Scope of odds

Pinnacle has a somewhat different approach from most of the old school betting companies. Their ambition seems to be to deliver a smashing product for all customers, professional and recreational alike, for the main markets on the main betting sports. In our opinion they do this very successfully, but it seems to come somewhat at the expense of many smaller betting sports and even special bets for the main betting sports. I can think of a lot niche betting sports that are just not covered by Pinnacle.

All in all we are somewhat unimpressed by Pinnacle’s live betting product.

Quality of markets

Pinnacle has outstanding betting limits for the most popular sports and leagues, this holds particularly true shortly before the event will start. However their starting limits for the minor betting sports leaves a lot to be desired. Pinnacle will unlike many other betting companies allow you to re-bet, giving you the full betting limit again, shortly after you placed a bet. All they need is a few seconds for their automated risk management system to consider if they need to adjust the odds and/or lines. This is more likely to happen if, you are a winning customer, your bet was very large or placed a long time before the event starts, or for a market that does not get a lot of turnover.

Pinnacle also offers excellent theoretical payout percentages.

Payments

Your first deposit and larger withdrawals needing management approval can take some time. Other deposits and withdrawals are processed extremely fast.

There is a turnover requirement of minimum 5 times the deposit. That Pinnacle being a low margin operator imposed a turnover requirement makes very good sense to us. Their claim that this turnover requirement is the industry standard does however not make any sense at all. Frankly speaking that claim is in our opinion very close to a lie. We at Investobet recommend 5 other betting companies. Not a single one of these other recommended betting companies employs this “industry standard”.

Furthermore it has been brought to our attention that Pinnacle’s support so often incorrectly informs their customers that they have failed to clear this turnover requirement that it does not seem unlikely that Pinnacle is abusing it to try to increase turnover and avoid withdrawals.

Pinnacle only allows one free withdrawal a month even if the turnover requirement has been cleared. All additional withdrawals are allowed for a 12 EUR fee.

Customer Support

Customer support is provided in several languages and the response time is very good. The only current option for support is via e-mail.

We have seen many examples of atrocious answers made by Pinnacle’s support. Furthermore it is often very hard to convince Pinnacle’s support staff that a mistake has been made even if the issue at hand is very clear cut.

The last half year we have received countless examples of Pinnacle cancelling withdrawals claiming that the customer has not cleared the 5 time turnover requirement, even if this turnover requirement in fact has been cleared. As it is easy to prove that the turnover requirement has been cleared, most of these cases has been quickly resolved, however due to the vast quantity of such e-mails we have received, it is hard to believe that Pinnacle is not actively trying to abuse this turnover requirement policy.

It is important to note that even if it can be hard to make Pinnacle’s support understand the issues, the number of issues that will not be resolved fairly in the end, if you are persistent and good at explaining, is extremely small.

Usability

• Pinnacle has two layout options: Classic view and Asian view.
• Asian view is more designed for non-recreational customers – in other words for sharks.
• The registration process is smooth and easy.

Due to their limited selection of sports and no bonuses, navigation on the website is easy, but overall the look is outdated. Asian view has increased number of lines and odds are updated within the slip, so placing numerous bets is a lot easier. In addition, it seems that a new look is coming and it looks much better than the present one. We will keep an eye on it. Pinnacle has mobile version that we have tested and its better than the web version. There is no search button, so sometimes it can be complicated to find a match quickly.

Sustainability

Pinnacle does not close the accounts of winning customers or customers involved with arbitrage betting. Pinnacle makes this work by relying heavily on an automated risk management system which in some cases will adjust the odds and/or lines after every single bet placed on a market. Instead of trying to get rid of the winning customers, Pinnacle will use them actively for risk management purposes, moving the odds or lines more when customers they have identified as winning places bets. Some claim that Pinnacle treats all their customers the same, however we know for a fact that different accounts can have slightly different betting limits. This combined with the fact that the adjustments are more severe after winning customers have placed their bets compared to non-winning customers, means that this claim is incorrect. Anyhow Pinnacle doubtlessly deserves full marks for sustainability.