Sports Entertainment
A full sportsbook and casino, built from scratch, running on play credits.
Gigo wanted the experience of a real sportsbook without any of the money. I built the whole thing: a 17 league board with live odds, a bet slip that handles parlays, teasers and round robins, cash out, and sixteen original casino games with real engines behind them. Every credit on the platform is play money with no cash value.
Sports Entertainment Brand, California
17 leagues
Plus 16 Original Casino Games
Timeline
Built and shipped across nine build rounds
Investment
Fixed price build
The problem
Build the feel of a real sportsbook without any of the money.
A play money product has a harder job than a real one. Nobody is chasing a payout, so the entire appeal has to come from the experience itself: the board has to look and move like a real book, the odds have to be plausible, the bet slip has to behave, and the games have to be genuinely fun to play rather than a thin skin over a random number generator. It also has to be unmistakably not gambling, on every screen, without that disclosure wrecking the design.
What was going wrong
- ✕Off the shelf sportsbook software is built around real money and real compliance
- ✕A play credit product lives or dies on how real the board feels
- ✕Casino games built as thin random number wrappers get boring in minutes
- ✕Odds and lines across seventeen leagues have to come from somewhere and stay current
- ✕The no cash value disclosure has to be unmissable without dominating the interface
How I built it
Build the real mechanics, then take the money out.
Phase 1: The board
A seventeen league sportsbook with per game sheets, American, decimal and fractional odds formats, and a live strip across the top of the page.
Phase 2: The ticket engine
Singles, parlays, teasers and round robins, with the house re-checking every price before credits move, plus cash out on open tickets.
Phase 3: The casino
Sixteen original games including a slot engine with real feature rounds, gravity driven plinko, and roulette with modelled wheel kick. Practice mode throughout.
Phase 4: Identity and polish
A bright blue and white redesign, club colours for 438 teams so every matchup renders in the right identity, photoreal game tiles, and two original music beds.
Under the hood
What is actually under the hood.
Results
What changed for the business.
Gigo has a complete, shipped product rather than a prototype. The sportsbook and casino both run end to end, the board covers the leagues people actually follow, and the games hold up to repeat play because the engines underneath them are real. The entertainment only positioning is built into the product rather than disclaimed around it.
17
Leagues On The Board
NFL, NCAAF, NBA, WNBA, MLB, NHL, MLS and the major European competitions
16
Original Casino Games
Each with its own engine, including slots with feature rounds and physics driven plinko
438
Team Colour Sets
Every matchup renders in the correct club identity rather than a generic placeholder
$0
Cash Value
Credits cannot be purchased, withdrawn or exchanged. Entertainment only, disclosed on every page
What this proves
- 1A play money product has to earn attention with the experience alone, so the mechanics have to be real even when the stakes are not
- 2Casino games built as individual engines survive repeat play; reskinned random number generators do not
- 3Small identity details compound: 438 correct club colour sets is what makes a board feel like a real book
- 4Compliance framing works best designed in from the first screen rather than added as a banner at the end
What I learned
- Build the real mechanic first and denominate it in play credits, rather than building a toy and trying to make it feel real afterwards
- Practice mode lowers the barrier on complex games far more than a tutorial does
- An entertainment only product still needs its disclosure to be permanent and legible, not a footer afterthought
The services behind these numbers
More case studies
More results, with the numbers attached.
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