How One League Player Reinvented the Game
An article we liked from Thought Leader Mike Sommers of BPS Pro-Score Plus:
How a League Player Built What the Pool Industry Couldn’t — And Why the Competition Is Proving Him Right
Ever notice there’s no gambling on pool?
Not regulated, mainstream, sportsbook - style action like you see with every other major sport. Not because nobody cares — millions of people shoot pool every week. The APA alone has 275,000 active league members across 13,000 venues. There are tournaments, rivalries, regulars who’ve been grinding their games for decades.
So why no data? Why no real analytics? Why no scoring system that doesn’t involve a pencil, a piece of paper, and an argument about whose turn it is?
Seeing the Problem from the Inside
I’ve been an APA league player for years. Every Tuesday night, same story: teammates keeping score on paper, making mistakes, stopping the game to argue about fouls, killing momentum. The sport I love — played by millions around the worls — was still running on the honor system.
I looked around for a solution. There wasn’t one. Not an app, not a device, not a system that could score a pool game hands - free without bolting something to the table or replacing the balls. Nothing.
So we built one.
Two Years, 80+ Features, Zero Table Modifications
BPS Pro - Score Plus is a single camera mounted above the table. That’s the hardware. No drilling. No special balls. No modified cue stick. No sensors embedded in the pockets. A bartender can install it.
The game plays exactly the same. Same rules. Same equipment. Same feel. But now there’s a watchful eye overhead that tracks every ball, scores every game automatically, and tells you when there’s a foul — with multiple league rule sets already built in.
What started as hands - free scoring grew into something much bigger. Over two years of development, we’ve built 80+ significant features:
Unlimited scorekeeping during and off league games
Unlimited shareable instant replays — every shot, every game
Shareable highlight reels — your best moments, ready for social
Complete Augmented Reality Enhanced training System (CARETS) — 12 levels of progression
Shot Difficulty Rating (SDR) - first proprietary difficulty metric in billiards
Table Speed Rating (TSR) - standardized cloth speed, like the Stimpmeter for golf
Cushion Rebound Rating (CRR) - cushion rubber performance scoring
Foul detection with league - specific rule enforcement (APA, BCA, Ultimate)
Live remote viewing - family can watch your match from anywhere on a smartphone
Go - Back button - correct mistakes without restarting the game
All of this, patient pending. Built from scratch. First of its kind.
They Said It Was Too Early. Now They’re Building What We Already Have.
When we started, the feedback was predictable. “Pool doesn’t need technology” “There’s no market.” “Nobody will pay for this.”
Two years later? New companies are entering the space — and what are they building? Hands - free scoring. The exact thing BPS built two years ago. That’s it. One feature.
They’re validating what we’ve been saying all along: these enhancements, these features, this core technology is what pool has needed, and what the players, leagues, and industry deserve.
The difference? We didn’t slow down. While they’re still figuring out how to detect balls on a table, we’ve shipped 80+ features. We built the scoring, then the replays, then the training system, then the analytics, then the broadcast platform. And we did it all without modifying a siungle piece of equipment on the table.
Built in Orange County. Built for the World.
BPS Pro-Score Plus is proudly built in Orange County. We’re an OCSC member, and we believe in what this community is doing for founders who are building real things for real markets.
The billiards industry has been waiting for this. The players deserve it. And the data that comes from finally digitizing the sport — shot patterns, player performance, table conditions, match analytics — opens doors that have been closed for over a century.
Thanks for this article excerpt and its graphics to Mike Sommers, Founder & CEO of BPS Pro-Score Plus.
Want to share your advice for startup entrepreneurs? Submit a Guest Post here.