The Project
As online sports betting became legalized in the United States, Yahoo Sportsbook was created to provide sports fans the ability to bet on their favorite teams and games with our partner BetMGM.
My Role
As design lead for the sports design team, I led the Yahoo Sportsbook design initiative from conception to launch across multiple platforms and teams. The design objective was to make sports betting feel approachable for experts and novices alike.
The Outcome
Sports betting became a top company initiative starting in 2019. Within the first year, we reached over 22K registered users in 8 legal states, exceeding our goal by 157%. The product has continued to grow rapidly as regulations allowed for launch in new states.
Intro: A Different Approach to Sports Betting
Online sports betting is intimidating and complicated across nearly all competitor products, mainly because most are built for betting experts. Because Yahoo Sports’ user base encompasses many types of sports fans, we took a different approach to separate us from competitors:
To provide all of our users with a welcoming betting experience that is user friendly, approachable, and easy to understand.
Highlights & Key Features
Sports Betting “How-To” Guide
Goal
To educate curious users about the basics of sports betting so they feel safe and comfortable trying it
Outcome
A step-by-step guide with a breakdown on reading betting modules, video tutorials explaining betting terminology, and a bet calculator for understanding how bets and payouts are determined
In user testing, both new bettors and experts found the betting guide informative and helpful
A closer look at the full betting ‘how-to’ page on web:
Sports Betting Hub
Goal
To provide users with a dedicated betting hub to place bets, browse promotions, consume premium betting content, and explore helpful betting resources
To increase number of registered bettors and drive 25% growth in sports betting articles and video
Outcome
During user testing, users noted that the new tab relayed a huge amount of betting content and information in a way that was clean and easy to read
“This would be useful for me when making my picks because I will have one reputable place to research information before betting, I can bet from here, and I have different ways to learn (news, video, stats).” - A user during user testing
Placing a Bet
Goal
To allow users to begin placing bets on their favorite teams and games within the Yahoo Sports app and then seamlessly complete the process with BetMGM
To align with BetMGM’s design without compromising our app’s design system
Outcome
The bet slip drove +35% of total conversions to BetMGM
Betting Insights
Goal
To aid in informed betting decisions by providing users with helpful betting insights, considering most sportsbooks intentionally hide this data from their users
Outcome
In user testing, 80% of users understood these insights and thought they were useful for researching future games/bets
“I think the public bets section is really interesting. It gives me a sense of what other people are thinking and as someone who is new to sports betting it’s something that can help me make a more informed decision” - A user during user testing
