Reward Machine

Problem — Strong engagement, an incomplete connection to loyalty

Reward Machine had built an established player habit over three years. However, it operated somewhat independently from the broader Rewards Club experience.

That created two related problems. Players’ loyalty status had little presence within an experience they visited frequently, and the collection interface required them to piece together their progress.

I identified an opportunity to make this existing interaction easier to understand and more connected to the product’s loyalty strategy.

How could I make loyalty and progress immediately understandable without disrupting an experience players already knew?

‍

‍

‍

Insight — Familiarity was an asset to preserve

Analytics showed that players were already engaging frequently. Customer feedback revealed a more specific gap: they understood the core mechanic but lacked a clear sense of collection progress and what they were working toward.

That distinction shaped my approach. The established interaction gave us a strong foundation. The surrounding information and feedback needed to do more work.

I partnered with Product, Engineering, and Creative to translate those findings into three priorities:

• Make each player’s loyalty tier recognizable within the experience.
• Show what players had collected and how close they were to completion.
• Establish a consistent foundation for different tiers and future campaigns.

My working hypothesis was that making these relationships visible would create a more coherent loyalty experience while protecting the familiarity players valued.

‍

‍

‍

Strategy — Keep the interaction consistent; make the experience personal

I defined an approach in which Reward Machine adapted visually to a player’s Rewards Club tier while retaining a shared layout and interaction model.

This balanced personalization with consistency. A completely different experience for every tier would create more variation to build, maintain, and validate. A shared foundation allowed each tier to feel distinct while keeping the product recognizable.

I applied the same principle to progression: surface the information players needed within the existing experience, with minimal additional complexity.

These decisions connected the visual direction to its product purpose. Tier treatments communicated status. Collection indicators explained progress. Motion connected an action to its outcome.

‍

‍

‍

Connecting the player journey

I connected entry, gameplay, rewards, and collection progress into a consistent experience, with loyalty status visible throughout.

‍

‍

‍

Design — Make status, progress, and outcomes easier to read

Make loyalty recognizable at the moment of interaction

I defined how the background, loyalty badge, and spin button would adapt across tiers, using the established Rewards Club design language.

For VIP, I extended that distinction through a black machine treatment aligned with the existing VIP badge. The underlying interaction stayed consistent.

The purpose was to give loyalty status a visible presence throughout the experience. Players could recognize their tier without leaving Reward Machine or relying on a separate status label elsewhere in the product.

‍

‍

‍

Make collection progress understandable at a glance

I simplified collection tracking around three questions:

What have I collected? What remains? How close am I?

Progress bars, clearer collection states, and a stronger information hierarchy brought those answers into the main experience. I simplified the supporting information so players could interpret their progress with less effort.

The tradeoff was information density. Reward Machine needed to communicate gameplay, rewards, status, and collection progress within a limited space. I prioritized a clear view of current progress and organized secondary information around it.

I extended that hierarchy to the jackpot display, information pages, and modals, partnering on copy updates and standardizing supporting interactions.

‍

‍

‍

‍

Use motion to explain cause and effect

I developed the interaction and motion design around the relationship between a player’s action, the machine’s response, and the resulting reward or collection update.

The spin button used changes in scale, state, and timing to respond to input. Icon movement connected reel outcomes to the corresponding collection indicator. Transitions maintained continuity as the experience changed state.

The neon treatment and animated accents connected Reward Machine to the broader Rewards Club visual language.

Prototypes made these behaviors concrete. They gave the team a shared reference for how the experience should respond, including details that static screens could not communicate.

‍

‍

‍

System — Create room for the product to evolve

The redesign needed to support loyalty tiers, seasonal campaigns, and moments such as the Super Bowl and new game releases.

I created a modular visual and interaction system with reusable backgrounds, iconography, badges, collection components, button states, and motion behaviors.

The key decision was to separate the elements that could change from the structure players depended on. Campaign artwork and tier treatments could evolve while the core layout, collection logic, and interaction model remained consistent.

This gave the team a foundation for future variations without redesigning the full experience each time.

‍

‍

‍

Carry the design intent through implementation

Reward Machine ran on an external platform supported by an outside engineering team. That made implementation feasibility part of the design process from the beginning.

I worked closely with engineering to communicate interaction requirements, review builds, and resolve differences between the prototypes and the implementation. My role included judging where an approach could adapt while preserving the intended feedback, state changes, and visual hierarchy.

Before launch, I led user acceptance testing across Rewards Club tiers, reviewing collection states, progression behavior, motion, supporting information, and edge cases.

A reusable system needed to hold together across those variations. Validating one polished screen would not have been enough.

‍

‍

‍

In Action

Working with engineering, I validated tier-specific visuals, collection states, and interaction feedback in the implemented experience.

‍

‍

Impact — Strong engagement and a foundation for expansion

Reward Machine was initially soft-launched to 50% of users in Michigan and New Jersey before expanding to a full U.S. rollout across FanDuel Casino.

Reported product results included:

• +50% increase in active player betting days
• 90% of users returning week to week

The work also established a shared foundation for loyalty tiers and future campaign treatments. Reward Machine subsequently appeared in a FanDuel commercial, extending the product experience into a broader brand touchpoint.

My contribution connected the product strategy to the details of the shipped experience—from information hierarchy and tier behavior to motion, implementation reviews, and validation.

‍

‍

‍

Reward Machine later appeared in a FanDuel brand campaign.

‍

‍

‍

Reflection — Design the relationship between the parts

This project reinforced the importance of looking beyond the individual interaction. Reward Machine already had a familiar mechanic. The opportunity was in how that mechanic connected to status, progress, rewards, and the wider product.

It sharpened how I think about polish. Motion and visual detail become more valuable when they help people understand an experience and can be implemented consistently across its variations.

If I revisited the project, I would define more direct measures of comprehension alongside engagement: whether players could identify their tier, explain their collection progress, and understand what remained. That would help distinguish stronger repeat usage from a clearer understanding of the product.

‍