Pinnacle is one of GRID’s longest-standing partners. Learn how the company recognized the potential of esports and utilized GRID data to empower the industry.
Overview
Pinnacle is a name that has long been in the betting space, offering unique engagements for bettors since 1998, with a primary focus on online traditional sports wagering. As the betting industry grew and evolved over time, another industry was born and eventually found its way to overlapping with Pinnacle’s business model— esports.
Since 2010, Pinnacle has been offering esports as a part of its betting portfolio and has served as a pioneering entity in esports betting since then. In 2019, Pinnacle and GRID established their partnership with the intent to continue Pinnacle’s impact on the industry through the utilization of the GRID Data Platform.
Since the start of the partnership, Pinnacle has delivered four iterations of the CS:GO Pinnacle Cup with the support of GRID, as well as the first Pinnacle Cup Championship in 2022. This year, the two parties have renewed the partnership, and are collaborating for the return of the Pinnacle Cup to CS:GO.
A Clear Path From Traditional Sports
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, better known as CS:GO, is one of the largest esports titles in the world and has been seeing a rise in its player base for some time now. For a company such as Pinnacle — one which began its operations around traditional sports — esports offers a similar, but unique market. Many of the concepts you’d see with football, basketball, or tennis are present across esports as well, in professional teams and players, devoted fans, desire for betting opportunities, and more.
When entering the esports ecosystem, Pinnacle took their extensive sports book resume and branched off into an fast-growing opportunity to recreate this expertise outside of traditional sports. Like the sports-bet offerings before them, esports betting also requires bookmakers to have access to, and to provide, quality data that its users can be confident in when placing bets on the latest competitions. Pinnacle’s need for a top-quality esports data source is where GRID came into the picture back in 2019.
The other avenue that Pinnacle has taken since their esports debut lies on the opposite side of betting — the competition itself. With the intention of further empowering the esports industry, Pinnacle introduced the CS:GO Pinnacle Cup in 2021— taking their impact beyond the betting space.
Pinnacle’s dedication to the esports industry was something GRID admired back then, and does to this day. This shared vision of empowering esports, and the previously establish data partnership resulted in the two parties coming together for the CS:GO Pinnacle Cup.
Tapping Into Esports’ Digital Nature
Fast forward to 2023, where GRID and Pinnacle have renewed their partnership for a 5th consecutive year to power Pinnacle’s pioneering esports betting solutions and the continuation of the CS:GO Pinnacle Cup.
As Esports are naturally apart of a digital space, the opportunities that surround in-game data are much more fruitful than traditional sports. On top of that, the quality, speed, and granularity of the data offered to Pinnacle’s user base can exceed that of traditional sports when sourced from the GRID Data Platform.
Through GRID’s Data Consumer Solutions, Pinnacle’s esports betting products are powered by the GRID Data Platform — including various live and historic data feeds for multiple esports titles. Most recently was the addition of VALORANT in-game data, furthering the potential reach of Pinnacle’s products and overall user experience.
Additionally, for the CS:GO Pinnacle Cup and Pinnacle Cup Championship, GRID’s Esports Services are utilized in organizing the events. The GRID Esports Services are a complete technology and service toolkit consisting of tournament tooling, visualization products, and data infrastructure that supports the operation, integrity, security, and monetization of events available on the GRID Data Platform.
Pinnacle’s Data-Driven Success
The combination of GRID and Pinnacle’s expertise has resulted in three successful Pinnacle Cups since the start of the partnership, and a fantastic Pinnacle Cup Championship in 2022 that boasted a 250,000 USD prize pool and included some of the biggest CS:GO talents in the world — Heroic, Astralis, and Fnatic to name a few.
In April 2023, Pinnacle announced the return of the CS:GO Pinnacle Cup off the back of the successful competitions in 2022, and has expanded upon its predecessor. The expansion includes, four large-scale competitions taking place throughout 2023, two of which have a 50,000 USD prize pool, and brand-new LATAM competitions taking place in Brazil.
The Esports Hub on Pinnacle’s website serves as the go-to place for esports betting on their platform, where many different titles’ offerings are powered by GRID. And as a part of the partnership renewal earlier this year, Pinnacle was able to introduce bets on VALORANT for the first time, through GRID’s Data Platform (Possible through GRID’s exclusive partnership with Riot Games). VALORANT has grown in popularity at an astounding pace, and Pinnacle was able to scale their offerings in line with this growth.
GRID’s Products
About Pinnacle
Pinnacle has been offering bettors a unique alternative to other bookmakers since 1998. Since 2010, Pinnacle has played a pioneering role in the growth and development of esports betting options, as demonstrated with the creation of the Pinnacle Cup and its continued growth into 2023.
