Overview
Starting as the sole Product Designer, then with a small design team at OddsShopper, I helped evolve and optimize PortfolioEV™, the company’s flagship tool for Expected Value (EV) sports betting. PortfolioEV™ helps bettors quickly identify, customize, and act on profitable betting opportunities in a fast-paced marketplace where timing and volume are critical.
Over the course of multiple cycles, I worked across discovery, design, prototyping and iteration to transform a complex set of data and betting workflows into an accessible, trustworthy, and lucrative product experience.
Problem Space
In the world of Expected Value (EV) betting, two factors determine success: timing and bet volume. Betting lines fluctuate constantly, and the core principle of EV betting is to secure as many favorable lines as possible before they shift.
Currently, bettors rely on manually checking sites and refreshing pages to discover favorable bets. This process is inefficient and incompatible with the realities of users’ daily lives. Because most bettors have limited time and cannot monitor odds continuously, they miss out on a significant portion of high-value opportunities — often 60–70% in a given day.
This gap between the availability of favorable bets and bettors’ ability to act on them creates a core problem: users cannot maximize their EV betting potential due to the lack of timely, accessible updates.
Research
Given the tight timelines for this project, I had to streamline my research process and focus on detailed competitive analysis, drawing inspiration from creative sources, and conducting rapid internal reviews with stakeholders. This resourceful approach allowed me to gather valuable insights and maintain momentum without compromising on quality.
Competitive Analysis
No visibility into historical performance data: Competitors do not let users get a peak under the hood.
+EV sports betting products are only as good as the betting projection algorithms that power them.
Users have to go through external, time-consuming data analysis to get any insight into the overall performance of the bets recommended to them.
Placing multiple bets is a slow process: Competitors do not have functionality that allows users to send multiple bets at one time. Placing one bet at a time is a grueling process and directly hinders users' ability to meet goals.
No filtering out unprofitable bet markets: Competitors bolster their "EV bet offerings" by recommending individual bets that may currently be +EV, but the overall market is historically negative.
Key Insights
To ground design decisions, I synthesized user feedback, competitor analyses, and internal betting expertise. Three key insights emerged:
Time requirements are hard to meet → Hitting proper +EV bet volume can be challenging for folks that live normal lives.
Trust is everything → If bettors can’t understand why a bet is valuable, they won’t act. Transparency and clarity were as important as accuracy.
One size doesn’t fit all → Sharp bettors wanted high-volume, customizable workflows, while casual bettors needed simplified summaries and time-saving actions.
Cognitive overload was a risk → Too much unstructured data paralyzed decision-making rather than empowering it.
Design Approach
Goals
With these insights, I defined the following design goals:
Present clear, digestible summaries for quick decision-making.
Allow deep customization through curated bet market portfolios.
Enable high-volume workflows like mass bet entry and parlay generation.
Maintain user trust by allowing analysis of the algorithm's historical performance.
Key Features I Designed
Because PortfolioEV™ launched in multiple phases, I approached design through a series of focused projects that laddered up to the larger vision:
1. Portfolio Summary & Settings
Designed a two-panel system: Portfolio Summary for high-level EV results and Portfolio Settings for deeper customization.
Users could toggle filters, timeframes, and metrics while instantly seeing impact in the summary view.
This balance supported both casual and sharp bettors.
2. Parlay Builder
Created a parlay generation flow that allowed users to build up to 10 parlays at once, choosing the number of legs per parlay.
Introduced duplicate bet tracking, helping users manage risk and avoid redundant entries.
3. Mass Entry Tool
Streamlined a high-volume bet entry workflow that allows users to push up to 20 bets directly to sportsbooks.
Focused on reducing friction: batch selections, confirmation modals, and error prevention.
4. Data Visualization Enhancements
Designed visualizations for Closing Line Value (CLV) and ROI tracking, ensuring users could quickly understand how their portfolios performed over time.
Prioritized visual clarity over complexity, using sparklines, tooltips, and progressive disclosure.
Final Solution
The result was a cohesive product experience where bettors could:
Monitor their overall portfolio performance at a glance.
Drill down into granular filters to refine betting strategies.
Ensure proper bet volume by rapidly placing a high volume of bets.
Trust the data through transparent, clear visualizations.
PortfolioEV™ transformed from a set of fragmented workflows into a unified, intuitive platform for both novice and advanced bettors to bet smarter.
Mass Betting
A feature allowing users to send up to 20 bets to a sportsbook in an instant, streamlining the previously slow process of placing individual +EV bets.
Generating Parlays
Users could generate multiple +EV parlays to further diversify their daily betting portfolio with higher potential plays.
Tracking Bets
Users could track each and every bet they placed through OddsShopper, allowing them to track important data, such as CLV and ROI, enabling them to know where they needed to adjust their strategy to further improve their ROI.
Portfolio Creation & Management
Utilizing the historical data of OddsShopper's algorithm, users could create "portfolios" that capture bet markets that have historically done well and automatically filter out bet markets that have performed poorly.
Takeaways
Designing and launching PortfolioEV™, I transformed complex betting data into a streamlined, trustworthy, and customizable experience. This work not only improved usability and confidence for bettors but also established PortfolioEV™ as the company’s core competitive advantage.
If I were to continue iterating, I’d explore adding social sharing tools to help connect PortfolioEV™ subscribers to each other, enabling them find more profitable opportunities together.
This case study highlights my ability to:
Simplify complexity: Translated dense, data-heavy betting models into intuitive workflows and visualizations that supported both casual and advanced users.
Design for scalability: Created modular systems (e.g., Portfolio Summary/Settings framework) that could support iterative feature growth without redesigning from scratch.
Balance speed and depth: Built experiences that enabled quick decision-making at a glance while also allowing deep drill-downs for expert bettors.