Product Testing

— Our approach

The panel is the asset. It took years to build, and you can't fake it by scraping or running it through AI. EKG maintains a managed, vetted panel of testers who hold live, funded accounts and test apps in person, in-state. This is observed behavior on production apps with real money at stake: not a survey, not app-store review scraping, not automated crawling, and not a focus group.

Every tester follows the same prescriptive protocol; separate groups test independently, and our analysts reconcile the results into final scores. We publish the methodology openly, caveats included, and the transparency is part of why the work holds up. And the rankings carry weight: operators cite EKG product scores in investor materials and on earnings calls.

Service lines

Syndicated app testing & rankings

Bespoke competitive benchmarking

Pre-launch & sprint testing

Behavioral & consumer research

What we do

Syndicated

Syndicated App Testing & Rankings

Semi-annual U.S. sports betting, U.S. iCasino, and UK sportsbook and casino reports: app-by-app analysis, category scoring, and tester verbatims. The industry's benchmark for product quality, by subscription or individual purchase.

Benchmark

Bespoke Competitive Benchmarking

Head-to-head testing of your app against named competitors, on the categories that matter to you. An objective read on where you win and where you lose.

Sprint

Pre-Launch & Sprint Testing

Recurring, sprint-based testing embedded in your product cycle. We test builds before and after release, so you catch issues early and track improvement release over release.

Behavioral

Behavioral & Consumer Research

Moderated and self-directed sessions with real bettors: recorded protocol sessions, think-aloud narration, and analyst debriefs, for the “why” behind the scores.

How we test

Every report follows the same three-step protocol. Separate tester groups run it, and our analysts reconcile the results

Step 1

Live in-state testing

Separate tester groups follow the same prescriptive protocol, testing in person on real-money accounts registered and funded in-market.

Step 2

Collation & data cleaning

Our Sports & Emerging Verticals team collates, rationalizes, and cleans the results across groups.

Step 3

Analyst review

Analysts adjust for differences between tester groups to produce the final app and category scores.

Scoring framework

A weighted 20-point matrix

Five categories, weighted by how much they shape the player experience: some measured, some judged.

Core covers account management: sign-up, deposits, payments, and withdrawals.

User Experience

6 pts

Betting Interface

5 pts

Features

4 pts

Core

3 pts

Aesthetics

2 pts

— Who we work with

Operators' product, UX, and strategy teams use our testing to benchmark against competitors, track round-over-round improvement, and validate roadmaps. Suppliers and platform providers use it to see how their technology performs in shipped products.

Investors use it as an independent, leading-indicator read on product quality, alongside EKG market data.

Engaged by

Operators (product, UX & strategy)

Suppliers & platform providers

Investors

— Coverage

United States. Our most recent U.S. sports betting analysis covered 16 apps across nine states: Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Tennessee. Tested in person over an 18-day window on real-money accounts registered and funded in-state.

‍United Kingdom. We run the same methodology in the UK across both sportsbook and casino, semi-annually; our most recent UK casino report spanned 20 apps and 17 days of in-person testing.

Online sportsbook and iCasino, US and UK, published semi-annually, with additional markets on the roadmap.

At a glance

Verticals

OSB & iCasino

Markets

US & UK

Cadence

Semi-annual

Method

In-person, real-money

Representative engagements

Illustrative of the type of work we do; client details are confidential and examples are anonymized.

Sprint

Recurring sprint-based program

A Tier 1 U.S. operator embedded EKG in its product cycle with a recurring, sprint-based testing program, testing builds before and after release and tracking improvement against the field, round over round.

Pre-launch

Competitive benchmark

Ahead of a launch, an iCasino operator engaged EKG to benchmark its app head-to-head against named competitors on the categories that mattered most to its roadmap.

Deep-dive

Account-management audit

An operator asked for a focused read on sign-up, deposits, payments, and withdrawals to prioritize friction points ahead of a redesign.

Behavioral

Bettor think-aloud sessions

Moderated, recorded think-aloud sessions with real bettors gave an operator the “why” behind its category scores and a prioritized list of UX fixes.

— Product Testing

Benchmark your product. Or buy the rankings.

Purchase the latest testing reports, or talk to us about a bespoke testing program.

Talk to our testing team Browse testing reports