Kindred Racing Platform

Background

Unibet, a subsidiary of the Kindred Group, serves over 9.5 million customers across 100 countries. Known for its broad range of sports betting and racing options, Unibet aims to deliver a seamless gaming experience, but despite its global presence, the brand has struggled to compete in certain markets, often falling behind more established competitors.

At the time, our racing content management system was provided by a third-party client, which meant we had limitations over what the product could achieve. To address this, we made the strategic decision to build an in-house CMS to give us greater control over betting data, and the freedom to redesign the product experience.

Starting Point

The existing product was essentially a reskin of a third-party CMS, which limited the ability to reflect our brand’s vision and stand out in a competitive sports betting market. We set out to redesign the experience, and started by identifying key areas for improvement.

Customer Research
‍We engaged with existing users to understand why they chose our product over competitors, what they felt was missing from the sportsbook experience, and which areas they believed needed improvement.

Trader Insights
We collaborated with our in-house racing traders to gain insights into customer betting habits - identifying which markets they prefer and how they interact with the product on a day to day basis.

Competitor Analysis
‍We reviewed other leading sportsbooks such as Bet365 and Sportsbet to understand their racing product journeys and identify opportunities to differentiate and enhance our own customer experience

Findings

Our research uncovered several key issues within the current user experience.

Outdated Interface
‍Although the racing product served a significant portion of our customers, it was often seen as less of a priority compared to the sportsbook, resulting in a design that lagged behind user expectations.

Mobile Pain Points
The original racing product was built with a desktop-first approach, which led to a subpar experience on mobile. As more of our customers started to place bets using their phones, it became clear that we needed to prioritise responsive design and mobile usability moving forward.

No Landing Page
‍Our product lacked a dedicated racing landing page where customers could quickly access upcoming races and special events, resulting in a longer and less efficient betting journey.

Solution

We refreshed the user interface with a modern visual design to create a cleaner, more engaging experience across both desktop and mobile that aligns with current user expectations.

Our first step was to design a dedicated landing page that provides users with a clear and intuitive overview of all the races happening that day.

The new layout highlights featured races to draw attention to upcoming key events, while also offering a streamlined interface that enables customers to quickly place bets on the favourites from the next races to jump. This approach was aimed at enhancing user engagement and driving faster bet placing, all within a visually appealing experience that was easy to navigate.

Next was to come up with a mobile-responsive experience that preserved core functionality and visual coherence with the desktop site while being optimised for smaller screens.

On the racing event page, key user actions were prioritised by featuring the most relevant information above the fold which allowed quick access for customers to easily add singles to their bet slip. Supporting content was then organised into swipeable menus, and further form information was housed within tappable drop-downs, maintaining a clean and concise interface that didn't sacrifice usability.

Following the launch of the Kindred Racing Platform, user feedback was largely positive, highlighting improved mobile usability and the easy to use navigation. We saw an increase in traffic, a rise in user sign-ups compared to the previous year, and a greater shift toward mobile usage. Stakeholders were also incredibly pleased with the overall outcome and soon commissioned a similar roll-out for the sports platform.