A play-for-fun sportsbook for sports media and fan sites

A fan engagement sports prediction game works when it gives fans something to do during the match, not only before it. A play-for-fun sportsbook embedded next to your coverage does that: readers sign in on your site, get free tokens, and bet on the matches you write about, pre-match and live, with bets settled automatically. Players bet free tokens, never real money.

Fan engagement beyond a sports prediction game: why fans come back

Most sports media traffic arrives in two spikes: the preview before kick-off and the report after the whistle. In between, readers are watching the match and following the live score on their phones, and they are mostly somewhere else.

A sports prediction game fills the first spike. Readers pick a score on Friday and check back on Monday. That's useful, but it doesn't bring anyone back at the 60th minute. A sportsbook does, because there is always something to decide: the next goal, the total, whether to back the side that just went down to ten men. With live betting switched on, prices move with the match, and fans who have tokens on it keep the page open.

We compare the two formats in more depth in predictor games vs a play-for-fun sportsbook. The short version for a publisher: predictors are a weekly ritual, a sportsbook is a match-day habit.

From match report to match page: embedding next to your content

The sportsbook runs in an iframe on your own pages, so it can sit wherever your readers already are:

• a "Play" section in your main navigation, with the full sportsbook;
• your match preview, with the sportsbook underneath;
• a live blog, where readers bet while they follow your minute-by-minute updates;
• your community area, if you run forums or a members' club.

Technically it's the same integration everywhere. Your server opens a session for the signed-in reader with your API key, and the page mounts the sportsbook with the single-use launch URL it gets back:

<div data-thesportsbook data-launch-url="LAUNCH_URL_FROM_YOUR_SERVER"></div><script src="https://play.thesportsbook.app/sdk.js"></script>

The launch URL expires after 60 seconds and works once, so the page that shows it can't be served from a page cache. Readers need to be signed in, because each player is identified by your own pseudonymous id for them, never by an email or a real name. If your site runs on WordPress, adding a sportsbook to WordPress walks through the session endpoint and a shortcode. For the full picture of how embedding works, start with the embeddable sportsbook guide.

With height: "auto" the iframe grows with its content, so it reads as part of your page rather than a box with its own scroll bar. On a phone, the navigation becomes a drawer and the betslip a bottom sheet, because the layout follows the width of the iframe, not the window.

Pick the sports and leagues your audience follows

A football site doesn't need ice hockey, and a site about one league doesn't need a hundred others. You pick what appears:

• Sports. Up to 11: football, basketball, tennis, ice hockey, baseball, volleyball, American football, esports, UFC, martial arts (MMA) and boxing. Free includes one; Custom starts with one and adds more; Full has all of them.
• Leagues. Picked one by one from a catalog of more than a thousand. Free allows up to three. Custom includes five per sport, with packs of five more. Full has unlimited leagues, still picked one by one, so the sportsbook only shows what you chose.
• Markets. Each match page shows the full market list we carry for that match. If some markets don't suit your readers, you can hide them per sport in the console.

A newly picked league starts showing its matches within about two minutes, which helps when a cup run suddenly makes a smaller competition relevant.

Your brand, your tokens, their odds format

Readers should feel they are still on your site. In the console's Studio you start from one of six presets and set colors, logo, favicon, corner radius and layout: a sidebar or a top bar, match cards as a list or a grid, a floating or docked betslip. Paid plans add fonts (including your own font files), density and odds button styles. Studio checks text and odds colors against WCAG AA before you save, and saved changes reach open sportsbooks within seconds.

Tokens carry your label: a word like POINTS, COINS or your community's own name, never a currency symbol or code. Players pick their own odds format (decimal, fractional, American, Hong Kong, Indonesian or Malay), so a UK reader and a US reader each see prices the way they're used to. The interface runs in English and Spanish.

Where the tokens come from is up to you, as long as it's free: an equal starting balance, a daily refill, points for reading or commenting at the same rate for everyone. When a player runs low, the sportsbook's "Get more tokens" button tells your page (the tokens-requested event), and you open your free refill.

Leaderboards and recognition that stay play-for-fun

Competition is what keeps fans coming back week after week, and it's easy to build around the sportsbook. You can read each player's bets and balance through the API and publish a weekly or season leaderboard on your own page, crown a "Predictor of the month" in your newsletter, or give a badge in your comments section.

What you can't do is attach anything of value to it. Our rules (AUP 5.1 and 5.2) allow recognition that is free, non-transferable and can't be bought or exchanged: a leaderboard position, a title, a badge, a community role, a mention of the player's nickname. They don't allow prizes of value linked to bets, balances or rankings. That rules out signed shirts, match tickets, gift cards, subscriptions to your premium tier and entries into a prize draw for "everyone who played this week". If you want to run a giveaway, run it separately and don't promote it with the sportsbook.

Rules you must keep around the embed

Sports media often earns from betting partners, which is why this section matters more for publishers than for most operators.

No bookmaker links or promo codes near the sportsbook. AUP 6.1(b) forbids using the service to advertise, promote, link to or acquire customers for any real-money betting operator. That covers anything in or around the embed, in your sportsbook's name or branding, in your maintenance message and in promotions linked to it: affiliate links, referral or promo codes, odds boosts, bonus offers and bookmaker branding. Your match pages can't carry an odds widget with bookmaker links next to the sportsbook, and the sportsbook can't be a route to one.

If your company works with real-money betting operators, talk to us first. Under AUP 6.2, a company that offers real-money betting, or acts as an affiliate, tipster service or marketing partner of a real-money betting operator, can use The Sportsbook only under a separate written agreement that allows a free-to-play use.

No claims of affiliation. AUP 8.4(c) says you must not suggest your sportsbook is affiliated with any league, team, athlete, event organizer or data source. Club names appear because matches do, but your sportsbook's name, logo and marketing shouldn't use league or club marks as if they were yours. Fan sites that are not official should say so.

18+ and not aimed at minors. Only adults may play, and you need age assurance appropriate to your audience. A youth-sports site or a school team page is not a fit. Before players first play, tell them the sportsbook is for entertainment, that tokens have no value and can't be bought, sold or exchanged, that no real money can be staked or won, that they must be 18 or older, and that you run the sportsbook and its tokens. Our player notice template covers this.

Rules on free-to-play games differ between countries. Check with a lawyer in your jurisdiction if you're unsure about yours.

Plan fit: a fan site on Free vs Custom with live

Prices at the time of writing (September 2026), in USD, excluding VAT. Current figures are on the pricing page.

A club fan site covering one team's league and cup can run on Free: one sport, three leagues, pre-match betting, up to 250 monthly active players. It's a real way to test whether your readers bet before match day, and nobody has to approve it.

A sports media site with a live blog will want Custom with the live add-on, because the whole point is betting during the match. Add the 2D match viewer on sports that have one. A multi-sport publisher with a large audience is the case for Full.

If you already run watch-alongs or live streams, the watch-party guide covers running the sportsbook during a live match with a crowd. To see what your readers would see, open the live demo (opens in a new tab): the real embed, free demo tokens, no sign-up.

Frequently asked questions