PatsPicks.ai
Project Overview
People love to bet on things, but oftentimes, they don’t have the knowledge to be profitable in their bets. That’s where PatsPicks.AI comes in. In 2021, the founder, Pat Roberts, realized the importance of understanding the math and statistics behind sportsbook odds work. He became determined to make positive net earnings and began to focus his energy on educating himself, using his engineering background to research betting and performance thoroughly before placing bets.​
This Project
Responsive Web Design
My Role
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UX Research
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Branding
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UX/UI Design
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Testing
Duration
​3 weeks
The Process
Define
Research Plan
Sports betting offers an exciting way to engage with sports, but it also presents challenges like financial losses and addiction. Educating the public on how exactly sportsbooks work and how to beat them is Patrick’s main goal. He wants his website to promote clarity and transparency into the sports betting process, including the wins and losses that come with it.
Problem Statement
Many bettors struggle with understanding complex bet types and odds, leading to uninformed decisions, while companies that control the market encourage frequent betting through promotions and high-risk options. Without proper education and responsible strategies, these factors can drive risky behaviors and serious personal consequences.
Research Goal
Create a place where users can gain insight into sports betting education and learn tactics on how to make smart financial decisions when choosing to bet.
Research Methods
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Competitor Analysis
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User Interviews
Conducting Research
Competitor Analysis
DraftKings
OddsJam
Unabated
Unique Value Propositions
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Offers a wide range of gaming options, including sports betting, iGaming, and daily fantasy sports (DFS)
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The mobile app is widely recognized as one of the most user-friendly and visually appealing in the market.
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Focuses on real-time odds comparison across multiple sportsbooks to help users find value bets.
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Provides tools for arbitrage betting—allowing users to place risk-free bets by exploiting price discrepancies.
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Offers a blend of real-time odds comparison across sportsbooks to help users find edge bets.
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Aimed at data-driven bettors, setting it apart from mainstream betting apps focused more on casual users.
Company Advantages
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Offers a low minimum deposit threshold, making it accessible to more users.
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Operates across 23 U.S. states with sportsbook services and has a presence in Ontario, Canada.
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High brand recognition due to extensive marketing campaigns and sponsorships.
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Aggregates odds from multiple sportsbooks, offering an edge to bettors by showing the most favorable lines.
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Works with both beginner and professional bettors, making it a versatile platform.
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Niche appeal to sophisticated bettors looking for analytics and strategy guidance.
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Subscription-based services diversify revenue beyond traditional betting activities.
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Provides educational resources, fostering a loyal and informed user base.
Company Disadvantages
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Intense competition from other sportsbooks like FanDuel and Caesars.
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Customer acquisition costs are high, impacting profitability despite revenue growth.
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Limited appeal to casual bettors who prefer entertainment-focused platforms
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Reliant on sportsbook partnerships for data accuracy—any changes could disrupt the service.
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Limited visibility in mainstream media, making user acquisition more challenging.
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Niche focus limits appeal to casual bettors compared to mass-market apps like DraftKings or FanDuel.
User Interviews
I used affinity mapping to organize and analyze my user research results. It revealed user wants for transparency & breakdowns of the machine learning models and simplistic education and easy-to-understand information.
User Personas
I created two personas to represent users of my website. These personas helped me to keep my focus on the end user throughout the design process.
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The user Maddy highlights people new to the sports betting world. She started betting for fun when spending time with her friends that are already into it. She is interested in simple information providing an easy education into sports betting best practices.
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The second persona, Brandon, is a statistics master. He bets smart and does his research before putting money towards bets. He likes to deep-dive into how the different betting platforms make money and tries to understand how predictions are formed. His pain points lie in a lack of transparency in most online betting models.
Research Takeaways
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Most people bet based on statistics, but occasionally will rely on their instincts
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Common challenges are confusing odds formats, difficulty in interpreting complex betting decisions, and the overwhelming amount of information available
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People would be very interested in interactive learning tools to simplify the odds & betting strategies
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In terms of design, people favor a clean, simple interface, focusing on communicating the data by means of visual displays
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People would enjoy features to track their betting performance and receive bet recommendation notifications
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In regard to predictive models, those that are interested in them want to see transparency and consistent success and payout from them
Ideate
Determining the MVP
Due to time constraints, I would not be able to create a product with every feature that the app would offer. I needed to prioritize features based on those of highest importance to my user and to my business. I created a prioritization matrix to determine the version of the app with just enough features to be usable by early customers who can then provide feedback for future product development.
Product Roadmapping
I listed out potential features to include and placed them where I thought best in the prioritization matrix. Based on the results from this matrix, I determined that on this first wave of designing, I will focus on building out the education sections to promote transparency. I also wanted to focus on showcasing information and statistics compiled from the machine learning model.
Site Structure
Sitemapping
To understand the mental models of the people who would be using our product, I conducted a card sort after determining my MVP. From the card sorts that I conducted, key categories emerged as:
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Education
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Machine Learning Bet Suggestions
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Performance Tracking
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Social Media Links
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Tools
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About Pat
Interaction Design
User Flows
I created three user flows to highlight the key pathways users would follow when using the PatsPicks.ai:
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Review the Top 5 Players of the day
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View social media posts for bet suggestions to place
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Gain knowledge into a specific area of betting
Design
UI Components
Brand Guide
Brand Values
I started the brand creation process by brainstorming the values that I want my brand to stand for. PatsPicks.ai focuses on:
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Transparency & Integrity with how bets play out
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Education and Empowerment
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Gamble Responsibly, bet smarter - not harder
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User-friendly, simplified tools and information
Color Palette
I wanted my app to resemble the calm, serene atmosphere when skiing in the backcountry. I used blue as the main color throughout the design to provide a sense of trust and reliability. Which I then paired with purple to show quality.
Typography
I chose typography that would align well with my brand values and the simplicity and readability of my app. I chose my header font as it is elegant, yet simplistic, and my secondary font as a way to continue to add simplicity and readability.
Brand Logo
When it came to brainstorming ideas for my logo, I knew that I wanted it to feature sports and machine learning. The main portion of the design resembles AI and Machine Learning, and the oval in the center is a very subtle reference to football.
Prototyping
Sketches
High-Fidelity Mockups
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Testing
Usability Testing
After building out my high-fidelity prototypes, I conducted usability testing on 5 potential users of the app. There weren't many edits to make for the current version, but there were a few to put on the list for Phase 2.
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Edits I made from the usability testing were:
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Add "Top Players" quick link on homepage
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Edit Protyping issues
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Suggestions for Phase 2:​
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Add a progress tracker to the education section
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Social Media platforms could stand out more with icons
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Search bar or filter in Education section to quickly find specific topics
Final Prototype
Closing Insights
Final Remarks
This was such an interesting project! I’m so glad that my brother was looking for a website because it gave me an opportunity to work on a project where I truly have no background on the subject. It was not only a learning experience in terms of gaining knowledge about sports betting, but it was also a helpful experience for taking on future projects and being comfortable with not knowing anything about the topic
Next Steps
I plan on continuing to work on this website in the future. We want to make this a real, working website so myself and the client (my brother) plan on working with a developer, if not working through building the code together.
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I think the website is a great starting point. Building this out, we wanted to get all of our ideas into an initial mockup and I think this did just that. The machine learning model that Patrick has created is still a work in progress, so once that is completed, we want to focus a lot of time and energy into building out visuals that can explain in-depth what the predictions are and why they have produced the results that they did.
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I am excited to see where we take this website in the future!