Pinnacle (formerly known as Pinnacle Sports) is an online gaming website that was founded in 1998. Since its inception, Pinnacle has become a medium-sized, fully licensed, online sportsbook. Pinnacle Sports rebranded to Pinnacle on June 1, 2016[1] after acquiring the pinnacle.com domain name.[2]
Presently, the company has customers in over 100 countries and is available in 19 (including international English) different languages. While most of the company information, including number of employees and gross revenues are kept private, Michael Konik, author of The Smart Money, believes "it would not be out of line to guess that their [Pinnacle Sports] annual handle is in the billions of dollars."[3]
Pinnacle headquarters are located on the island of Curaçao of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and the group is fully licensed and regulated by the Government of the Netherlands Antilles (license number: 8048/JAZ2013-013),[4] which also functions as the regulating body for the gaming industry. On March 19, 2015 Pinnacle announced the award of a Class II Remote Maltese Gaming Licence,[5] MGA/CL2/1069/2015 for the provision of sports betting.
Regulation requires that Pinnacle must maintain sufficient funds to be able to honour the winnings of their customers at all times.
Reduced margin pricing
When Pinnacle began trading in 1998, most gaming companies used bonuses to lure potential customers. Rather than offer sign up or reload bonuses, Pinnacle became the first sportsbook to introduce a reduced margin pricing model or reduced juice, thus deriving profit from lower margins but a far higher turnover. Pinnacle began offering -105/-104 ($1.95-$1.96) prices on head-to-head match odds and spreads, significantly undercutting the standard -110 ($1.91) pricing model that was used by its competitors.
Pinnacle is able to operate under this pricing model by posting opening 'overnight' lines with smaller limits. This allows Pinnacle to shape their lines according to the betting activity of 'sharp' bettors without exposing the book. These early, low limit bets ultimately allow Pinnacle to offer betting limits with confidence as high as $50,000 or more on selected games with their low margin pricing model.
Although Pinnacle is best known for its sports betting service, they have also operated an online casino since September 2004 and offer the following games in cash, high-stakes cash and free play formats:
In August 2008, Pinnacle entered the online poker realm, in hopes of taking advantage of the online poker phenomenon. Pinnacle’s poker room was run and operated by Entraction software. The same poker network is used by other online gaming websites, such as Betdaq, I4Poker and Redbet.[6]
In June 2011, Entraction informed Pinnacle that due to changes in EU gaming regulation their Curaçao license was no longer accepted. Pinnacle closed their poker room on 13 June 2011 stating “the steps required to remain within the Entraction Network will necessitate a significant commitment for Pinnacle Poker. Given that our current focus is on developing our leading Sportsbook and Casino products, we have decided not to pursue the necessary changes."[7]
eSports
In 2010, Pinnacle was one of the first global bookmakers to offer odds on eSports. What began initially as an experiment quickly turned into a major market which has doubled in size for four consecutive years (2010 to 2014). According to Pinnacle, eSports is now the 7th largest market for them in terms of volume, exceeding regular sports like golf and rugby. Pinnacle reached the milestone of a total of one million eSport bets in December 2014, and five million in February 2017.[8] In the rank of money volume wagered, in 2018 the eSports has become the fourth most popular sport and could clinch number two in a few years.[citation needed]
In August 2021, Pinnacle announced a sponsorship deal of the Esports CS:GO events Home sweet Home and Malta Vibes Ultimate Knockout. The events took place during March and August 2021 and included top team names within the CS:GO Esports community.[9]
Drone racing
In 2016 Pinnacle was the first bookmaker to offer odds on drone racing.[10] On October 5 Pinnacle announced:
Starting with the 2016 Drone Racing World Championships first event at the Kualoa Ranch in Hawaii (October 20–22) Pinnacle will initially offer odds on the outright winner to gauge interest in the market.
Exit from US market
On January 11, 2007, in what was considered a controversial move, Pinnacle voluntarily announced that it would no longer accept wagers from customers based in the United States in accordance with the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006, which was passed on September 30, 2006. The law, which was a last minute addition to Security and Accountability For Every Port Act, stipulates that “participants in designated payment systems to establish policies and procedures reasonably designed to identify and block or otherwise prevent or prohibit transactions in connection with unlawful Internet gambling.”[11] At the time, Pinnacle Sports posted the following message to their U.S. based customers:
After careful consideration, Pinnacle Sports has chosen to voluntarily exit the U.S. market. Accordingly, wagers will no longer be accepted from clients within the U.S. as of Thursday, January 11, 2007.
At the time of the announcement, nearly 60-65% of Pinnacle’s customers were based in the United States.[12] Passage of the legislation led Pinnacle to have problems with transactions involving US banks.[13] Shortly after the decision, an executive at Pinnacle was quoted as saying: "When the U.S. focuses on something and says 'Enough,' and when they go to war, no individual company can possibly win in a fight of this nature." The executive also reportedly said that "since the Internet Gambling Bill went into effect, we have lost the ability to do business with many quality banks."'
After the decision, Pinnacle teamed up with World Sports Exchange (WSEX) to offer their US based customers an alternative to their website. At customer’s requests, Pinnacle willingly transferred all money left in US based accounts to new accounts at WSEX.
On December 19, 2008, Pinnacle ceased offering odds on North American horse racing. Although no official reason was given, it is believed this decision was made due to ongoing pressure from the U.S. government, as well as a general decline in interest from their non US based customers.[14]
Pinnacle Odds as the Industry Benchmark
Pinnacle is so so good at pricing lines efficiently that their odds are considered the sharpest in the market. This means that many bettors and bookmakers use Pinnacle's price after the 'vigorish' has been subtracted as their benchmark of total pricing efficiency. Bookmaker's use this price to set their own prices by adding their own, usually high levels, of vigorish. Bettors on the other hand use Pinnacle's no-vig-price as an indicator of whether they have a value bet or not. In many cases if a bettor is offered odds that are longer than Pinnacle's no-vig-price then they would consider that bet to have positive expected value.
One of the biggest challenges with using Pinnacle's prices as a benchmark of total pricing efficiency is that it is impossible to know exactly how Pinnacle have spread the vigorish across the market. Broadly speaking there are four different ways to calculate (estimate) the distribution of Pinnacle's vig; Additive Method, Multiplicative Method, Power Method, Shin Method.
In an episode of The Sopranos, Tony is informed by a hospital neighbor (a shot rapper) that the neighbor got down a $50,000 bet on a boxing match they were watching at favorable odds from "Pinnacle, man...Pinnacle!"
Gambling is the wagering of something of value on a random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy are discounted. Gambling thus requires three elements to be present: consideration, risk (chance), and a prize. The outcome of the wager is often immediate, such as a single roll of dice, a spin of a roulette wheel, or a horse crossing the finish line, but longer time frames are also common, allowing wagers on the outcome of a future sports contest or even an entire sports season.
Spread betting is any of various types of wagering on the outcome of an event where the pay-off is based on the accuracy of the wager, rather than a simple "win or lose" outcome, such as fixed-odds betting or parimutuel betting.
Fixed-odds betting is a form of gambling where individuals place bets on the outcome of an event, such as sports matches or horse races, at predetermined odds. In fixed-odds betting, the odds are fixed and determined at the time of placing the bet. These odds reflect the likelihood of a particular outcome occurring. If the bettor's prediction is correct, they receive a payout based on the fixed odds. This means that the potential winnings are known at the time of placing the bet, regardless of any changes in the odds leading up to the event.
A bookmaker, bookie, or turf accountant is an organization or a person that accepts and pays out bets on sporting and other events at agreed-upon odds.
Betfair is a British gambling company founded in 2000. It operates the world's largest online betting exchange. Its product offering also includes sports betting, online casino, online poker, and online bingo. Business operations are led from its headquarters in Gibraltar, alongside satellite offices in Ceuta, Dublin, Leeds, London, and Malta. In February 2016, Betfair merged with Paddy Power to create Flutter Entertainment.
In probability theory, odds provide a measure of the likelihood of a particular outcome. When specific events are equally likely, odds are calculated as the ratio of the number of events that produce that outcome to the number that do not. Odds are commonly used in gambling and statistics.
Vigorish is the fee charged by a bookmaker for accepting a gambler's wager. In American English, it can also refer to the interest owed a loanshark in consideration for credit. The term came to English usage via Yiddish slang which was itself a loanword from Russian.
A betting strategy is a structured approach to gambling, in the attempt to produce a profit. To be successful, the system must change the house edge into a player advantage — which is impossible for pure games of probability with fixed odds, akin to a perpetual motion machine. Betting systems are often predicated on statistical analysis.
Sport Select is a group of sports betting games offered by Canada's lottery corporations. In Quebec, the program is known as Pari sportif; in Ontario and Atlantic Canada, it is known as Pro-Line while in British Columbia, it is known as Sports Action. However, the rules for the games are similar in all provinces. Initially created to offer betting primarily on the North American major professional sports leagues, Sport Select has expanded to offer betting on competitions such as the English Premier League and college sports.
Sports betting is the activity of predicting sports results and placing a wager on the outcome.
In the United States, a sportsbook or a race and sports book is a place where a gambler can wager on various sports competitions, including golf, football, basketball, baseball, ice hockey, soccer, horse racing, greyhound racing, boxing, and mixed martial arts. The method of betting varies with the sport and the type of game. In the US, the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 allowed only Nevada, Oregon, Montana, and Delaware to legally wager on sports other than horse racing, greyhound racing, and jai alai; the law was ruled unconstitutional on May 14, 2018, freeing states to legalize sports betting at their discretion.
888 Holdings plc, formerly Virtual Holdings Limited, is an international sports betting and gambling company. It owns brands such as 888casino, 888poker, 888sport, Mr Green, and William Hill. Business operations are led from its headquarters in Gibraltar, alongside satellite offices in Bucharest, Ceuta, Leeds, London, Malta, Sofia, and Tel Aviv. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange.
Asian handicap betting is a form of betting on football in which teams are handicapped according to their form so that a stronger team must win by more goals for a bet on them to win. The system originated in Indonesia and gained popularity in the early 21st century. It is a form of spread betting. Handicaps typically range from one-quarter goal to several goals, in increments of half- or even quarter-goals.
A parlay, accumulator, combo bet, or multi is a single bet that links together two or more individual wagers, usually seen in sports betting. Winning the parlay is dependent on all of those wagers winning together. If any of the bets in the parlay lose, the entire parlay loses. If any of the plays in the parlay ties, or "pushes", the parlay reverts to a lower number of wagers with the payout odds reducing accordingly. Parlay bets are high-risk, high-reward; linking the possibilities drastically reduces the chance of the bet paying off overall. The benefit of the parlay is that there are much higher pay-offs, although as usual, casinos and bookkeepers offering parlays often exploit the poor calculation of gamblers by not increasing the pay-out as much as the odds truly demand, with the effect of the house edge increasing in parlays.
A tipster is someone who regularly provides information (tips) on the likely outcomes of sporting events on internet sites or special betting places.
World Sports Exchange was an online bookmaker offering sportsbook gambling odds and sportsbook wagering lines including, football lines, basketball odds, baseball parlays, hockey odds, and horse racing track odds. Established in 1995, it was one of the pioneers of internet gaming. The company also used to run the World Poker Exchange, an online poker cardroom. That operation ended on February 15, 2012.
Advantage gambling, or advantage play, refers to legal methods used to gain an advantage while gambling, in contrast to cheating. The term usually refers to house-banked casino games, but can also refer to games played against other players, such as poker. Someone who practices advantage gambling is often referred to as an advantage player, or AP. Unlike cheating, which is by definition illegal, advantage play exploits innate characteristics of a particular game to give the player an advantage relative to the house or other players. While not illegal, advantage play may result in players being banned by certain casinos.
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Entain plc, formerly GVC Holdings, is an international sports betting and gambling company. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. It owns brands such as bwin, Coral, Ladbrokes, PartyPoker and Sportingbet.
Betting on horse racing or horse betting commonly occurs at many horse races. Modern horse betting started in Great Britain in the early 1600s during the reign of King James I. Gamblers can stake money on the final placement of the horses taking part in a race. Gambling on horses is, however, prohibited at some racetracks. For example, because of a law passed in 1951, betting is illegal in Springdale Race Course, home of the nationally renowned Toronto-Dominion Bank Carolina Cup and Colonial Cup Steeplechase in Camden, South Carolina.
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