Sportsbook design is one of the hardest UX challenges in digital products. You're presenting thousands of markets, live odds that change every second, and complex multi-leg bet construction — all on a 390px wide phone screen, to users who are time-pressured and emotionally invested.
Most operators fail this challenge in predictable ways. After auditing over 40 sportsbook interfaces, we've identified the mistakes that recur across platforms — regardless of whether they're using an off-the-shelf PAM or a bespoke build.
Mistake 1: Treating the Bet Slip as an Afterthought
The bet slip is the conversion point of a sportsbook. Every design decision that makes it harder to review, edit, or submit a bet costs money. Yet it's typically the least-designed part of the product.
Common bet slip failures: scrolling required to see total stake and potential winnings simultaneously, stake input that's hard to tap precisely on mobile, no clear path to remove a selection, and error states that don't explain what went wrong.
Fix: design the bet slip as a first-class feature with persistent visibility, large tap targets, inline stake presets (£5, £10, £25), and a summary line that shows stake and returns in one glance.
Mistake 2: Live Betting That Feels Dead
In-play betting now represents over 60% of sportsbook handle for most operators. Yet most live betting UIs were designed for pre-match and bolted on to support in-play as a secondary feature.
The result: live markets that suspend without explanation, score updates that don't sync with the available markets, and no visual urgency that communicates the excitement of in-play betting.
Live betting needs its own design system: animated score widgets, market lock states with estimated resume times, pulsing indicators for markets with recent price movement, and a match timeline that contextualises why odds are changing.
Mistake 3: Market Overload Without Hierarchy
A Premier League match can have 300+ markets. Showing all 300 in an unsorted list is lazy architecture masquerading as comprehensiveness.
85% of bets placed on any given match are on fewer than 10 markets: result, both teams to score, correct score, first goalscorer, Asian handicap. The rest are long-tail. Design for the 85% first.
A well-designed market hierarchy surfaces popular markets by default, groups the long-tail under collapsible categories, and allows users to save their preferred market view. This doesn't reduce depth — it reduces friction.
Mistake 4: Mobile as Responsive, Not Native
Responsive CSS makes your sportsbook viewable on mobile. It doesn't make it usable on mobile. The distinction matters enormously.
Native mobile sportsbook design means: a fixed bottom navigation bar (not a hamburger menu), swipe navigation between live matches, a thumb-zone optimised layout where critical actions sit in the lower third of the screen, and progressive disclosure of market depth.
Mistake 5: Ignoring the Empty State
What does your sportsbook show when there are no live events? What about when search returns no results? What about the bet slip before a first selection?
Empty states are opportunities to guide users toward their next action. "No live events right now — here are today's upcoming matches" keeps users in the product. A blank screen sends them to a competitor.
The Fix: Start With a Bet Journey Audit
Before redesigning anything, map a complete bet journey from homepage to confirmed bet on five different match types: pre-match single, live in-play, accumulator, same-game multi, and a niche market. Count the taps. Note every point of confusion. Measure how long it takes.
That audit will show you exactly where you're losing bettors. In our experience, most operators can eliminate 30-40% of unnecessary interactions with layout changes alone — before touching a single feature.
Written by tilldawn® Studio — iGaming design specialists based in Malta.
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