TwinSpires
TwinSpires Racing is the premier online horse racing wagering platform in the United States. Operated by Churchill Downs, Inc. — the official online betting partner of the Kentucky Derby — TwinSpires brings more than 148 years of wagering experience to bettors nationwide.
Milestones
Relaunch.
Redesigned from the ground up - March 2024
Connected.
Developed an API to feed horse race data - Sept 2024
Integrated.
Connected native mobile carousels - Sept 2024
Overview
TwinSpires Racing is the premier online horse racing wagering platform in the United States. Operated by Churchill Downs, Inc. — the official online betting partner of the Kentucky Derby — TwinSpires brings more than 148 years of wagering experience to bettors nationwide.
The Challenge
TwinSpires was operating on an aging WordPress platform that struggled with performance, SEO, and scalability. After successfully transitioning their TwinSpires Edge content site to a headless CMS, they needed a similar solution for their main TwinSpires.com site — one that could keep up with growing user demand and deliver a faster, more seamless experience for bettors.
The Solution
Building on our previous work, we modernized TwinSpires.com with a new architecture:
- Replaced the legacy WordPress system with a headless CMS (Strapi).
- Developed a custom React front-end for lightning-fast performance.
- Reused and extended existing content types from the TwinSpires Edge project for efficiency.
- Integrated custom betting widgets originally created for TwinSpires Edge.
- Built a custom API to pull active race data — allowing TwinSpires and other properties to access real-time information easily.
The Result
The results were immediate and dramatic:
- 300% increase in load speeds.
- SEO score improvement from the mid-50s to the 90s.
- Unified content management across both TwinSpires.com and TwinSpires Edge.
- Enhanced user experience, increasing the likelihood of visitors placing a bet.
The Team
Our team consisted of:
- Product Manager
- UI/UX Designer
- Technology Lead
- Front-End Developer
- Back-End Developers
Deliverables
- Web Development
- SaaS Development
- UI/UX Design
- Front-End Development
- Back-End Development