90 Minute Payout — Ending late-game heartbreaks

Problem

Late losses are a strong pain point, entirely outside the customer’s control. No competitor had addressed it.

Solution

A new market that creates a safety net for unfortunate late-game moments.

Imagine you’re at the stadium, eager to see your favourite team, and you spice things up by betting on their win. Despite dominating, no goals are scored. Then disaster: the opposing team scores in stoppage time. With 90 Minute Payout, your bet still wins — sparing you a late-game heartbreak.

A famous example

On the final day of the 2011/12 Premier League season, Manchester City beat QPR 3–2 with Sergio Agüero’s 90+4’ goal, securing their first league title in 44 years and snatching the championship from Manchester United on goal difference. QPR were leading at 90 minutes — if you’d bet on QPR with 90 Minute Payout, your bet would still have gone through.

In short: it gives you two chances to win.

• If your team is winning at 90:00, you’ve won your bet — even if they go on to lose.
• If your team is losing at 90:00, the bet is still on — and if they win at full time, you still win.

A competitor analysis was made to find out if there were similar offers on other platforms.

The good sign: there weren’t any. The closest promotions to 90 Minute Payout were offers that only paid out if the team went 2 goals up.

The other good sign: we could take advantage of Jakob’s Law and place our unique feature in similar places to where competitors put theirs.

How do we signpost this so it’s easily recognisable?

Placement first

We knew we needed a unique icon that would stand out — but before that, it was more important to consider its placement, especially in critical touchpoints. All users land on the homepage, so it was one of the first views to assess. Every other placement was then explored and compared with our competitors.

Icon explorations

Many icons and variations were explored. The whistle icons, while visually nice, led to confusion and increased cognitive effort — in tests, users mistook them for unrelated things like a cannon, a turbo engine and leaf blowers.

The final icon

Prioritising simplicity is essential. We chose the text-only signpost for clearer recognition and reduced cognitive load — data-driven, putting user experience ahead of aesthetics.

The market blurb

As this was a new market, an additional component was created — a market blurb — to explain what 90 Minute Payout was, how it worked and its T&Cs. And since we wanted it to stand out (“make it pop!”), a 3D ribbon was added to create more depth in the layout.

Pre-match volume, reaching exactly the targeted market

90%

Pre-match volume, reaching exactly the targeted market

Bets safeguarded from late-game tragedy

4M+

Bets safeguarded from late-game tragedy

ROI: significant revenue, and motivation to bet from casual customers.

Beyond the product

As Betfair’s main feature of the year, it came with a lot of promotional content:

• Educational videos.
• A 90 Minute Payout bus for fans who left the stadium earlier than they should — with Man Utd legend Dimitar Berbatov.
• A strong TV, print and online media presence.

90 Minute Payout was a success across teams and business-wise.

It’s only normal for a project of this size to have some unexpected setbacks — it’s up to us to manage every obstacle and react to it the right way.

One key aspect is communication. With regular catch-ups, reviews and retros, I’m confident any team can be as ambitious as they want — and, most importantly, be successful with it.