I spent a year building an AI sports betting tool. Here's what I actually learned.

Hey IH 👋

I'm David, solo founder of PropsBot.AI. We just crossed 190,000+ tracked player prop predictions with a verified 31% ROI on our High ROI AI Signal tier. Wanted to share the story in case any of it is useful to other indie hackers building in crowded or skepticism-heavy spaces.

The problem that kicked this off:

I'm a lifelong sports bettor and a data/ML person by day. For years I was running spreadsheets trying to find player props the sportsbooks mispriced — slow, manual, inconsistent.

When I looked at the "AI betting tools" that appeared in 2024–2025, every single one I tested was a thin ChatGPT wrapper over public box scores. Not actual machine learning. Zero transparency on methodology. No published track record. Some of them charged $99/week. Felt solvable.

What I actually built:

PropsBot runs ensemble machine learning — XGBoost combined with neural networks — trained on 5+ years of player, team, matchup, and market data. Nothing revolutionary on its own, but most tools in this space literally aren't doing it.

Every prop gets scored independently by multiple models. When they agree, I surface two metrics to the user:

- Confidence Score — ML model consensus (how much the models agree)

- Edge Score — positive EV vs. the sportsbook's posted line

When a prop hits the Confidence Score threshold, we flag it as a High ROI AI Signal. Across 190,000+ tracked predictions, that specific signal tier has produced a verified 31% ROI, with the full record published for anyone to audit.

Covers NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL. $49.99/mo (or $34.99/mo annual). Free trial, no card required.

The stack:

- Backend: Python (XGBoost, TensorFlow, FastAPI)

- Data: Vendors for live odds + historical stats; daily batch retraining

- Web: WordPress for content/SEO, React front-end for the app

- Apps: React Native on iOS + Android

- Infra: Mostly managed services, one VPS for model training

- Marketing: SEO-first (comparison pages are our best-converting URLs), 50% lifetime affiliate program

What's working:

- Transparent performance dashboard. Publishing every prediction + win/loss + ROI converts 3x better than "just trust us." The 190k+ number is what actually closes trials.

- Comparison pages (propsbot-vs-oddsjam, propsbot-vs-propgpt, etc.) are our best SEO pages. Bettors comparison-shop aggressively — these pages meet them mid-decision.

- 50% lifetime affiliate matches the top of the market. Publishers currently paid less by competitors are starting to feature us.

Things I'd do differently:

1. Published the performance numbers earlier. I waited too long because I was scared of a cold start. The moment I went fully transparent — every prediction logged, every ROI number public — trust skyrocketed.

2. Skipped most AI-tool directories. Half of what I planned to submit to (Toolify, TAAFT, Futurepedia) eliminated their free tiers in 2025. Hours spent on submissions that couldn't happen. Niche sports-betting review sites converted 10x better.

3. Not launched on Product Hunt first. PH is great for SaaS but the sports betting audience isn't there. Reddit (r/sportsbook, r/algobetting) and sports-betting Twitter were where the real users lived.

What's hard:

- Sports betting is saturated with "picks" services that are hot garbage. Educating users that PropsBot is a research tool (not a picks service, not a tout) is an ongoing battle.

- The word "AI" has been nuked by ChatGPT wrappers. I spend surprising effort explaining "no, we actually use XGBoost and neural nets, here's the methodology page."

- Regulated space = extra friction. Some payment processors don't want to touch it. Some directories ban it outright. Some publishers won't feature gambling-adjacent products. You route around it, but it slows everything down.

Ask for the IH community:

If you've built in a regulated or skepticism-heavy space (gambling, finance, health), how did you handle the "everyone promises the moon" credibility problem? We lean on published numbers + transparency, but would love to hear other approaches.

And if you want to poke at the product: propsbot.ai — free trial, no card required. Happy to answer anything technical about the ML stack, the infra, or the marketing playbook.

Cheers,

David 🚀