Pinnacle is an online gaming website that was founded in 1998 and is operated by Pinnacle Sports Worldwide. Since its inception, Pinnacle Sports has become one of the world’s largest, fully licensed, online sportsbooks. 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."Former Intertops CEO and WWTS executive Simon Noble was their Marketing Manager at the time of disappearing from Pinnacle.
Pinnacle Sports is located on the island of Curaçao, and is fully licensed and regulated by the Government of the Netherlands Antilles, which also functions as the regulating body for the gaming industry. Regulation requires that Pinnacle Sports must maintain sufficient funds to be able to honor the winnings of their customers at all times.
In August 2008, Pinnacle Sports entered the online poker realm, in hopes of taking advantage of the online poker phenomenon. Pinnacle’s Sports' 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.
In June 2011, Entraction informed Pinnacle that due to changes in EU gaming regulation their Curaçao license was no longer accepted. Pinnacle Sports 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.
