Watch the Grand National with people who rarely bet and you will see it every year. Someone asks what each way means. Someone wants a fiver on the grey because their nan liked greys. Someone says the favourite is "only 5/1", and half the room nods without a clue whether that is good or bad. Nobody wants to be the one who stops the fun to ask.
None of them is stupid. They know their sport, their jobs and their lives. They have just been handed a product that speaks its own language and does its own sums. For an English speaker, it is like being asked to learn French and algebra on the same afternoon. Or, more accurately, algebra in French.
The industry's answer has been to explain betting to people. There is a better one: build betting that does not need explaining.
Three prices. One question.
Put £10 on a horse at 5/2. Depending on where you are, the same price looks like this:
| Convention | Displayed | What it means for £10 |
|---|---|---|
| Fractional | 5/2 | £25 profit if it wins, plus your £10 back |
| Decimal | 3.50 | £35 back in total if it wins |
| American | +250 | £25 profit if it wins, plus your £10 back |
| Plain English | £35 back | £35 back if it wins. £0 if it loses |
Four rows, one bet. Only the last one answers what a newcomer actually wants to know: if I put £10 on, what happens to my money?
There is nothing wrong with fractions, decimals or American odds for people who like them. The mistake is making everyone learn one before they can have a bet.
An industry fluent in its own language
The price is just the warm-up. Racing has each way, Rule 4, SP and non-runner no bet. Football has 1X2, BTTS and Asian handicaps. Multiples run from accas to Yankees, Lucky 15s and Goliaths. Offers arrive with wagering requirements and stakes not returned.
Some of it is wonderful. A day at the races would be poorer without its slang, and regulars enjoy knowing a drifter from a steamer. Keep it. But belonging to the club should not be the price of a bet.
Take the Yankee: four horses, eleven bets, made up of six doubles, four trebles and a four-fold. The slip gives you the name and assumes you know the rest. Often the first time a newcomer finds out what a bet really costs is in the last box on the slip.
The slip says £20. It costs £140. A Patent is seven bets, so £20 a bet is £140 in total.
£10 a line. £150 in total. A Lucky 15 is fifteen bets, so £10 a line is £150.
The embarrassment tax
Then there is the bit nobody likes to admit. Adults hate looking stupid. A child will ask a daft question and laugh it off. By forty, most of us would rather nod.
Picture it. You are in the pub with your mates, the match is on and someone suggests an acca. Someone else is quoting prices. You know the teams, the players and the form. What you do not know is the shorthand. Do you stop everything and ask for a lesson? Or smile and say you are grand?
And for plenty of people the numbers really are hard. In the last full skills survey, 49% of working-age adults in England had numeracy at or below the level expected of an 11 year old. The OECD puts the share with very low literacy at about 18%. Neither figure measures betting, but both are a warning against designing for an imaginary customer who is fluent in everything.1, 2
The appetite is there too. Around two thirds of people who watched the 2024 Grand National live had some kind of bet on it, sweepstakes included. They came for the race, the craic and the shared moment, not the vocabulary.3
So people pay the embarrassment tax. Some quietly sit it out. Others guess: they tick each way without realising it doubles the cost, or copy a mate's Lucky 15. Either the sport loses a fan, or someone spends money on something they do not understand.
Make the product do the work
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.Attributed to Albert Einstein
The usual fix is education: another glossary, another explainer video. Fine for people who want them. But nobody should have to study before a fiver on the National.
A train app does not open with a lecture on ticketing. It shows the journey, the fare and the total, and lets you buy. Betting should work the same way. Before anyone confirms a bet, the screen should answer five questions:
- What am I saying will happen?
- What will I pay in total?
- What comes back if I am right?
- What do I lose if I am wrong?
- How likely does the price say it is?
For that 5/2 horse, it looks like this:
| The question | The answer |
|---|---|
| Your selection | This horse to win |
| You pay | £10 in total |
| If it wins | £35 back, including your £10 (£25 profit) |
| If it loses | £0 back (£10 lost) |
| Chance implied by the price | About 29%* |
| Traditional odds (optional) | 5/2 · 3.50 · +250 |
* The chance implied by the price includes the bookmaker's margin. It is not a forecast.
Experienced fans can still switch to fractions. Newcomers see the money without doing the maths.
Multiples work the same way. Do not lead with "Yankee". Lead with the decision: "Pick four horses. That is eleven bets at £1, so £11 in total. If only your 3/1 and 5/1 shots win, £24 comes back. If fewer than two win, nothing does." The maths has not gone anywhere. The product has just done it for you.
Simple should mean safer, not faster
A fair question is whether easier betting means more betting. Done properly, it should not. The aim is to take out the confusion and keep every fact that helps someone decide whether to bet at all.
That means the total cost before you confirm. Returns and profit kept apart. Losses shown as clearly as wins. Offers and limits in plain English. And protection tools described for what they are: a 24 hour time-out is a breather, while self-exclusion is a formal step for people who want to stop.4
A slick screen that hides the margin, nudges bigger stakes or milks a near miss is still a bad screen. Good design respects the fan's judgement, including the decision not to bet.
Where betting belongs
Fans do not learn sport from a bookmaker's menu. They learn it watching the match, reading the racecard, following the score and arguing with their mates. That is where a bet should live too.
Media brands and sports can put the moment first and let a bet follow naturally, with the cost and the outcome in plain sight, while licensed bookmakers take care of the betting itself.
Design for the fan who bets twice a year as carefully as for the one who bets twice a day. That fan might know more about football than anyone in the room. They just do not speak bookmaker, and nobody should feel foolish for that.
Keep the language of betting for the people who love it. Just stop charging everyone else for not knowing it. Let the fan enjoy the match with their mates, understand what they are being offered and make their own call.
Take the French and the algebra out of it. Leave the sport, the choice and the fun.
The Funteron approach
Funteron takes something complicated and makes it simple.
Funteron builds betting into the apps and sites of media brands and sports, working with licensed bookmakers. It puts the sport first and is designed to show the cost, the return and the chance of every bet in plain English, so the fan never has to leave for a bookmaker's site.
Funteron sets no odds, holds no funds and accepts no bets, and is paid in bookmaker commission. funteron.com
Keith O'Loughlin is CEO of Funteron and former CEO of OpenBet. He chairs Christchurch Casino in New Zealand.
Editorial note: The 5/2 price and the Yankee figures are illustrations, not live offers. This paper sets out design principles. It does not claim they have been proven to increase participation or reduce harm.