Pinnacle Sports Review

Pinnacle Sports Review Rating: 6,0/10 7869 votes
OVERALL RATING:
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Pinnacle Sports welcome bonus and review Updated 18th June 2020 Important Announcement: We do NOT recommend playing at Pinnacle anymore, based on our player reviews. The following three operators are proven to be highly safe & trusted: 888Sport, Bwin and Pin-up.Bet. Pinnacle Sports is at the top of our list of top betting sites outside of the U.S. For good reasons: they’ve often got the best betting lines, have been operating since 1996 with a great reputation, and are in general a top-class operation.

Pinnacle Sports is at the top of our list of top betting sites outside of the U.S. for good reasons: they’ve often got the best betting lines, have been operating since 1996 with a great reputation, and are in general a top-class operation.

Think of them as the Sam Walton or Henry Ford of online bookmakers, willing to sacrifice big profit margins for volume.

About Pinnacle Sports Equipment, Inc. / DBA BamBooBat Pinnacle Sports Equipment Inc. Is the exclusive distributor of the premium-branded, BamBooBat made with Quadcore Technology and Patented Fuzioncor Technology. Pinnacle Sports Equipment teams with scientists and researchers in China who specialize in the uses of bamboo. Pinnacle Sports Review The most efficiently-run online sportsbook in the industry, as you’ll see in this Pinnacle sportsbook review, passes savings along to you with reduced juice betting odds (-105 pricing or better in most markets).

Even though Pinnacle Sports is a major operation (some industry experts estimate more than a billion dollars a year in revenue), the company operates in a low-key manner. They rarely advertise anywhere and have strayed away from big, extravagant promotions and such. Instead, they provide betting lines that are better than their competitors’ in countries, sports and leagues around the world.

Pinnacle is licensed in Netherland Antilles and located in the island of Curacao. Customers from the U.S., the U.K. and Spain are prohibited.

Why Pinnacle Sports Has Better Betting Lines

Betting

Most sports betting sites attract customers by offering sign-up bonuses (either cash bonuses or free bets). Instead of offering the same bonuses as everyone else, Pinnacle Sports offers you better betting lines without sign-up bonuses.

Nobody’s against getting great bonuses but skilled bettors generally look for the best lines to bet on (also, since online betting bonuses keep getting worse, they’re rarely useful anymore). The idea is to sacrifice profit margins (profit per bet) and focus on volume (more bets with smaller margins).

These lower margin bets are known as ”reduced juice bets.” The less ”juice” a betting line has, the smaller the cut the sportsbook takes. Sportsbooks create their betting lines based on their estimations of the outcome of the game, add their profit margin and a safety buffer (in case their estimates are wrong). The bigger the profit margin and the safety buffer, the more you have to pay; the smaller the profit margin or the safety buffer, the less you have to pay.

At Pinnacle Sports, you have to pay less.

Normally, betting sites offer you -110 ($1.91) odds on point spreads. If the betting site is exactly right with its predictions on average, you will have bet $110 for every $100 you’ve gotten back. (If there were no profit margins or safety buffers, you’d simply bet $100 to win $100, right?)

Reduced juice bets mean that you bet $105 or $104 and get $100 back – suggesting the sportsbook is right. The sportsbook still makes profit in the long run if it’s right often enough, but more importantly, you get a better deal.

Even the smallest of improvements in the quality of a betting line makes a big difference to a skilled bettor. Even the best sports bettors have an edge of not more than a few percentages so finding the absolutely best betting line is a huge deal. (Two other sportsbooks that also offer reduced juice bets are 5Dimes.eu and HeritageSports.com – unlike Pinnacle Sports, they both accept customers from the U.S.)

Now, you might be thinking that Pinnacle probably enforces smaller betting limits on these games? Nope – in fact, it’s the opposite. Since Pinnacle posts betting lines early with small maximum betting limits, they have lots of time refine their lines based on the way people are betting on that particular line. The result? Pinnacle usually has the highest maximum betting limits in the online betting industry.

Banking

Pinnacle Sports has customers from all over the world. One of the reasons they’re able to do this is offering a selection of convenient betting lines to customers from countries where it’s sometimes to difficult to find one. For example, for its Asian customers, you can both deposit and withdraw via Entropay, Webmoney, ChinaBanking, and Chinese debit cards: for Australian customers, there’s Poli; for Polish customers, there’s Przelewy24.

Obviously Pinnacle has all the standard deposit and withdrawal options as well, such as Visa and Mastercard, Neteller and Skrill, and different types of pre-paid cards and online banking solutions. Neteller and Skrill have a 12€ withdrawal fee but all Pinnacle Sports customers get one free withdrawal per month.

Sportsbook

Ironically, even though players from the U.S. are prohibited, Pinnacle offers some of the best betting lines for American sports. Compare theirs with any other bookmaker’s betting lines on American sports and you’ll see the better line at Pinnacle at least seven times out of ten. The other form of betting that Pinnacle is often praised for is Asian Handicap bets on soccer games (if you bet on soccer, you should absolutely place those bets at this site). The quality of betting lines outweighs the lack of a sign-up bonus (by far!).

Pinnacle Sports has some of the highest betting limits in the industry and won’t shy away from professional bettors (they welcome customers of all skill-levels).

eSports betting has become a big deal at Pinnacle – it now belongs in the top-10 of their biggest betting markets. They reached their one millionth eSports bet back in December 2014 (the eSports section was launched in 2010) and it’s reasonable to assume that they’ve already exceeded or are getting close to two million eSports bets by now.

Casino

The sportsbook is easily Pinnacle Sports’ strongest area. They have an online casino too, though, with games provided by Multislot and Global Gaming Labs (GGL). Multislot provides all the standard casino games while GGL provides the live dealer games.

Up until January 2015, you could find reports of game payout audits at PinnacleSports.com but they’ve quit uploading those for some reason. The reports include the actual payout percentage for each game (not the theoretical payout but what was actually paid out) – therefore if you look at the reports, you’ll see that some games have paid out more than 100%. Pinnacle Casino’s auditor is GLI Test Labs Canada ULC.

Pinnacle Casino has no bonus promotions much like the sportsbook. They give you a 0.3% cashback for each wager, though, although this seems kind of silly (why not just set the payout percentages at 0.3% higher?).

Customer Service

You can contact Pinnacle’s customer service via e-mail only. On the surface, this seems like they invest less into serving their customers than the bookmakers that have phone support and live chat support. Offering e-mail support only is Pinnacle’s way of driving the costs down, though, and therefore being able to offer low-margin betting lines.

Every time I’ve contacted their customer support (and I’ve had little reason to do so over the years), they’ve been fast, helpful and friendly. It would be better if you could call them or chat with them (since that usually gets the job done more efficiently) but I’m satisfied with the quality of the e-mail support.

Conclusion

I’ve said a lot of nice things about Pinnacle throughout this review but they deserve it. It’s difficult to find sites that handle so many parts of their business masterfully.

Instead of focusing on promoting all-but-impossible-to-clear bonuses, posting expensive betting lines and closing customer accounts due to identifying the customer as a skilled bettor, Pinnacle focuses on what every other online bookmaker should focus on: offering competitive betting lines in a wide variety of betting markets and providing great service. That’s it.

Join Today at Pinnacle Sports!

This review was made by: LegitGamblingSites.com Rating: 3.9 out of 5

Pinnacle Sportsbook is known throughout the industry as the place to play for serious bettors. They offer the absolute highest limits online, as well as the fastest moving and sharpest lines on all sports and props. Pinnacle is a sportsbook innovator, using their software, high limits, and an ‘any action welcome’ policy to sharpen its lines beyond any other book. With fast and safe payouts, there are very few customer complaints when it comes to this book. It consistently receives ratings and grades of A, A+, or 95%+ when being evaluated by third party sites, and for good reason. Your action is not only welcome at this bookmaker, but safe as well.

Betting Options

Sports

Pinnacle offers a wide range of betting options on American and European sporting events. There are lines offered on soccer, American football, baseball, basketball, hockey, tennis, golf, mixed martial arts (MMA), e-sports, rugby, swimming, winter sports, poker, the Olympics, boxing, and also entertainment/specials such as politics. The gambling options are listed by sport and then by league. There are also helpful links to ‘popular markets’ and ‘closing soon’ for faster and easier access.

Pinnacle offers futures, props, straight spread bets, moneylines, and totals for the major sports. They also offer live betting for every MLB game between innings, and every NHL game between periods, which is incredible. There is also live in-play action for most nationally televised NBA and college basketball/football games as well during commercial breaks.

Pinnacle Sports Stowe

There’s not an exceptionally large amount of exotic or prop wagers, but there is definitely plenty to bet on when you log on to the site.

Bonuses

As the Pinnacle site touts, ‘The Best Odds=A Bonus For Life.’ When they first came online back in 1998, most books used high bonuses or frequent bonuses to lure in players or get them to reload. Pinnacle decided to take a different tact, and simply lowered the juice across the board. They use reduced juice on all major sports, and all props. You will hardly ever find a price better than at this bookmaker. The normal juice of -110/-110 is nowhere to be found on this site, instead it regularly uses -105 style pricing, which cuts the book’s edge in half.

They don’t offer deposit bonuses, reload bonuses, sign up bonuses, or a loyalty program. But, as they would argue, they do not need to. They simply give you a better price every single time you log in to place your bet. This strategy has worked well and has not hurt their reputation at all, and probably has enhanced it amongst high limit players.

Security and Licensing

Pinnacle is fully licensed by the Netherlands Antilles Gaming Commission. This is largely a cosmetic move, since all serious players know it is a serious book that is both safe and secure, and has been since day one.

Professional vs. Recreational Bettors

Pinnacle is often the first book to list lines, and offers large overnight limits, with pricing that is never the standard -110/-110. Again, it uses reduced juice on all sports, so a game that lists -110/-110 elsewhere will show up on Pinnacle as -105/-105 or even -104/-104. Not only do they offer the lowest juice, but also the highest limits. Another great feature is that the site welcomes all action. Yes, any and all action is welcome. If you are a large winner, they will never limit or cut your action. (Rumor has it that they may try to hire you to set lines though!). This is unheard of in the industry but it makes sense. The more sharp, winning players they attract, the sharper their lines, and the more money they will tend to make from less sophisticated players.

Pinnacle tends to attract the largest players online, since they can bet with reckless abandon and no fear of being collared (limited). With other books you may face a warning or log in to find your limits slashed, but Pinnacle is very open about accepting all action, no matter the source.

The software also is top notch. They offer a ‘dynamic lines’ feature that, when you are logged in to your account, highlights the line changes instantly and color codes them according to how new the line changes are. A line in red has just changed, orange is fairly new but not instant, and blue is more than a minute old. This is helpful if you are line shopping or watching a certain game and need to know when the line shifts, since the odds change frequently and often by as little as one cent (for example, from -103 to -102.)

One drawback of Pinnacle is that the site does not offer action anymore to American players. However, this is out of the site’s control and is due to the draconian USA anti-gambling laws, which are likely to change in the next 5 years or less, hopefully for the better. I would fully expect if the laws are relaxed then we will see this bookmaker make a triumphant return to the United States.

Deposits and Payouts

Pinnacle offers some of the safest and fastest cash outs, which is obviously important for any player.

Pinnacle Sports Review

There are many deposit and withdrawal options. The deposit options are Visa, MasterCard, Bank Wire, Chinese Debit Cards, Delta Debit Cards, InstaDebit, Moneybookers, Neteller, POLi, Przelewy24, Visa Electron, Web Money, and ClickandBuy. The minimum deposit amount depends on what country and currency you use, but it is around 10 US Dollars. The max depends on the deposit method, but if you use bank wire it is unlimited. Deposits process instantly for most methods, except bank wire which can take 1-3 business days. Needless to say, there are lots of ways to fund your account.

Pinnacle Sports Medicine

As far as withdrawals, there are various options including bank wire, Instadebit, Neteller, Web Money, and Moneybookers. Pinnacle offers one free withdrawal per month and then a fee of roughly $15 (depends on which method you use) for subsequent withdrawals. The payouts are safe, fast, and secure. Your money is as safe here as it is with any major bank.

Overall

Overall, Pinnacle Sportsbook is a definite ‘A+’ rated book. The only drawbacks seem to be the lack of phone support (they prefer to use email which keeps costs low and it is very fast and efficient), and the somewhat limited action offered on props/exotics. Also, the site currently does not cater to American players, but that is due to laws that are beyond the site’s control.

Pinnacle Sports Bet

However, the positives most certainly outweigh the negatives. Fast and safe payouts, virtually unlimited betting limits (multiple pops of $25k+ are commonplace), reduced juice, industry leading software, and early lines are just some of the highlights.