Know Your Bettor: Reaching the Casual Bettor
Cross-Functional Collaboration
Product Manager
Design Manager
VP of Product
VP of Design
Business Management
Research Team
Role
Timeline
Problem
As CBS Sports was preparing to expand into the sports betting space—a move that had massive strategic upside, but also considerable uncertainty—it became clear that success would hinge on understanding who we were trying to serve. While we had a large and loyal base of sports fans and a strong Fantasy presence, our platforms had not yet built meaningful traction with bettors. We knew that if we wanted to enter the space in a way that felt credible, differentiated, and sustainable, we needed to deeply understand who we were trying to reach and what was holding them back.
In a World of Sharps
It would’ve been easy to look at existing competitors and focus on power users—sharp bettors who already have tools, habits, and high-frequency betting behavior. But through early exploration, we realized that casual bettors—or even those interested in betting but unsure how to start—represented the largest and most underserved opportunity. In fact, casual bettors made up 87% of the active betting market. And yet, most products and content in the ecosystem catered to the advanced crowd.
Our cross-functional team — made up of design, product, and research — set out to define who these casual bettors were, what they needed, and how we could build experiences tailored to them. The research team led a large-scale survey, which we paired with in-depth interviews to understand the full journey from “I think I want to try betting” to “I bet regularly and want better tools.”
On the Design Side
I owned the creation of all core deliverables: a robust persona framework, product audits, competitive analyses, and market opportunity mapping. We broke the casual betting audience into three stages—Explorer, Enthusiast, and Strategist—each with distinct motivations, behaviors, and pain points. To ground these insights in real user behavior, we developed a detailed journey map to show how users move through the funnel, what’s getting in their way, and where CBS has room to add value and build habitual engagement.
What We Uncovered Was a Clear Story:
Casual bettors are underserved, overwhelmed, and unsure where to start. Many want to make sports more exciting, or believe they could be successful based on their fandom and intuition — but they lack the tools, confidence, and content to follow through. This group struggles with betting lingo, research fatigue, and a landscape that often feels built for insiders. At the same time, they’re eager to learn, experiment, and grow if the experience is right.
Result
These insights became the foundation for CBS Sports’ 2025, and beyond, betting strategy. Our work was presented to top executives, then distributed across product, marketing, and content teams to guide roadmap planning and identify near-term and long-term opportunities. It helped prioritize features like expert pick integrations, sportsbook integrations, and personalized betting content aimed at easing new users into the space.
Rather than trying to compete directly with platforms built for experts, we reframed our opportunity: to design for the fan who wants to become a bettor — and the bettor who wants to get better. This shift helped reposition CBS Sports not just as a destination for betting content, but as a platform that helps users build confidence, knowledge, and habitual routine.
