Pinnacle Bookmaker Review
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It’s not uncommon to see online casinos and sportsbook sites touting themselves as being ‘unique’ in one way or another. They’ll claim to being ‘The Best Games & Jackpot Slots’ site; ‘The best casino games at XXX Casino’; ‘Award Winning Online Casino & Sportsbook’; ‘Casino XXX – Best Online Casino – $500 Welcome Bonus’ just to mention a few. But when it comes to standing out from the pack however, Pinnacle is the real deal.
Why? Because as a brand, they’ve completely managed to set up an online casino and sportsbook platform for fans who… wait for it… seek the best odds, highest limits and a unique winner’s welcome policy. It’s a statement that they’ve proudly made on their website’s homepage and they are very comfortable to back it up with deeds. This implies that regardless of whether you are a casino lover or an avid sports bettor, the Pinnacle platform will have something for you.
But we are not hear to look at the whole platform and every offering that they have. Instead, we are going to focus on the sportsbook arm, which is rather not so popular among the newbies but attracts most of the hardcore sports bettors. Why so, we’ve heard you ask?
Besides the fact that they have a few promotions going on, there’s literally every market and sports betting option to pick from. Football unsurprisingly takes the lion’s share of the platform’s space. Other sporting events come in play too, with the likes of Golf, Rugby Union, Tennis and Volleyball featuring prominently in the in-play and pre-match sections.
Useful Resources to Make You Time Easy
Of course most of the sportsbook sites try as much as possible to have a well-designed website to make it easy for you to browse through it. But so many have failed miserably – mostly because of the choice of colours, overdoing promotion banners, cramming and cluttering the homepage among other things.
For Pinnacle, everything is different. The platform as a whole is elegantly subdued, sleek yet simple with all the important information displayed in an immaculate, unfussy fashion. Navigation, either on the sportsbook page or across to the mobile, eSports and online casino sections, is straightforward and easy enough thanks to the neatly labeled header tabs at the top of the page. There are even other sections at the bottom of the page, where useful buttons are located, leading to different sections of the casino.
Pinnacle also features a handy ‘Betting Resource’ section mostly for newbies in the online casino scene. The section features different insightful ‘How to…’ pages that will enable you get off to an easy start when betting online.
Pinnacle Summary
Official URL: www.pinnacle.com
License: Curacao under the Licence 8048/JAZ2013-013
Year Founded: 2004
Currencies Supported: Australian Dollars, Brazilian Reals, Canadian Dollars, Chinese Yuan Renminbi, Colombian Pesos, Czech Koruna, Euro, Hong Kong Dollars, Japanese Yen, Korean Won, Malaysian Ringgit, Mexican Peso, New Zealand Dollars, Norwegian Krone, Polish Zloty, Pound Sterling, Russian Rouble, Singaporean Dollars, Swedish Kronor, Taiwanese Dollar, Thai Baht, United States Dollar
Customer Base: Live Chat, customerservice@pinnacle.com,
Pinnacle Hits and Misses
Hits
- 24/7 customer support
- Excellent market coverage
- Licensed and trustworthy
- #1 eSports betting website
Misses
- Multiple restricted countries
Odds
‘Perhaps you haven’t heard of us because we don’t do big sponsorship deals, advertise on TV or even offer sign up incentives? Instead, we use that money to maintain the best value odds, to provide bigger returns for our customers, because we know that is what they want.’
This is a claim that they comfortably can back up through their ‘Always Best Odds – With The Lowest Margins’ policy. This is especially true when it comes to in-play betting where bets change depending on the turn of events. Also, in the event that there’s a local derby on the horizon, Pinnacle will add to the buzz simply by boosting the odds. They’ll even send you an email notifying you of some boosted events.
Odds at Pinnacle Sports are expressed in Decimals and American formats only. This means that UK bettors who prefer using fractional odd format will have to adjust and choose between the two – with Decimal odds being the most preferred option for many punters.
Markets and Sporting Events
For punters who fancy taking a break from the usual boring stuff, Pinnacle offers a casino platform that has exciting slot games, entertaining table and classic games plus a couple of live dealer games. On the sportsbook side, you should expect them to include every major sport, with aplenty of pre-match and in-play markets.
However, perhaps the outstanding feature is their focus on eSports betting. Thanks to the bookmaker’s customer base, which includes many young bettors, Pinnacle offers markets for a number of eSports events across the world. Whether you are a fan of DOTA 2, CS:GO, StarCraft 2, LOL among others, you are assured of a high number of markets focusing on different events across the world. By choosing to offer something out of the ordinary in eSports betting, Pinnacle has a large bettor base that very few UK sportsbook sites can match, evident by the number of praises it gets across multiple eSports forums.
Away from the wide variety of eSports betting options, you’ll be able to choose from up to 18 different sporting events and three ‘specials’ that include entertainment, politics and crossfit. While some bookmakers such as Bet365 and Ladbrokes offer more than 30 sports, some might argue that Pinnacle lags in their offerings. But a closer examination will reveal that they choose substance over numbers. That’s why you’ll only be able to pick from sporting events that have events happening throughout the year.
Popular Markets at Pinnacle Sports
- Football: Double Chance; Goals; To Win Either Half; Correct Score
- eSports: Money Line and Handicap Betting
- Basketball: Total Points and Spread Betting are very popular with punters
Offers and Bonuses
Unfortunately, there is no bonus or promotional offers for the sports bettors. If you are a frequent casino player, you’ll be happy though because there are plenty of promotional offers and bonuses. They come in different sizes and different times of the year. Easter holidays, Christmas, St. Patrick’s Days, Thanks Giving, Black Friday and Halloween Holidays all have promotions tailored for them. It’s worth mentioning that terms and conditions vary depending on the promotion so it’s always good to go through them before claiming the offer.
Live Betting Feature
As anyone would expect, football, basketball, tennis, eSports and other sporting events offered at Pinnacle are readily offered through the in-play mix. However, Pinnacle’s in-play or live betting section stands out thanks to its focus on the little known sporting events. As we were reviewing Pinnacle, we discovered they offer live odds for eSports, futsal, hockey and volleyball. Put simply, if there’s any competition taking place for an event offered at Pinnacle, you can bet on it through in-play.
It’s worth noting that Pinnacle’s in-play feature is as fast as that offered by Bet365 but it’s not as comprehensive. But thanks to this feature, you can get the best odds possible as they promise.
Live Streaming Feature
Bookmakers and professional bettors usually use a number of complex statistical models, which usually try predicting the goal distribution. However, at the most basic level, sports are played and coached by humans, who can develop certain patterns. It’s therefore your job to comprehend and quantify the impact after which you can use another important feature alongside the live betting to get the best odds. This feature is referred to as the live streaming – which is readily offered at Pinnacle.
Thanks to live streaming, you can easily watch the match live as it happens and bet depending on the turn of events. Despite being a few seconds behind the actual turn of events, Pinnacle’s live streaming model will help you know which market to choose from. But you need to approximate the time difference in order to do this.
Payment Options Supported
Pinnacle has kept things relatively simple as far as depositing and withdrawing at the casino is concerned. Punters who fancy depositing through their mobile devices will appreciate how convenient the site has made it for them to deposit and withdraw. In addition to having all the basics covered and allowing you to make payments directly using your debit/credit cards, the site also has friendly limits.
You can make a minimum deposit of €20 per transaction and a maximum of €5,000 for the same. Withdrawals will vary depending on the payment option you choose, with bank transfers having the largest limits.
In addition to the card options, you can also use:
- Bank Transfer
- Bitcoin
- Boletoi
- eCheque
- ecoPayz
- Entropay
- iDebit
- Paysafecard
- Qiwi Wallet
- Skrill
- Sofort
- Trustly
- WebMoney
- InstaDebit
- InstaBanking
- NeoSurf
- MuchBetter
- Neteller
These are the payment option available for UK players. Bettors living outside the UK can choose from other options tailored for their country. Also, the availability of the payment option varies. For instance, you can only use Paysafecard to make deposits and not withdrawals. This applies to all the other pre-paid cards.
Pinnacle Cash Out Feature
Regardless of where you are betting from, you can always count on Pinnacle’s cash out feature to boost your chances of winning. Whether you’ve opted to go for single or accumulator bets, the cash out feature gives you full control of your bet as you can cash in on your winnings before the end of the event.
How do you use the cash out feature?
- Click on your bets to see if you have any open bets available for cash out
- If there’s any option available, the cash out icon will be active. Click on this option to cash out your bet
The beauty about the Pinnacle cash out feature is that you can see the much that you’ll win if you opt to cash out at that particular time. Once you’ve cashed out, your money will be available for you to withdraw instantly.
Customer Support Channels
Pinnacle are so confident in their service delivery that they openly challenge their customers to contact the customer support team and find an issue that the team can’t resolve.
Overall, there are three channels that you can use to contact the team. These include:
- Email @ customerservice@pinnacle.com
- A detailed FAQs page, which you can access by clicking on the help button at the bottom of the page
- E-mail form
Unfortunately, punters don’t have access to the fast live chat and telephone channels offered across other bookmakers. This means that there’s no guarantee that the customer support team will get back to you right away as it is the norm with the live chat feature. However, we did try reaching them through their twitter page @PinnacleSports and the response time was fine.
Usability and Ease of Navigation of the Site
Despite how many sports markets a bookmaker has to offer or the high odds, if it doesn’t offer a great user experience, then there’s a low likelihood that it will succeed. Pinnacle sports has done its research in knowing what the market wants and responded perfectly to it.
To start with, easy signing up is their priority. It’s a straightforward and easy to complete process that we managed to complete in under a minute.
From a design angle, Pinnacle Sports is simple but very effective. While most of the other sites try reinventing the wheel, the design team behind Pinnacle have stuck to an already tried and tested layout. In practice, this means that their homepage is divided into six main categories:
- The sports betting section – this is where all the sports bets are located
- The favourite casino section – this is where you list all your favourite games
- The features casino section – this is basically the casino section. All the games and casino services are listed here
- eSports section – anything pertaining to eSports is found here
- Betting resources section – you have all useful guides and tips to sports betting here. We highly recommend that you go through the articles listed here if you are new to betting
- Mobile section – If you want a mobile optimized experience, just click here to switch to the mobile platform
The layout is unique and stands out from what the other bookmakers offer. It’s also intuitive as the flow of actions flow smoothly. Sports bets are arranged in alphabetic order. The upshot of this is that you’ll be spending less time searching for info and markets and more time betting.
There’s no mobile application for the Pinnacle sports betting site but the website design looks pretty slick. Unlike the PC version where menus are arranged horizontally across the page, the mobile platform takes a different approach.
All the games are enlisted under the featured games section and selecting any one of them will highlight upcoming games. Clicking on the live button will also reveal all the current events that are live at the site, so betting would be easy for those who prefer in-play betting. And with the fat trimmed away, the mobile platform is light, loads super-fast and bets are placed fast.
Security
It’s the sole mission of any sports betting site that considers itself reputable to offer their punters with safe, secure and fair services. With Pinnacle claiming to being one of the best in the industry, they strive to do this in all the possible ways. After trying out their services, we must admit that they met or rather exceeded our expectations.
First, the bookmaker is licensed in Curacao under the Licence 8048/JAZ2013-013. This license allows the bookmaker to offer casino and sports betting services legally in multiple jurisdictions. As a bettor, this ensures that you only have access to regulated services and in case of a dispute with the bookmaker, you can easily count on Curacao to arbitrate on your behalf.
Furthermore, the bookmaker has designed all of its services to protect your confidentiality and privacy. Under the privacy section that was last updated on Tuesday, January 1, 2019, Pinnacle clearly states how they collect personal data, what they do with this data, and what they don’t do with it. Furthermore, they insist that the transactions they offer are normally processed through high secure encryption, which we can back because of the green HTTPS sign on their website URL.
Conclusion
So generally, Pinnacle sports is an option – an exciting one – for all those who enjoy betting on sports. With a licensed issued by the government of Curacao, partnership with the best payment providers in the industry and offering a wide range of sports betting events, including eSports, we feel that there are bigger things coming along Pinnacle’s way and we feel that you should give it a try!