UI / UX Design
Big Dollar Casino
A redesign of a long running online casino where the real friction was never the lobby, it was the money: withdrawals, bonus terms and responsible gambling controls.
Year :
2025
Industry :
Online gaming
Client :
Big Dollar Casino
Project Duration :
2 Weeks
Role :
Product designer
Team :
JAH Creative Agency
Tools :
Figma
Platform :
Web and mobile web
View more shots in the gallery →
Snapshot
Big Dollar Casino has been running since 2006 and still accepts United States players, which is rare. Its lobby is not the problem. Reviewers describe the navigation as easy while rating the operator 5.9 out of 10 on safety. The friction sits around the money: a 48 to 72 hour internal review, payouts released only on Mondays and Thursdays, identity checks that surface at withdrawal instead of signup, and bonus terms players say are impossible to read before they accept them. I redesigned the money path, not the game grid.
Project Health
Overview
Big Dollar Casino is an online casino operated by Ardera Limited, licensed by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission and Curacao, live since 2006, carrying more than 350 games from Betsoft, Rival, Saucify, Genii, and Evolution Gaming for live dealer. It accepts players from the United States with the exception of Kentucky, Michigan, New Jersey, Louisiana and Ontario. The audience skews casual and budget conscious, pulled in by no deposit offers and reload bonuses. That acquisition model works. The retention model is where it leaks.
Before The Redesign
The current product is not visually broken. It is a competent casino of its era that has been maintained rather than rethought. The issues live in sequence and disclosure: what the player is told, and when they are told it.
2006
Operating since
5.9/10
AskGamblers safety index
48 to 72h
Withdrawal review window
The Problem
Reading the review platforms in sequence, one pattern repeats: navigation is not the complaint, money is. Withdrawals sit in a 48 to 72 hour internal review before release, and once approved they are only paid on Mondays and Thursdays, so a Friday request can wait most of a week before it moves. Identity verification is requested at the point of withdrawal rather than at signup, which turns a win into paperwork. Bonus terms are the sharpest edge: players on Trustpilot describe wagering requirements they call impossible to achieve, and forfeiture rules they did not know they had agreed to. The result is an operator with a below average safety index of 5.9 out of 10 and a blacklisting from one major review site, despite a game library and an interface people generally like.
Constraints
Regulatory. Licensing under Kahnawake and Curacao plus a United States facing audience means responsible gambling tools, self exclusion and deposit limits are not optional features, they are compliance surface. 2. Operational. The Monday and Thursday payout rhythm and the 48 to 72 hour review are business processes, not interface bugs, so the design had to make them legible rather than pretend to remove them. 3. Technical. The game library is supplied by five third party providers, so tiles and live dealer views could be reskinned but not rebuilt. 4. Legacy. Mobile is described in reviews as a straight copy of desktop, so there was no mobile pattern library to inherit.
Research & Insights
There was no access to operator analytics, so the research was built from public evidence rather than invented numbers. I read complaint threads and reviews across AskGamblers, Trustpilot, Casino Guru and Casinos.com and sorted every complaint into interface, money, or support. I pulled the published banking and FAQ pages to map the actual withdrawal rules. I compared the flow against the responsible gambling standards published by the National Council on Problem Gambling, which expect deposit limits and self exclusion to sit within a couple of clicks. Three findings shaped the work. First, praise for navigation and criticism of the cashier appear in the same reviews, so a visual refresh alone would have solved nothing. Second, almost every angry review traces back to an expectation set at signup and broken at withdrawal. Third, the responsible gambling tools exist but are not where a player under pressure would look for them.
Goals & Objectives
Make the payout timetable and review window visible before a player deposits, not after they win. 2. Turn bonus terms into something a player can understand on one screen and track while they play. 3. Move identity verification to the front of the relationship so a withdrawal is not the first time documents are mentioned. 4. Bring deposit limits, session reminders and self exclusion within reach on both desktop and mobile. 5. Design mobile as its own layout rather than a compressed desktop.
Process
I wrote the money journey out as a timeline from signup to cash in hand and marked every point where the player learns something new. Most of the anger clustered where the timeline held surprises, so I redrew it with every surprise moved earlier. From there I designed the withdrawal flow first and let the rest of the interface follow it, which is the reverse of how a casino redesign usually runs. The lobby was refreshed last and deliberately conservatively, because the evidence said it was not broken.
Key Design Decisions
Publish the payout calendar inside the withdrawal flow. The tension: Monday and Thursday payouts look bad written down. The choice: show them anyway, with the next payout date calculated for the player. The trade off: some players see a wait they would not have noticed, but a stated wait generates fewer support tickets than a silent one. 2. Replace bonus terms with a plain language summary and a live progress meter. The tension: full terms are a legal requirement and cannot be deleted. The choice: lead with a short summary of what is required and how much is left, keeping the full terms one tap away. The trade off: more weight on the bonus card. 3. Move identity verification to signup. The tension: asking for a document before a player has deposited raises the barrier to entry. The choice: ask early and explain why, framing it as unlocking withdrawals later. The trade off: measurable signup drop off in exchange for removing the worst moment in the current experience. 4. Put responsible gambling controls two taps from anywhere. The tension: operators rarely want these tools prominent. The choice: place deposit limits and self exclusion in the account menu and the footer on both breakpoints, with decreases applying instantly and increases held for a cooling period. The trade off: commercial, and it is the right one. 5. Design the mobile lobby natively. The tension: time. The choice: a separate mobile layout with thumb reachable filters instead of a scaled desktop grid, since reviewers call the current mobile a straight copy.
The Solution
The redesigned experience treats the cashier as the product. A player sees the payout schedule before they deposit, verifies identity while they are still excited rather than while they are waiting on money, accepts a bonus against a plain summary with a visible wagering meter, and finds limits and self exclusion where they would expect them. The lobby is cleaner and calmer but deliberately familiar, because the research never asked for a new lobby.
High Fidelity
Results & Impact
This work was delivered as a client engagement during my time at JAH Creative Agency. Live performance figures sit with the operator and are not mine to publish, so I have not invented any. The measures the design was built to move map directly to the complaints it set out to fix: time from withdrawal request to funds received, the share of withdrawals delayed by verification, support contacts per thousand withdrawals, the bonus dispute rate, and the proportion of players who set a deposit limit before their first deposit.
Reflections
The instinct on a casino brief is to redesign the lobby, because that is the part that photographs well. The evidence pointed the other way. Players called the lobby fine and the cashier the problem, and taking that at face value produced better work than a visual refresh would have. The part I am least sure about is moving verification to signup. It is the right call for trust and the wrong call for a conversion dashboard, and without the operator numbers I cannot prove the trade is worth it. I would want that tested before it shipped.
More Projects
CLIENT PROOF
Nick Simmons
founder of JAH creative design agency
Having Lawrence work under my agency made me money as an efficient designer he is, helped me retain my status as a Top 4% upwork agency and I can't be any less proud of him. Under me he learnt framer just so we could get more jobs and he delivered.
Loong Pancoast
CEO of DriveOn
Lawrence is a professional through and through. He has been an absolute pleasure to work with, taking in account all of our needs while meeting expectations. I would 100 percent recommend Lawrence for any developmental design needs. If you are hesitating, don't, you won't regret it.
Drew Levin
Co-founder of SideShift
Lawrence worked hand in hand with me and Nick Lawton to get the first version of our site out the door, staying flexible through every change we needed. His cooperation is a big reason we could launch on time and begin major operations. A designer who listens closely and delivers.
12:27
UI / UX Design
Big Dollar Casino
A redesign of a long running online casino where the real friction was never the lobby, it was the money: withdrawals, bonus terms and responsible gambling controls.
Year :
2025
Industry :
Online gaming
Client :
Big Dollar Casino
Project Duration :
2 Weeks
Role :
Product designer
Team :
JAH Creative Agency
Tools :
Figma
Platform :
Web and mobile web
View more shots in the gallery →
Snapshot
Big Dollar Casino has been running since 2006 and still accepts United States players, which is rare. Its lobby is not the problem. Reviewers describe the navigation as easy while rating the operator 5.9 out of 10 on safety. The friction sits around the money: a 48 to 72 hour internal review, payouts released only on Mondays and Thursdays, identity checks that surface at withdrawal instead of signup, and bonus terms players say are impossible to read before they accept them. I redesigned the money path, not the game grid.
Project Health
Overview
Big Dollar Casino is an online casino operated by Ardera Limited, licensed by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission and Curacao, live since 2006, carrying more than 350 games from Betsoft, Rival, Saucify, Genii, and Evolution Gaming for live dealer. It accepts players from the United States with the exception of Kentucky, Michigan, New Jersey, Louisiana and Ontario. The audience skews casual and budget conscious, pulled in by no deposit offers and reload bonuses. That acquisition model works. The retention model is where it leaks.
Before The Redesign
The current product is not visually broken. It is a competent casino of its era that has been maintained rather than rethought. The issues live in sequence and disclosure: what the player is told, and when they are told it.
2006
Operating since
5.9/10
AskGamblers safety index
48 to 72h
Withdrawal review window
The Problem
Reading the review platforms in sequence, one pattern repeats: navigation is not the complaint, money is. Withdrawals sit in a 48 to 72 hour internal review before release, and once approved they are only paid on Mondays and Thursdays, so a Friday request can wait most of a week before it moves. Identity verification is requested at the point of withdrawal rather than at signup, which turns a win into paperwork. Bonus terms are the sharpest edge: players on Trustpilot describe wagering requirements they call impossible to achieve, and forfeiture rules they did not know they had agreed to. The result is an operator with a below average safety index of 5.9 out of 10 and a blacklisting from one major review site, despite a game library and an interface people generally like.
Constraints
Regulatory. Licensing under Kahnawake and Curacao plus a United States facing audience means responsible gambling tools, self exclusion and deposit limits are not optional features, they are compliance surface. 2. Operational. The Monday and Thursday payout rhythm and the 48 to 72 hour review are business processes, not interface bugs, so the design had to make them legible rather than pretend to remove them. 3. Technical. The game library is supplied by five third party providers, so tiles and live dealer views could be reskinned but not rebuilt. 4. Legacy. Mobile is described in reviews as a straight copy of desktop, so there was no mobile pattern library to inherit.
Research & Insights
There was no access to operator analytics, so the research was built from public evidence rather than invented numbers. I read complaint threads and reviews across AskGamblers, Trustpilot, Casino Guru and Casinos.com and sorted every complaint into interface, money, or support. I pulled the published banking and FAQ pages to map the actual withdrawal rules. I compared the flow against the responsible gambling standards published by the National Council on Problem Gambling, which expect deposit limits and self exclusion to sit within a couple of clicks. Three findings shaped the work. First, praise for navigation and criticism of the cashier appear in the same reviews, so a visual refresh alone would have solved nothing. Second, almost every angry review traces back to an expectation set at signup and broken at withdrawal. Third, the responsible gambling tools exist but are not where a player under pressure would look for them.
Goals & Objectives
Make the payout timetable and review window visible before a player deposits, not after they win. 2. Turn bonus terms into something a player can understand on one screen and track while they play. 3. Move identity verification to the front of the relationship so a withdrawal is not the first time documents are mentioned. 4. Bring deposit limits, session reminders and self exclusion within reach on both desktop and mobile. 5. Design mobile as its own layout rather than a compressed desktop.
Process
I wrote the money journey out as a timeline from signup to cash in hand and marked every point where the player learns something new. Most of the anger clustered where the timeline held surprises, so I redrew it with every surprise moved earlier. From there I designed the withdrawal flow first and let the rest of the interface follow it, which is the reverse of how a casino redesign usually runs. The lobby was refreshed last and deliberately conservatively, because the evidence said it was not broken.
Key Design Decisions
Publish the payout calendar inside the withdrawal flow. The tension: Monday and Thursday payouts look bad written down. The choice: show them anyway, with the next payout date calculated for the player. The trade off: some players see a wait they would not have noticed, but a stated wait generates fewer support tickets than a silent one. 2. Replace bonus terms with a plain language summary and a live progress meter. The tension: full terms are a legal requirement and cannot be deleted. The choice: lead with a short summary of what is required and how much is left, keeping the full terms one tap away. The trade off: more weight on the bonus card. 3. Move identity verification to signup. The tension: asking for a document before a player has deposited raises the barrier to entry. The choice: ask early and explain why, framing it as unlocking withdrawals later. The trade off: measurable signup drop off in exchange for removing the worst moment in the current experience. 4. Put responsible gambling controls two taps from anywhere. The tension: operators rarely want these tools prominent. The choice: place deposit limits and self exclusion in the account menu and the footer on both breakpoints, with decreases applying instantly and increases held for a cooling period. The trade off: commercial, and it is the right one. 5. Design the mobile lobby natively. The tension: time. The choice: a separate mobile layout with thumb reachable filters instead of a scaled desktop grid, since reviewers call the current mobile a straight copy.
The Solution
The redesigned experience treats the cashier as the product. A player sees the payout schedule before they deposit, verifies identity while they are still excited rather than while they are waiting on money, accepts a bonus against a plain summary with a visible wagering meter, and finds limits and self exclusion where they would expect them. The lobby is cleaner and calmer but deliberately familiar, because the research never asked for a new lobby.
High Fidelity
Results & Impact
This work was delivered as a client engagement during my time at JAH Creative Agency. Live performance figures sit with the operator and are not mine to publish, so I have not invented any. The measures the design was built to move map directly to the complaints it set out to fix: time from withdrawal request to funds received, the share of withdrawals delayed by verification, support contacts per thousand withdrawals, the bonus dispute rate, and the proportion of players who set a deposit limit before their first deposit.
Reflections
The instinct on a casino brief is to redesign the lobby, because that is the part that photographs well. The evidence pointed the other way. Players called the lobby fine and the cashier the problem, and taking that at face value produced better work than a visual refresh would have. The part I am least sure about is moving verification to signup. It is the right call for trust and the wrong call for a conversion dashboard, and without the operator numbers I cannot prove the trade is worth it. I would want that tested before it shipped.
More Projects
CLIENT PROOF
Nick Simmons
founder of JAH creative design agency
Having Lawrence work under my agency made me money as an efficient designer he is, helped me retain my status as a Top 4% upwork agency and I can't be any less proud of him. Under me he learnt framer just so we could get more jobs and he delivered.
Loong Pancoast
CEO of DriveOn
Lawrence is a professional through and through. He has been an absolute pleasure to work with, taking in account all of our needs while meeting expectations. I would 100 percent recommend Lawrence for any developmental design needs. If you are hesitating, don't, you won't regret it.
Drew Levin
Co-founder of SideShift
Lawrence worked hand in hand with me and Nick Lawton to get the first version of our site out the door, staying flexible through every change we needed. His cooperation is a big reason we could launch on time and begin major operations. A designer who listens closely and delivers.
12:27
UI / UX Design
Big Dollar Casino
A redesign of a long running online casino where the real friction was never the lobby, it was the money: withdrawals, bonus terms and responsible gambling controls.
Year :
2025
Industry :
Online gaming
Client :
Big Dollar Casino
Project Duration :
2 Weeks
Role :
Product designer
Team :
JAH Creative Agency
Tools :
Figma
Platform :
Web and mobile web
View more shots in the gallery →
Snapshot
Big Dollar Casino has been running since 2006 and still accepts United States players, which is rare. Its lobby is not the problem. Reviewers describe the navigation as easy while rating the operator 5.9 out of 10 on safety. The friction sits around the money: a 48 to 72 hour internal review, payouts released only on Mondays and Thursdays, identity checks that surface at withdrawal instead of signup, and bonus terms players say are impossible to read before they accept them. I redesigned the money path, not the game grid.
Project Health
Overview
Big Dollar Casino is an online casino operated by Ardera Limited, licensed by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission and Curacao, live since 2006, carrying more than 350 games from Betsoft, Rival, Saucify, Genii, and Evolution Gaming for live dealer. It accepts players from the United States with the exception of Kentucky, Michigan, New Jersey, Louisiana and Ontario. The audience skews casual and budget conscious, pulled in by no deposit offers and reload bonuses. That acquisition model works. The retention model is where it leaks.
Before The Redesign
The current product is not visually broken. It is a competent casino of its era that has been maintained rather than rethought. The issues live in sequence and disclosure: what the player is told, and when they are told it.
2006
Operating since
5.9/10
AskGamblers safety index
48 to 72h
Withdrawal review window
The Problem
Reading the review platforms in sequence, one pattern repeats: navigation is not the complaint, money is. Withdrawals sit in a 48 to 72 hour internal review before release, and once approved they are only paid on Mondays and Thursdays, so a Friday request can wait most of a week before it moves. Identity verification is requested at the point of withdrawal rather than at signup, which turns a win into paperwork. Bonus terms are the sharpest edge: players on Trustpilot describe wagering requirements they call impossible to achieve, and forfeiture rules they did not know they had agreed to. The result is an operator with a below average safety index of 5.9 out of 10 and a blacklisting from one major review site, despite a game library and an interface people generally like.
Constraints
Regulatory. Licensing under Kahnawake and Curacao plus a United States facing audience means responsible gambling tools, self exclusion and deposit limits are not optional features, they are compliance surface. 2. Operational. The Monday and Thursday payout rhythm and the 48 to 72 hour review are business processes, not interface bugs, so the design had to make them legible rather than pretend to remove them. 3. Technical. The game library is supplied by five third party providers, so tiles and live dealer views could be reskinned but not rebuilt. 4. Legacy. Mobile is described in reviews as a straight copy of desktop, so there was no mobile pattern library to inherit.
Research & Insights
There was no access to operator analytics, so the research was built from public evidence rather than invented numbers. I read complaint threads and reviews across AskGamblers, Trustpilot, Casino Guru and Casinos.com and sorted every complaint into interface, money, or support. I pulled the published banking and FAQ pages to map the actual withdrawal rules. I compared the flow against the responsible gambling standards published by the National Council on Problem Gambling, which expect deposit limits and self exclusion to sit within a couple of clicks. Three findings shaped the work. First, praise for navigation and criticism of the cashier appear in the same reviews, so a visual refresh alone would have solved nothing. Second, almost every angry review traces back to an expectation set at signup and broken at withdrawal. Third, the responsible gambling tools exist but are not where a player under pressure would look for them.
Goals & Objectives
Make the payout timetable and review window visible before a player deposits, not after they win. 2. Turn bonus terms into something a player can understand on one screen and track while they play. 3. Move identity verification to the front of the relationship so a withdrawal is not the first time documents are mentioned. 4. Bring deposit limits, session reminders and self exclusion within reach on both desktop and mobile. 5. Design mobile as its own layout rather than a compressed desktop.
Process
I wrote the money journey out as a timeline from signup to cash in hand and marked every point where the player learns something new. Most of the anger clustered where the timeline held surprises, so I redrew it with every surprise moved earlier. From there I designed the withdrawal flow first and let the rest of the interface follow it, which is the reverse of how a casino redesign usually runs. The lobby was refreshed last and deliberately conservatively, because the evidence said it was not broken.
Key Design Decisions
Publish the payout calendar inside the withdrawal flow. The tension: Monday and Thursday payouts look bad written down. The choice: show them anyway, with the next payout date calculated for the player. The trade off: some players see a wait they would not have noticed, but a stated wait generates fewer support tickets than a silent one. 2. Replace bonus terms with a plain language summary and a live progress meter. The tension: full terms are a legal requirement and cannot be deleted. The choice: lead with a short summary of what is required and how much is left, keeping the full terms one tap away. The trade off: more weight on the bonus card. 3. Move identity verification to signup. The tension: asking for a document before a player has deposited raises the barrier to entry. The choice: ask early and explain why, framing it as unlocking withdrawals later. The trade off: measurable signup drop off in exchange for removing the worst moment in the current experience. 4. Put responsible gambling controls two taps from anywhere. The tension: operators rarely want these tools prominent. The choice: place deposit limits and self exclusion in the account menu and the footer on both breakpoints, with decreases applying instantly and increases held for a cooling period. The trade off: commercial, and it is the right one. 5. Design the mobile lobby natively. The tension: time. The choice: a separate mobile layout with thumb reachable filters instead of a scaled desktop grid, since reviewers call the current mobile a straight copy.
The Solution
The redesigned experience treats the cashier as the product. A player sees the payout schedule before they deposit, verifies identity while they are still excited rather than while they are waiting on money, accepts a bonus against a plain summary with a visible wagering meter, and finds limits and self exclusion where they would expect them. The lobby is cleaner and calmer but deliberately familiar, because the research never asked for a new lobby.
High Fidelity
Results & Impact
This work was delivered as a client engagement during my time at JAH Creative Agency. Live performance figures sit with the operator and are not mine to publish, so I have not invented any. The measures the design was built to move map directly to the complaints it set out to fix: time from withdrawal request to funds received, the share of withdrawals delayed by verification, support contacts per thousand withdrawals, the bonus dispute rate, and the proportion of players who set a deposit limit before their first deposit.
Reflections
The instinct on a casino brief is to redesign the lobby, because that is the part that photographs well. The evidence pointed the other way. Players called the lobby fine and the cashier the problem, and taking that at face value produced better work than a visual refresh would have. The part I am least sure about is moving verification to signup. It is the right call for trust and the wrong call for a conversion dashboard, and without the operator numbers I cannot prove the trade is worth it. I would want that tested before it shipped.
More Projects
CLIENT PROOF
Nick Simmons
founder of JAH creative design agency
Having Lawrence work under my agency made me money as an efficient designer he is, helped me retain my status as a Top 4% upwork agency and I can't be any less proud of him. Under me he learnt framer just so we could get more jobs and he delivered.
Loong Pancoast
CEO of DriveOn
Lawrence is a professional through and through. He has been an absolute pleasure to work with, taking in account all of our needs while meeting expectations. I would 100 percent recommend Lawrence for any developmental design needs. If you are hesitating, don't, you won't regret it.
Drew Levin
Co-founder of SideShift
Lawrence worked hand in hand with me and Nick Lawton to get the first version of our site out the door, staying flexible through every change we needed. His cooperation is a big reason we could launch on time and begin major operations. A designer who listens closely and delivers.
12:27