium Wi-Fi. The casino offer also includes two complimentary drinks per day at coffee bars throughout the ship and complimentary drinks while actively gambling.
The Good Stuff Onboard
While the Video Poker was bad, Virgin Voyages offers lots of good, including quality food, even The Galley food hall, where food is fresh and made-to-order, unlike many other cruises that have buffet lines of food that may have been sitting for hours. My Sea View room is also spacious, comfortable, and modern. Housekeeping has also been timely with cleaning my room during mealtimes.
The offer from Ocean Casino Resort also allows me to make fee-free room charges with an attached credit card to get casino chips at table games or to load funds onto electronic games like Video Poker. Gain an advantage on low house-edge games because of the credit card rewards!
Where the Casino Math Gets Interesting
Video Poker paytables were terrible, with about a 4% house edge, so that’s out of the question for me. 3:2 Blackjack was reasonable with $15 minimum bets and seemingly decent rules except for dealer hitting on soft 17. Craps tables had $10 minimum bets.
Sticking to $15 Blackjack bets, playing basic strategy, and splitting and doubling when called for allows for a good opportunity to have an advantage using a credit card with 4% cashback, like the Altitude Connect. Craps isn’t bad, either, just betting the pass line for a house edge of about 1.4%.
Ideally, you’d be charging to a cruise-bonusing credit card and be working on welcome bonus spending or a high spend goal, but this isn’t always available.
Avoid the 6:5 Trap
Virgin Voyages also offered single-deck 6:5 Blackjack at $10 a hand, a terrible deal, but as usual, cruisers were still playing, likely not being aware of the bad Blackjack payout or only focusing on the minimum bet amount. Please don’t reward casinos for spreading bad games like Triple Zero Roulette and 6:5 Blackjack that likely exist only because players continue to play them.
On multiple occasions, I saw open seats at 3:2 Blackjack, but people were still playing 6:5 Blackjack, even betting more than $15. In a previous TravelZork article, I wrote that lower table minimums often don’t offer good value.
A Good Play, But Not at Scale
In my experience, table game play hasn’t been scalable. I’d buy in one or two times, play a short session, and then a manager would want to talk to me away from the table, lamenting my continued room charges. I would explain that I charge to my room because I have a credit card attached, and want a rebate on my play, and won’t play with cash.
Still, they backed me off, so I wasn’t able to charge much to my room overall. Playing longer sessions would erode my advantage, as that 4% cashback is only gained on the initial deposit, and hours of play would not make for a profitable opportunity. The math looks good on paper (America Loves Math), but when you aren’t able to charge much to your room, the advantage isn’t attainable at scale.
I would happily play Video Poker — attracting less casino attention for a backoff — even with a 2-3% house edge, playing through funds once, and getting 4% back in credit card cashback. Playing what is close to a breakeven proposition isn’t appealing when I could instead pursue other opportunities on the ship, as entertainment and food, even the special restaurants, are included.
Final Thoughts from Resilient Lady
Datapoints I have read also suggest low stakes or low volume Video Poker doesn’t yield return cruise offers or other rewards onboard. However, the comp drinks while gambling can be appealing, but I’m not a big drinker. Maybe Craps, sticking to the pass line, can be a “drinking game” where your accuracy doesn’t matter as it would in Video Poker.
As always, use credit responsibly and gamble intelligently.
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