Jackpots Ahoy! These are the Best Casinos at Sea

We’ve all been there: dragged onto a cruise because some really smart family member decided that the best way to spend your hard-earned vacation days is on the cheapest Royal Caribbean ship. 

But hey, there’s a positive: most cruise ships have casinos! You might just stand a chance to hit the jackpot while the rest of the fam hangs out by the pool.

If you’re cruising with MSC, Norwegian, Royal Caribbean, or any of the other major cruise providers, it’s likely that you’ll find slots and table games on board. The only exception here is Disney, which is more family-focused, so they don’t have casinos on board.

There are definitely some cruises where the casino offering is more “local bingo hall” and less “high-roller room at the Bellagio,” so if a decent gambling offering is a major deciding factor in which cruise line you’re going to opt for, we can help.

We decided to do an in-depth analysis of the casinos on board top cruise liners. We tried our hardest, but, yet again, our boss wouldn’t give us the budget to go off and review the casinos on 30 different cruise ships. The audacity!

Instead, we headed to Tripadvisor and counted the mentions of words like “casino,” “slots,” and “blackjack” to figure out which ship has the best casino. Based on the number of mentions, we calculated a percentage of mentions per 100 reviews. 

Here's our final ranking: 

The best cruise ship casino can be found on the Carnival Cruise Line Mardi Gras. This ship got 14 keyword mentions out of 60 reviews, resulting in 23.33 mentions per 100. The Mardi Gras ship sails to both the Caribbean and Europe and holds over 6,000 people. 

_{Carnival Cruise Line’s Mardi Gras ranks as the top cruise ship casino. (Image: Joni Hanebutt)}

Nine reviews called out the word “casino,” including one that said, “The casino seemed like the highlight of the boat, as it took up almost 1 full floor.” 

Now, that’s either a big compliment for the casino or a bit of an insult for the rest of the ship. You can decide. Other reviews mentioned that the casino was “huge” and “super clean.” 

Next up, Norwegian Encore received 18.92 keyword mentions per hundred reviews, with the most common keywords being “casino,” “best casino,” and “slots.” 

“The casino gave away at least 5 jackpots the first night (I heard there were more but I saw 5 hand pays),” said one happy reviewer. Although they went on to call out that one of the jackpots went to a YouTuber, so they thought it might be a setup. 

We’re here to remind you again that slot machines use Random Number Generators, so we’d love to know how that mysterious YouTuber is supposed to have rigged it…

Coming in at third place is another Norwegian liner, the Escape. The ship goes everywhere from Canada and New England to the Caribbean and even all the way across the Atlantic. 

So it makes sense that there have to be tons of entertainment options on board, including the casino. It got 16.57 mentions per 100 reviews. “Casino” and “slots” came up pretty often, but no one mentioned any of the table games. 

“The casino was nice with lots of choices of gaming,” said one person, although others had complaints about the smell from the smoking section leaking out into other parts of the casino and even the rest of the deck. 

The Carnival Cruise Line Carnival Celebration placed fourth on our list, with nine keyword mentions out of a total of 55 reviews, so the final rating was 16.36 mentions per 100 reviews. 

_{Launched in November 2022, Carnival Celebration honors Carnival’s 50th anniversary as the sister ship to the Mardi Gras. (Image: Courtesy of The Carnival Cruise Line)}

This is quite a new ship, having launched in 2022, and it’s basically a city on the water. With six zones to explore, there are pools, restaurants, entertainment venues, and, of course, gambling options. 

One person called out the casino as part of a comprehensive review of the cruise, saying, “We love the casino and the large selection of new slot machines. If you're a non-smoker, half the casino is non-smoking, so you can enjoy it as well as smokers. The bartenders in the casino were excellent; you had a drink within 5 minutes at a very busy bar.” 

Finally, in fifth position we have the Norwegian Joy, with a rating of 14.95 mentions per 100 reviews. That’s the third Norwegian cruise ship so far, which makes us think that this company really caters to keen gamblers. 

“Casino” and “best casino” were mentioned most frequently, and seven reviews also called out “slots,” so we were keen to see what people were saying. “Lady luck was so-so at first but we managed to hit in the casino on the last night”, said one review, and another added, “So many fun things to do on this ship, plus a smoke-free casino.”

While one person said that the house edge was higher than at other casinos, we can’t verify that. Maybe they were just upset at not winning.

Of course, the main draw of a cruise is not really the casino. It’s the excursions, the pools, the entertainment, and the unlimited food. You’re not there to play Buffalo. Anyway, let’s take a look at some of the ships that score so poorly, you might want to skip the casino entirely if you visit.

There were a few ships that got absolutely no mentions of the word "casino," so they’re likely to not have a gambling space at all, or it’s so bad it’s not even worth considering. One that got a few mentions was Costa Smeralda, but there were only 0.65 per 100 reviews. 

One particularly scathing review was titled “Christmas Ruined” and bemoaned the children running around the ship. “This also applied to the casino, where children watched in awe as their parents threw away lots of money without thinking.”

Another ship with a very poor rating was MSC World Europa, with a frequency of 0.66 per hundred reviews. “Casino – don’t go to them unless you want to lose money,” said one review. No mentions of winning money, we noticed. 

The ship currently sails around the Mediterranean, but in 2026 and onwards it’s anticipated to start cruising Dubai and Qatar, making for a unique experience. So maybe it’s still worth your time, even if the casino isn’t rated as one of the best.

Doing very slightly better, with five keyword mentions and a rating of 0.93 per 100 reviews, was the Costa Cruises Costa Toscana. 

Costa’s flagship offering, the Toscana offers Italian and world cuisine, themed bars and lounges, and entertainment every night, plus the onboard Granducato casino has slots and table games like roulette and poker. But it’s not all good news. 

One review said that “for a ship of 5,000 passengers, it did not have enough shopping, casinos or pools,” while another called out the pinball offering but said very little about the actual slots and casino table games. 

We were surprised to see that Disney Cruise Line's Disney Wish got two keyword mentions, resulting in a rating of 2.6% on the scale.

_{Disney cruises might lack casinos, but if you’re dragged aboard, at least there’s enough entertainment to distract you from the missing slot machines. (Image: Rosemarie Mosteller)}

Didn’t we literally just say that Disney doesn’t have casinos on board? Well, one review here said that Disney is the best cruise line out there, and anyone who tells you different is just looking for a casino. Fair enough, we can’t really argue with that at all.

Don’t worry too much if the kids drag you onto a Disney cruise – while you might not be able to play your favorite slots, there are other entertainment options like cinematic dining experiences, deck parties, and waterslides, so we’re sure you’ll be okay.

Methodology

Casinos.com utilized Tripadvisor reviews to do an in-depth analysis of phrases associated with casinos to determine the cruise ship that has the best casino. We calculated the percentage of casino-related mentions per hundred Tripadvisor reviews.

Keywords tracked: casino, best casino, blackjack, craps, baccarat, roulette, slots;

Disclaimer 

The data in this article is intended for entertainment purposes only. Casinos.com does not claim any one cruise casino to be “better” than another. Please don’t use the information presented in this article as gambling or betting advice, and as always, please bet responsibly. 

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