How to Prepare for Sports Betting App Development? Guide to Develop A Sports Betting Mobile App

Almost half of mobile app development projects fail because they are poorly planned, managed, or run due to the team’s lack of knowledge and competence. This is particularly true for complex projects like sports betting app development. From our experience as an app development company, we can assure you that most of the problems associated with these kinds of projects can be avoided with proper planning.

In this guide, we will provide insights into the process of building mobile sports betting apps. The tips and suggestions covered in this guide are applicable to both sports betting apps and apps for any other industry. Products built with these tips in mind are more likely to be reliable, secure, and delivered without unnecessary delays. We are here to give you insights on how to make a betting website from our daily betting software developers’ work.

So if you have high-tech expectations and discern a lack of technical expertise or particular know-how in the team, make this article your bible. Even walking through the valley of shady software development process fear no fuckups, as we listed in this article our best practices and hints crucial for its success. All this knowledge was gathered during years of providing app development services, so make the most of it.

Benefits of Sports Betting App Development

Sports betting app development combines technology with the sports betting world to deliver exciting gaming opportunities to players while helping entrepreneurs attract players and make a profit. The following are some of the benefits of investing in online sports betting app development as an entrepreneur.

Convenience and Accessibility

Developing a sports betting app allows you to extend the thrill of sports betting to your users who prefer to play on their mobile devices. With this option, they can place bets on their favorite sports conveniently while on the go. Users can also participate in sports betting with no disruption to their daily activities.

Enhanced Betting Experience

A mobile sports betting app delivers an enhanced betting experience to players. While responsive betting websites are great too, the experience is really not the same as dedicated mobile apps. These apps are built with advanced UI and UX elements that promote interactivity and user engagement, including live betting, real-time statistics, video streaming, and other features. This helps to keep users engaged, resulting in more profits for operators in the long run.

Diverse Betting Options

Sports betting applications provide access to a wide variety of betting options. The best betting apps include several betting markets across various sports. This allows them to cater to players with different betting preferences. Keeping your user base wide and varied like this can be quite beneficial as far as revenue is concerned.

Exclusive Bonuses and Promotions

By developing a sports betting app, you can offer promotions, bonuses, free bets, and loyalty rewards exclusive to mobile users. Incentives like this enhance user satisfaction and loyalty to your brand.

Sports Betting App Types

Online sports betting is a massive industry serving players with a wide range of interests. Consequently, operators build different kinds of mobile sports betting apps with unique features to meet the needs of these varied audiences. Below are some of the most common types of online sports betting apps in the market.

Traditional Sportsbook Apps

A traditional sportsbook app provides sports fans access to various markets and betting options across a wide range of traditional sports, including soccer, football, tennis, basketball, and so on. Punters can use these sportsbook apps to place bets on matches and tournaments across these sports. The various betting options offer different odds based on the projected performance of teams or players. Examples of traditional sportsbooks include Bet365, William Hill, and Ladbrokes.

Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) Apps

DFS apps are mobile sports betting apps that allow users to compete against each other by building teams composed of professional players from a specific league or competition. Participants get to earn points based on the actual real-life performance of these players in the league or competition. Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) has become quite popular in recent years, with companies like DraftKings, FanDuel, and Yahoo Fantasy Sports leading the charge.

Betting Exchange Apps

A betting exchange is a type of peer-to-peer betting platform where users bet against other users instead of against the house, like a traditional sportsbook platform. On a betting exchange app, one person bets on an outcome being successful (e.g., Team A to win against Team B), while the other person stakes the opposite side (Team B to win against Team A). Popular examples of betting exchange platforms include Betfair Exchange, Matchbook, and Smarkets.

Social Betting Apps

Social sports betting apps combine sports betting and social media under the same umbrella. These types of modern sports betting platforms feature elements that promote interaction between players, such as leaderboards, tournaments, sports betting tips, and other interactive elements that promote user engagement. Also, just like social casino sites, players who gamble on social betting sites use virtual coins instead of real money wagers. These attributes make them legal even in places where conventional sports betting is banned. Examples of social betting sites include BetUp, Betsnap, and Betfect.

Live Betting Apps

As the name suggests, live betting apps are sports betting platforms that support live betting, allowing players to bet on sporting events in real time as they’re being played. On apps like 888Sports, Betway, Unibet, and many others, punters can place bets throughout a game rather than only before it starts. Sites like these are designed to present odds to players as they change in response to the progression of the game.

Prop Betting Apps

Prop betting apps (proposition betting apps) are sports wagering applications that allow punters to place bets on specific occurrences or events within a game rather than the overall outcome. With prop bets, you can bet on details related to players, teams, the game, and even novelty events like the length of the national anthem or the number of times a word will be used during the match broadcast. Bovada, BetOnline, and MyBookie are examples of sites with a prop betting option.

Esports Betting Apps

Esports betting involves placing bets on competitive video game matches between players instead of actual real-life sporting events. This type of app has grown in popularity in recent years, thanks to the recent boom in the esports industry. While some sites, like the relaunched Unikrn, focus exclusively on esports, a growing trend is for traditional sportsbooks like Betway to include a distinct and comprehensive esports section on their platform.

Make a Sports Betting Mobile App on Solid Foundations

To build or enhance a mobile sports betting app successfully, you need to make the right decisions right from the outset. Trying to fix a badly built app after the project has been completed will cost a lot of money, time, and frustration. In this section, we will explore the essential elements for building a solid foundation for your app project.

Who’s Going to Do This?

The first thing to figure out before starting a development project is to decide who will carry out the work. If you have internal resources in the form of a development team skilled enough to create and expand your mobile app, you are halfway there. With a strong in-house team of developers who understand the vision and can bring it to life, you can actually drive the change from a legacy system to cutting-edge technology or build a new app from scratch.

Yet, bear in mind that it may require supplementing the team with additional employees, which might be time-consuming and increase operational costs. Also, you will need to keep your team highly motivated and focused on the project by providing appropriate working conditions, remuneration, and benefits.

In case you lack experts with the particular knowledge and skills required for iGaming app development on board, then you need to outsource the project. There are two possible ways to go about this.

The first scenario is when you hand over your project to a mobile development team that handles it from A to Z, taking care of the management and the final success of the product. Another option is hiring a developer with specific competencies to fill the knowledge gap in your team. Both alternatives have pros and cons, and depending on the project, each can work.

Product Development Team 

Developing a custom sport betting app with the help of an external Product Development Team is quite convenient. Such a team takes care of the project comprehensively, leading the development process from the ground up. External software development companies offer comprehensive supervision of the whole process from start to finish, including development, design, and team management. With this approach, there is no need to waste time on recruiting and onboarding new employees for a successful sports betting app project.

A team experienced in sports betting projects can organize your backlog and indicate the most needed features to implement first. Most external development teams have a project manager who draws up a roadmap for your project and controls the development process. Also, since developers already collaborate on a daily basis, they are well acquainted with one another and communicate more effectively, which improves the workflow and speeds up the development process.

One major limitation with this approach is the team’s availability for your project. More often than not, you will have to wait for the whole team to be available, which may extend the time of the project’s start. This method can also be expensive since you need to hire a complete team of specialists, each with a higher hourly rate than your regular staff. However, because you are not required to execute the recruitment process or manage the administration, you will likely spend less money overall.

Staff Augmentation

Another strategy for sports betting software development is Staff Augmentation. This outsourcing strategy is often applied to fill the knowledge gap in your team by hiring individual specialists for specific roles. Instead of recruiting candidates that eventually may not fit the position, you get to select an expert with the specific skill set you need from a large talent pool, saving a considerable amount of time.

A developer can jump right into a project and bring value from day one due to previous experience in sports betting app development. Being well-acquainted with the sports betting niche already, they can quickly identify critical aspects of a project and evaluate business assumptions to provide a viable solution.

While a contractor’s hourly rate is higher, this approach can be cost-effective for specific project durations, as it eliminates the significant overhead costs associated with permanent employees, such as benefits, insurance, and recruitment expenses.

However, Staff Augmentation can still be problematic because it’s hard to verify the competencies of the developers whom you choose to outsource the project. You also have to build communication channels to ensure the proper flow of information between external experts and your company.

How to Choose a Betting Software Development Partner

We admit that choosing suitable software developers to partner with for your project can be tiresome and tricky at times. Since you may find the process a bit overwhelming, we have prepared a short list of factors you should take into account while selecting a company to cooperate with.

Promising Portfolio

Look for a team of developers who have already created solid sports betting products in the past. Based on their portfolio, you may determine whether they can provide you with the functionalities and design you are looking for. It is a crucial factor that may prove a specific company has the necessary set of skills to assist you in completing your best sports score app.

Workshops

It is a good sign when the partner prepares a step-by-step plan to complete milestones. Ideally, they should propose product workshops before the project starts, during which you will be a part of the design process.

Developers Engaged in the Planning Process

From our point of view, developers should actively participate in the design and feature planning processes. Why? Well, the reason is quite simple. They may find loads of UI improvements and detect problematic issues that can be fixed right away during the design phase and save themselves a lot of headaches in the subsequent stages of the project. Thanks to this approach, the development process can flow smoothly, saving your budget and other valuable resources.

Smooth Internal Cooperation

They say that “teamwork makes the dream work,” so make sure the team can collaborate with no sweat, keep a great flow, and catch an edge case quickly. Also, the cooperation between mobile, web, and backend teams needs to be continual. They should challenge each other during meetings to find the best solutions in a given context.

Up-to-Date with the Necessary Requirements

Lastly, a fine sports betting application development company should be in touch with the latest updates concerning the requirements of the App Store and Google Play Store and keep you informed. Otherwise, your application may fail to meet the criteria of these two major app stores, which can decrease its popularity and profitability.

How Should You Prepare for Cooperation with a Software Agency? 

Before starting the development process, the company you outsource your project to will typically ask you several questions to determine key aspects of the cooperation. Preparing the answers to these queries in advance may help you decide on the right partner for the development of your brand-new gambling app.

Business aspects that need to be discussed at the outset of the collaboration include budget, authority, need, and timeline. Going through these issues helps to establish the client’s finances, decide on the responsibilities within the project, identify the functionalities, and sketch out the timeline of the development process. If you are able to specify the scope of the project, decide on the type of cooperation, and define the budget required for the operations, you are more than welcome to provide an RFP to the software company.

A Request For Proposal is a document that benefits both parties. On the one hand, it may help the company understand the product’s vision and suggest suitable modifications if needed, allowing it to estimate the costs and time required for the project. On the other hand, it enables the client to present their idea of a product clearly, including all functionalities it should incorporate to ensure that it will serve its purpose as defined.

Pro Tip: Provide a clear separation of markets you plan to enter, including any known licensing requirements, compliance obligations, or preferred sportsbook data feeds.

How to Build a Sports Betting App

Like every other app development project, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach for building a sports betting app. It all depends on the specifics of your project and the peculiarities of your team. However, there are some critical steps that must be followed in every app development project. This section highlights the standard steps for building a successful sports betting application.

One of the key decisions you’ll face early on is choosing between PWA vs native app development. Understanding this distinction is critical — PWA benefits include faster development, lower cost, cross-platform compatibility, and easier updates, while native apps may offer better performance and deeper access to device features. The choice depends heavily on your business goals, target audience, and long-term vision.

Ideation

The first step in any mobile app development project is to develop the concept for your application. As highlighted above, there are different types of sports betting platforms, from conventional betting apps to betting exchanges and esports betting platforms. Before your project begins, you need to establish a clear vision and polish it to suit the target market and the unique preferences of your audience.

Research

A sports betting app should never be built in isolation. To build an app that’s relevant to market trends and can compete effectively against the competition, you need to carry out comprehensive research. This will involve evaluating your potential rivals to establish a unique selling point, researching the market to identify gaps, and gaining insights about consumer preferences to tailor your app to their unique needs. This is just the beginning of your software development project.

Obtaining Licenses and Certifications

Before proceeding to the development phase itself, you need to obtain the necessary licenses and certifications from the relevant authorities. This process varies considerably, depending on the jurisdiction you intend to operate in.

Selecting a Technology Partner

Your choice of a software development team is one of the major factors that can influence the progress and outcome of your project. As explained above, you can build your own in-house team, hire an external team, or augment an existing one by hiring specific roles. Unless your team has significant experience building sports betting apps, it is best that you hire an external team or at least consult with experts with some knowledge of the industry.

Design the UI/UX

The next step is to design the betting app’s user interface and experience. For this step, you need to work with designers who will provide wireframes and designs for your sports betting app. Developers will follow this blueprint to brainstorm and bring your fully functional and ready-to-use sports gambling apps to life.

Build the App

With the design ready, you can start building and integrating the most important features into the platform. This will include building the app’s front-end and backend infrastructure that will present multiple betting options to players. Some of the essential features to include in your app include features for bet placement, deposit and withdrawal, security and anti-fraud systems, and live scores.

Integrate Third-Party Services

As part of the development process, you may also need to integrate APIs to connect the app’s front-end to third-party systems such as odds management tools, live streaming services, and data analytics platforms. To receive payment on your app, you also need to integrate a secure payment gateway into your app that will allow users to deposit and withdraw funds conveniently.

Testing and Quality Checks

The final step of the development process before publishing gambling apps is testing. This begins with an in-house QA test, followed by beta testing by real users. The testing phase ensures that your sports betting app delivers a seamless and uninterrupted betting experience to players. Tests will reveal bugs and glitches that can be fixed before the app is pushed out to the general public. After publishing, you also need to monitor user feedback to improve your application.

Publish Your App

Finally, it’s time to publish your app. Depending on how the app has been built, you can publish on the Apple App Store, Google Play Store, or both platforms simultaneously. Note that your app will have to pass a long list of requirements before it can be published on these platforms.

Key Features to Consider in Sports Betting App UI/UX Design

A poor user experience is one of the major causes of app failures. To improve the UI’s appearance, feel, and overall sports betting experience, there are some essential features to keep in mind.

Login and User Registration

The sign-up for new users or the login button should be obvious, and the workflow for onboarding new users should be straightforward. This will ensure a seamless sign-up process.

The Flow and Placement of the Bet Search

A sports betting app’s UI/UX can be a bit overwhelming. You need to improve the flow to ensure a smooth sports betting experience for players.

Deposits and Withdrawals

Money-related features are critical for building users’ trust. Even if you have to rely on third-party web components, you should strive to create seamless deposit and withdrawal procedures.

Support

Provide your customers with support to help them resolve the most troubling issues. It will make your app appear to be a solid ground for wagering large sums of money.

Real-time Betting

Live betting is a major feature popular on modern sports betting platforms. This will allow players to place bets on ongoing events even after they have started.

Technology in Sports Betting App Development

Now, it’s time to look at the most complicated part of the project, the technology. A mistake in that field can lead to delays, overextending the budget, or in the worst case, even an unfinished project. That’s why it’s crucial to understand your needs and adjust solutions to them. Let’s go over the greatest challenges concerning the technology of a mobile sports betting project.

Sportsbook Providers

You can create your own sportsbook from scratch, but it will definitely increase the workload and extend the timeline. To avoid that, you can make use of ready-made solutions. Certain companies, recognized as providers, offer off-the-shelf services for online betting applications.

You can supply both betting data and UI from third-party providers or choose only one of them and create the other on your own account. Check out which approach is better for you. Some of the providers can offer UI components along with a data feed. This can significantly reduce development time. However, it’s not a silver bullet. If you go for this option, you have to keep in mind a few crucial points:

• It’s harder to build a standalone brand and a unique product with a basic UI to which you can make only minor adjustments.
• Most providers reuse web components, so the app created on their basis may lack a native feeling and can be a bit buggy.
• Integrating the components into the iOS or Android app might not be so straightforward, so make sure that the provider has an easy step-by-step guide on how to do it.
• You will have to adjust the branding of the components.

Regardless of the type of services you want to obtain from external sources, there are several critical factors to consider when selecting a provider. Thus, we have compiled a list of things you should bear in mind during the decision-making process and listed them below.

Software Development Kit

First, ensure that a given provider has SDKs tailored to the platform for which you wish to create your application. If you develop two native apps, separate SDKs for both are required. In the case of cross-platform applications made with Flutter, there is a small technology loophole since it is possible to base them on native SDKs by coding a bridge. Yet, it may require more time to cope with.

Documentation

Ideally, the third-party supplier should have documentation with appropriate guidelines regarding SDK integration into a particular platform. Such files are often well-organized and regularly updated, giving the developers access to code snippets that may speed up their work.

Configurability

The SDK should be configurable, meaning some functionalities and design elements can be adjusted to your app’s needs. Any options for customization should be thoroughly described in the SDK documentation.

Support

From our experience, difficulties with integrating third-party SDKs are extremely typical. In more difficult cases, attempts to fix the problem on one’s own might be futile. Therefore, the services provider should offer easy access to support that will give developers a hand in resolving difficult issues.

Price

Aside from the above factors, it is crucial to select external services that you can easily afford so that the project’s cost is not increased needlessly. Hence, consider how vital the functionality given by the provider is in your product. If it is critical, select the best solution, as it will pay off in the long run in a profitable product. In case of some trifling features, save your resources and look for more affordable alternatives.

Cross-platform vs Native apps

We have already prepared a thorough examination of native and cross-platform technologies, including a list of the pros and cons of each solution, so you can easily get acquainted with them by reading our article. However, we should take a closer look at this topic from a sports betting app development perspective to decide which technology is more applicable in this case.

Data Handling

One of the biggest requirements for the gambling app is that it must be able to transfer a huge amount of data per second. Not only should the app maintain high performance, but also keep low battery usage and stay responsive all the time. It may be a bit of a problem for cross-platform solutions since most of them are designed in a single-thread model. Although there are some tools to achieve a multithread-like environment, native technology comes with a set of multithreading solutions ready to use.

Complicated UI/UX

Theoretically, UI/UX design is an area where the cross-platform should benefit, but in a real-world scenario, it doesn’t. The main advantage of a cross-platform solution is “write once, run everywhere,” but it may become a problem in sports betting apps. That’s because users of an iGaming platform expect a solution adjusted to specific functionalities typical of such applications. So instead of reusing the UI and UX model between different platforms, you should rather create a separate one for each to maintain a native experience.

Complex and Scalable Architecture

Betting projects are typically quite extensive and demanding as regards the architecture and employed tools. It is often due to the variety of platforms it may operate on, the need to integrate with external APIs, and the demand for fast processing of data collected from different databases. In addition, gambling apps often involve the possibility of dashboard customization, an extensive reward system, comprehensive client verification, an option for deposits and withdrawals of funds, and many more features.

With such complex projects, proper maintenance is indispensable. Your team needs to ensure that the app runs smoothly on each platform and that every module is updated. The procedure will be easier and less time-consuming in the case of cross-platform apps, as there is only one base code to be fixed and updated. With native applications, especially if there is more than one, the maintenance is more complex and requires more developers to be engaged in the process, which results in higher operating costs.

Sportsbook Provider’s Components

Keep in mind that, most probably, you will be forced to use some components of your sportsbook provider. This part can be a bit problematic for cross-platform apps, as most providers don’t even prepare documentation concerning this type of development, focusing only on the native approach. All in all, native development is probably a better choice for a betting app. The cross-platform solution has not said its last word yet, but for now, we do not consider it a better fit for this kind of app.

What About the Web and Backend Stack?

Although this article focuses on the mobile side of the betting app project, there are certain things to keep in mind when adding the web to the stack. First, you need to adjust the authentication methods for mobile use. Your system needs to be ready to handle biometric, two-factor authentication, or other verification tools. Additionally, you should know that some of the web pages will be reused on mobile as well, so they have to be modernized to be a standalone piece of the system.

Challenges in Creating a Sports Betting App

In building a sports betting application, there are a few bumps you might want to watch out for along the way. These challenges aren’t insurmountable, but they do require proper awareness and attention to navigate them. They include:

Obtaining a License

The only way to legally operate a sports betting business in the gambling industry in most jurisdictions is to obtain an online gambling license. Not only is the licensing process rigorous, but the rules also vary from place to place. This means you may have to figure out how to navigate completely different licensing systems, especially if you intend to serve an international audience.

Ongoing Compliance

In addition to fulfilling the initial licensing requirements, operators creating sports betting apps must also maintain continued compliance with various gambling laws relating to money laundering, player protection, data security, keeping underage users off their platform, and maintaining fair gaming practices. Failure to comply can lead to fines or a complete shutdown of your services.

Publishing to the Marketplace

The two major online marketplaces have very stringent rules for app approval. The rules are even tougher for sports betting apps and other gambling platforms, which can make publishing on official sites difficult.

Security

Sports betting apps, like other gambling platforms, are prone to attacks by malicious actors. You need to prioritize platform security, encrypt sensitive transaction data, and secure payment processing. This is necessary to maintain compliance and the trust of users in your application.

Workshop and Design Process in Sports Betting App Development

Product Design Workshops are an inevitable part of every sports betting app development project. It is not only due to the demands of the betting industry but also because of the challenges that mobile development brings about in general. In order to design a functional and user-friendly betting app, we have to discuss the UX/UI design solutions and determine how to implement them. In a great workshop, developers are actively involved in the design process, validating all of the UX/UI flows, sharing their thoughts, raising a warning about possible issues, and proposing time-saving solutions.

Pick Your Sports Betting App Development Company

As you can see, there are loads of things to attend to before and during the gambling app development process. Selecting a proper development team, collecting crucial information regarding the project, and discussing it prior to the start will help you avoid failures and contribute to the final product’s success.

If you are all set to get into the game of sports betting, check if CrustLab is your fit. Whether you’re looking to create a traditional sports betting app or develop software that enables users to gamble on fantasy sports, our experienced and skilled team will assist you in developing the finest sports betting software solution. Contact us now to learn about our sports betting development services.