The Surprising Overlap In Skills Required To Fly An Aircraft And To Excel At iGaming

by Chloe Martin
Vancouver, Canada (SPX) Oct 01, 2025

Many children grow up wanting to be a pilot but the skills required to gain a pilot license are not easy to master. Gaining a pilot license requires a great amount of specialist aviation knowledge, excellent decision-making and a high level of physical and cognitive skills.

While iGaming can be perceived as nothing more than a fun hobby to some people, success in iGaming requires a certain skillset and good decision-making. Playing casino games doesn't mean you will be a natural aircraft pilot, but there are lots of transferable skills that apply across both.

Skill Overlaps in Flying an Aircraft and iGaming Excellence

Here are some of the surprising overlaps between flying aircrafts and excelling at iGaming:

Hand-eye Co-ordination

Pilots require a high level of hand-eye co-ordination so that they can safely navigate aircraft, adapting to environmental factors such as high winds and other weather elements. They need to ensure wings are kept level and landings and take-offs must be smooth, which are largely reliant on having excellent hand-eye co-ordination.

In iGaming, people with good hand-eye co-ordination tend to enjoy more success. Being able to quickly react to click or tap buttons before their time runs out increases the chance of winning. In online poker, players must react quickly to other players' bets and other games like crash games or shooting gallery bonuses require a good level of hand-eye co-ordination to achieve successful outcomes.

Emotional Control

The importance of emotional control for a pilot is of the highest level, with people's safety at risk, controlling emotions in intense situations is paramount to being able to make calm decisions. While the consequences of losing emotional control in iGaming are not as severe, it can lead to financial losses.

Having the state of mind to not panic in challenging circumstances is an essential strategy for iGaming success, as emotional betting can lead to players chasing losses when they are not thinking rationally. For example, playing a game of blackjack Canada at an online casino often requires players to know when to walk away and stop betting to avoid a losing streak.

Risk Management

One of the most vital skills for pilots is to be competent at assessing and mitigating risks. From performing pre-flight safety inspections to identify any potential issues to mid-flight risk management such as route changes, pilots must have advanced skills in risk management to keep passengers and the aircraft safe.

Online gambling is heavily risk-based and successful bettors develop a strong awareness of risks, outcome probabilities and knowing when the risk is not worth the reward. For long-term success in iGaming, players learn to effectively manage their bankroll to avoid losing more than they can afford.

Fast Decision-Making

Flying an aircraft relies on making lots of decisions in a high-pressure environment. Pilots undergo many years of training to ensure that they are adequately skilled to do the job and training includes assessments of how well they can make decisions when put into high-pressure situations. Pilots often have to adapt to unexpected situations, such as technical issues, adverse weather conditions and other potential safety risks. This requires fast and calm decision-making skills.

Playing fast-paced iGames such as poker or blackjack with a live dealer will also require fast decision making, with players needing to make snap decisions based on a quick review of the cards that have been played to choose the most suitable action.

Focus

Pilots must have a strong ability to focus to maintain full concentration from the moment they board the aircraft to when they have safely landed and passengers have disembarked. Long-haul flight times can require many hours of concentration and although modern aircrafts have auto-pilot technology, pilots must still remain focused in case of any unexpected issues.

When playing iGames, players are often focusing for long session times. Games of poker can go on for hours, so being able to focus for extended periods of time is key to maintaining high performance levels and making important decisions throughout the length of the game.

Tech-Savvy

Aircraft pilots must have an advanced understanding of technology and there are many different systems that they need to control. This includes navigation systems, meteorology and a whole range of instruments that control different aspects of the aircraft.

Online casinos are also geared more for people that have a good understanding of technology, with apps and website features that appeal more to the tech-savvy population.

As you can see, there are many surprising skill overlaps between aircraft flying and iGaming that you might not have been aware of.