bwin’s live betting system in the spotlight

I received a pitch to develop a live betting system for a local Romanian betting company, and the first step I saw towards finding the best solution was to register and test for a few days what is already out there. I have dropped gamebookers after just a couple of hours with one sole verdict. Gamebookers shall not be used with their live betting system.

bwin vs gamebookers (homepage)

The second option was bwin. First of all, I loved how bwin crafted their home page. You get big images to show the biggest sporting events, which just a few important details, and you are one click away from betting those events. The navigation is composed of few links, which large font sizes. Lovely. On the contrast, gamebookers's home page is a disaster. Their homepage loaded after about half a minute, which it hasn't happened for me in ages on any site. Then, the first feeling you get is being overwhelmed with information. I felt just like being in a street market in Spain where everybody screams their best offers. Gamebookers's home page is like an uproar. While bwin uses images to show biggest upcoming events they use a lot of small text to emphasize on those events. Awful strategy.

bwin's live betting system

While how to get to the live betting system is not straightforward, clicking almost anything on the home page will get you to the actual betting zone, where just below the logo there's a "live betting" link. Simple and easy. Thinking this reversely, one that wants to bet clicks his events and is taken to see the odds. If the event has already started, you can simply click the live betting link and get started.

Flash to the power

Bwin's live betting system is completely flash, with 2 minor exceptions. You cannot login through the flash system; you need to use the login form located in the top bar of the site. Logging in will unfortunately refresh the page, and the entire flash page. The second bad thing about it is that your overall balance has a small delay in updating itself while you bet, so you may have to open your account in a parallel window and switch tabs, refresh to view you live balance.

You got it right. An entire flash system to bet live, that missed an important point, the account balance.

The flash page structure

Bwin has found a nice solution to browse all events, bet and view additional information about the events you are betting on. For that, they have used a 3 column layout that can be easily transformed in a 2 column layout. Being flash, the switch is bundled with nice blurry transitions, which I like, but some probably don't.

The header of the left sidebar contains a few links to help page, triggers to view the odds in the format you want, calendars and more. It is followed by a "My favorites" section, and finally a dedicated section that displays current events. The last on the sidebar is a tab displaying upcoming events.

Clicking any category in the "Now" tab will expand it and you can select the event you wish, which is displayed in full in the main content area. All odds are grouped based on their importance, but you can move them around as you like. Being flash, all odds automatically refresh based on score, events in the game you're watching etc. You also see live scoring, detailed with all events you can bet for in the specific game.

The right sidebar contains a live audio/video tab (yes, some events are broadcasted live on bwin's site), a bet slip tab that displays your latest bets and their results, a chat tab, highlights and more.

The culprits

At first, it really looks that the system's user interface works great. However, that is not always the case. While using it I had to refresh my browser because of losing connection to the server. Perhaps that happened because some packets were lost between me and the server. However, if they implemented such a beautiful autorefresh system, why didn't the page autorefresh the needed information without bugging me off about it?

The second major issue is that the system allows you to bet before you login, but you have to login before you bet. There's no login form built into the flash part of the site, so you have to login using the html form located in the header of the site, and ... refresh the page.

Furthermore, you get to place a bet during a live event. For each bet there's a spinning gear included. You select your bet, your odd, enter your amount, hit bet and then you have to wait a couple of seconds. During those seconds the odds may change and you bet is refused. The system displays the error message so you find out that the odds have changed, but they are not changed in your betting form. You have to refresh before you can submit your bet. Then wait for the spinning gear, and hopefully the odds won't change again.

The same thing happens if you try to bet and while the spinning gear loads the odd is canceled. The system displays the error message, you click to confirm it, but the bet is not removed from your bet slip, you have to remove it. Seriously, why can't they help me bet?

Conclusion

Why can't I bet and if my bet is canceled all things triggered by it automatically removed, and then notify me? Why can't I bet and if the odds get changed my bet remains valid? Then I can cancel the bet if I do not like it in 5 seconds or something like that.

Though its downsides, bwin's live betting system is probably the best in the world. It is by far more advanced that what gamebookers has. It can suffer minor improvements, or at least it should allow users to select how they would like to bet. I am referring strictly to the issues I don't like about changing odds and the ones that get canceled. If you liked this article you can subscribe to our RSS feed and stay updated as new articles get published.

Published on Saturday, June 6th, 2009 at 5:15 pm in reviews.