Pinnacle Sports Review

Pinnacle Summary

Pinnacle Features

• Will never ban winning punters
• Number 1 sportsbook for highrollers
• Easy to manage live betting system

Betting Options

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.