Mystery bet machine
The mystery bet machine is a feature added to the William Hill Website and apps to allow users to place mystery bets while having more control over what they bet on.
Original mystery bet was simple in functionality.
What problem are we solving?
User problem: As a user i want to have more control over mystery bets and the ability to place them on all platforms.
Business Problem: We would like to increase our mystery bets across all platforms as they are high margin for the company.
Research
To begin this project I looked into the current state mystery bet, competitor and comparator analysis, interviewing users about pain points and what they would like. And finally talked to stakeholders to understand what the company wanted.
The main findings were :-
Users wanted to place mystery bets on the mobile apps (was only available on web)
Users thought that some of the mystery bets were unlikely to win.
The business wanted mystery bets to increase as they are a high margin product.
The business wanted to explore casino style designs on their platforms.
Early ideation
After a workshop, one of the strongest ideas was to make a poker machine style mystery bet feature.
To begin exploring, I talked to someone who worked at aristocrat. Then I went to a pub and played a couple of poker machines while filming the timing and sounds which are key to the poker machine feel.
Wireframes
Then i started designs.
The key challenge was balancing between bright colourful poker machine design and our companies branding. We did not want it to be too obtrusive on the website or apps, but wanted it to be exciting.
After much experimenting...
After many attempts we came up with something using as much of the current GUI while using some animations to make it exciting.
Cross channel solutions
Then it was designed for iOS and android and the developers started to put it together.
Edge cases
A few of the animations and edge cases were not put in for the MVP and still have not been added in.
This example was for when the race had closed and there were no new races for a few hours.
Overall the project was a success. Over the period of a year it has been used on all channels frequently and numbers are increasing. The project paid for its self with in 6 months.