The Ballsbet Experience

Overview.

ROLE

UX Designer - contractor

TIMELINE

3 Weeks

TOOLS USED

Miro / Figma

This is a fictitious UX design project.

The context of this case study is as if presenting to stakeholders as a fictional intern at DiamondWater.

Using dark patterns to discourage gambling behaviour

Ballsbet is a sports-gambling app with the intention to become one of Australia’s most inclusive, accessible and ethical gambling apps. They wish to provide the betting population with a seamless, secure and private experience for gamblers to bet in real-time with minimal set-up. They want to particularly target users who are budget conscious, experiencing addiction or want to use it as a low-risk form of entertainment.

Executive Summary.

Business Challenge: Sports-betting apps are a popular past time for Australians as it creates a feeling of connection between an individual and sports they feel passionate towards. It also offers the possibility of connection with friends who engage similarly in gambling practices. However problem gambling can lead to potential financial harm and social consequences when self-control can’t be exercised. There is a big gap in the market for sports-betting apps that have the user in mind, particularly those at risk of gambling addiction.

Solution: To create UX friction that gradually makes betting unsustainable. This is through using dark pattern methods in an ethical manner to introduce personal accountability notifications and a hidden subscription model.

Impact: This will reduce a user’s frequency of gambling, improve their self-regulation and lower their financial harm. It would also give back members’ control and autonomy (important in recovering from addiction).

The Business Problem.

High gambling engagement: It is easy for members to make impulsive bets on sports-betting apps which have downstream deleterious effects that are often unexpected. This can flow into social consequences and weaken personal relationships.

Financial blind spots: Generally users of sports-betting apps don’t immediately feel the financial or social impact of regularly placing bets. This makes it easy to continue and reinforce unhealthy betting behaviour.

Lack of accountability: It’s easy for users to place bets in private given the functionality of sports-betting apps. This makes it easy for them to hide unhealthy habits from family and friends and reinforce this behaviour.

  • A higher frequency of users involved in wagering on sports-betting sites are more likely to place impulse bets and be considered ‘problem gamblers’ (Hing et al., 2018)

  • Psychological distress is associated with a higher frequency of sports betting (Gainsbury et al., 2019)

  • 81% of adults in an Australia-wide survey believe governments should restrict sports-betting more tightly (Hing, Rockloff & Browne, 2023)

Things to Consider.

Research & Market Insights.

Secondary Research.

Secondary research involved performing an analysis of online reviews for sports-betting apps such as Neds, Sportsbet, Tab and PointsBet and then developing a comparative analysis of features that have the potential to impact the behaviour of gambling addicts.

From an analysis of online reviews, it was found that sports-betting customers find the following important:

  • Seamless server integration

  • Quick and responsive features

  • Easy and efficient to navigate

  • Ability to watch live events seamlessly

  • More frequent updates from live events

  • A short timeframe for winnings to appear in their account

  • Least resistance and time spent possible when signing in to the app or joining

  • Ability to get their money back if requested

They also appeared to want to satisfy the following desires:

  • Instant gratification

  • The ability to fulfil tasks quickly and efficiently

  • To feel like their time wasn’t wasted

  • To feel like they belong to a group

  • To feel involved in their sport or race of choice (like they are attending a live event)

  • The need to feel connected to their money

  • To offset guilt for gambling by complaining about app usage

  • To have interests outside of work

It was found from the competitor analysis that most betting apps use gamification, seamless payments and bonuses to encourage more frequent betting and user engagement.

Competitor Analysis.

Mapping the Journey.

I then mapped the journey from logging in to placing a bet in Sportsbet, Tab and Neds to discover key pain points and opportunities. This revealed the following:

Key user pain points:

  • Members like to place bets quickly, efficiently and in real time for live events. Frustration occurs when the app is not responsive, laggy or there are too many options to select before placing a bet

  • Members want the least resistance and time spent possible in the onboarding process

  • Members feel frustration if the winnings don’t land in their account instantly or if they are denied a refund for selecting an incorrect option (they want to feel they are still in ownership of their money)

Key Business Pain Points:

  • There is no friction in placing multiple and consecutive bets

  • There are no obstacles slowing betters from making impulse-driven decisions

  • Betters don’t realise the long-term consequences or cumulative financial impact until they are forced to recover

Key Insights:

  • Betters like an easy-to-navigate and simplified app to make it quicker to place bets (follow a path of least resistance)

  • Users like watching live events to feel as though they are connected to their favourite sports and they belong to a community

  • They are likely to compromise their privacy and sensitive data (i.e. location, biometrics and bank details) if it means their instant gratification is fulfilled

My journey map for placing a bet has been embedded below.

A current state BDA storyboard was created to detail the story of current regular sports betters:

Solution Strategy.

Business & Ethical Goals.

Combined with an analysis of the ethics involved in creating obstacles to deter sports-betting app users, the following business goals were developed:

  1. To introduce friction and implement subtle obstacles/deterrents to minimise the risk of impulsive betting

  2. Encourage accountability and personal financial responsibility

  3. Increase awareness of their own personal finances

The ways this will be incorporated:

  1. Forced action: During the onboarding process, members are required to nominate two contacts who will receive text message notifications when a bet is placed. This will create social pressure through third-party notifications

  2. Hidden subscription: Members will be charged weekly for use of the app and will only be notified when they check their account information. This will make frequent betting unsustainable

A shift must occur from conventional UX strategies such as usability, desirability and utility to interactions with the users’ overall wellbeing in mind. This may mean strategies to uphold ethical principles could contravene ease of use and desirability (Brey 2012). These principled interventions are warranted to support problem gamblers in alignment with DiamondWater’s principles:

  1. Transform limitations to potential: Individuals with a gambling addiction or lower budget may feel limited in finding ways to cease and recover betting or participate without higher deposits. Adding limitations to the app’s capabilities will uncover members’ potential to recover from addiction or invest their money in healthier lifestyle options

  2. Bounce back and spring forward: Our disruptive methodology will be frustrating for members at first; however, they will later realise harnessing their willpower and resilience will build them stronger than before

  3. Quality design for a better world: Using dark pattern methods for the good of members and their loved ones; to give members the feeling of having their life back in their own hands and taking control (autonomy)

  4. Innovate for the service of others: We design with the gambling addicts in mind with disrupting their experience in their best interest

A Warranted Intervention.

UX & Psychological Strategy.

There is a mandatory contact nomination when signing up to the Ballsbet app:

  • This contact will receive an automated text message when a bet is placed by the Ballsbet user

  • The added social pressure of notifying kin will slowly discourage the user from participating in excessive gambling

There will be a hidden subscription model:

  • Overtime the subscription fees will progress to increase. This will make it unsustainable for long term app use

  • Users initially won’t notice the impact of this until it becomes excessive and hard to maintain the habit of placing frequent bets

UX & Technical Strategy.

These were the rapid ideation Crazy 8s I used to develop the two intervention strategies for Ballsbet.

I also developed the future-state BDA storyboard to portray how adopting notifications and a hidden rising subscription could hinder gambling addicts from placing bets.

Design Implementation.

User Flow and Wireframes.

Figma prototype of registration process

Due to time constraints, two screens were created. These include a ‘getting started’ and registration page.

The registration page includes the following features:

  • Contact nomination with their relationship and details to send mobile notification after betting

  • Notice of a ‘dynamic service fee’ in the Terms and Conditions that are discrete. Users will eventually notice different fees being charged to their account under varying descriptions. These may include ‘processing fees’, ‘service adjustment’ fees and ‘miscellaneous’

The following steps are an example of how hidden fee changes inconspicuously change overtime:

  1. Terms and Conditions state in small print there is a ‘dynamic service fee’

  2. A user places a bet for $10 with zero increase in fees (reinforces trust)

  3. Two weeks later the user places a $10 bet and their balances is reduced by $10.50 (labelled a ‘processing fee’ instead of ‘subscription’ in statement)

  4. Next $10 bet placed the user is deducted $12 and appears as a ‘service adjustment’ in the statement (no notifications sent)

  5. User then navigates to settings to view payment options and statements reveal a steady increase in payments made but there is still no ‘subscription’ description (comes out as ‘miscellaneous’)

  6. The user is forced to 1) reduce betting frequency, 2) stop betting altogether or 3) contact customer support where there is the potential for another possible intervention

Business Impact and Metrics.

ROI & Cost Savings.

There are numerous projected outcomes when the above changes are put into place:

  • There will be a reduction in total bets placed per user

  • There will be an increase in users lowering how often they bet overtime

  • There will be a higher number of users reaching out for support on how to stop betting and for self-exclusion

Designing Ballsbet in a way that employs dark matters for good will discourage harmful betting behaviour rather than discouraging it. In doing so, Ballsbet aligns with regulatory compliance and long-term sustainability.

Lessons Learnt and Next Steps.

Future enhancements could include increasing the barriers required to place a bet (adaptive friction). There is also the option for AI to help input betting limits depending on betting behaviour.

In terms of scalability, these interventions could extend to other high-risk gambling markets rather than just the sports-betting space.

Enhancements and Scalability.

Final Thoughts.

Dark patterns can be used as a force for good when we can shift the users behaviour without removing their independence or autonomy. In this way sports-betting apps can continue whilst promoting healthier behaviour amongst its users.

References

Brey, P. (2012). Anticipating Ethical Issues in Emerging IT. Ethics and information technology, 14(4), 305–317. https://philpapers.org/rec/BREAEI

Gainsbury, S.M., Angus, D.J. & Blaszczynski, A. (2019). Isolating the impact of specific gambling activities and modes on problem gambling and psychological distress in internet gamblers. BMC Public Health, 19(1372). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-019-7738-5

Hing, N., Rockloff, M., & Browne, M. (2023). A bad bet for sports fans: the case for ending the “gamblification” of sport. Sport Management Review, 26(5), 788–812. https://doi.org/10.1080/14413523.2023.2260079

Hing, N., Russell, A. M. T., Li, E., & Vitartas, P. (2018). Does the uptake of wagering inducements predict impulse betting on sport?. Journal of behavioral addictions, 7(1), 146–157. https://doi.org/10.1556/2006.7.2018.17

Valenciano-Mendoza, E., Mora-Maltas, B., Mestre-Bach, G., Munguía, L., Richard, J., Derevensky, J. L., Potenza, M. N., & Jiménez-Murcia, S. (2023). Clinical Correlates of Sports Betting: A Systematic Review. Journal of gambling studies, 39(2), 579–624. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10899-023-10196-0