Head of Soccer Q&A Transcript

Head of Soccer Q&A Transcript

By Gary Wise Jun 4, 2014

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On June 2nd, Pinnacle Sports’ Head of Soccer took over the official @PinnacleSports Twitter account to answer your questions on World Cup, general soccer betting and the nuances of his job. Below, find the transcript of what transpired (edited for grammar, abbreviations, account names and hashtags, with multi-tweet answers consolidated into one.):

HOS: Hi everyone, glad to be here. Feeling good. Looking forward to your questions. Let’s go!

Q1. From an email: Pinnacle Sports announced the $1 million limits for the World Cup in January. Did you know ahead of time?

HOS: I did know about them. I was really excited about the idea. At first I thought it was crazy. Then I figured ‘why not? We can do it’, and started planning

Q2. From @blackNteal : What am I missing with Mexico to see them priced so close to Croatia in terms of advancing out of the group?

HOS: I think Croatia is undervalued. Brazil has drawn a lot of action in Group A, bunching the other countries together. Mexico’s proximity to Brazil may also be influencing bettors.

Q3. From @blackNteal : Mexico is galaxies away from Brazil but that’s another story…

HOS: True, but it’s closer than Croatia, and in betting, perception is often more important than reality.

Q4. From @Con_027: How do you set international lines with small sample sizes as opposed to club markets?

HOS: That’s tough:) It’s a problem. It’s definitely more difficult to do than with major clubs. Sometimes, our lines are wrong as a result. It’s actually a chance for value. We mostly follow our action.

Q5. From @Nickspicks: Drmic or Seferovic – who starts for Switzerland? How big a part (excuse the unintentional humour here) does Hulk play for the hosts?

HOS: Tough question. My expertise is more in soccer betting than soccer, so it’s tough to say.

Q6. From email: How do you get a job as Head of Sportsbook at Pinnacle Sports?

HOS: I had a gaming background and that got me hired as a trader 7 years ago. I’ve worked my way up since. It’s a great job.

Q7. From @Itfc1972 : Do you think draw prices will be slightly shorter than normal after Euro 2012 games were favouring draw early games?

HOS: Yes. I think they’ll drop even further. Bettors know the early games will be low scoring so draw prices will drop.

Q8. From @Benjaminhj : What are your predictions on the top scorer market? I fancy Giroud and Aguero quite a bit because of relatively weak groups. Agree?

HOS: I agree both are solid candidates, especially Aguero. The weak groups are crucial for variance purposes.

Q9. From @blackNteal : What role if any does match fixing play in WC futures and game prices? The spectre of it has to cross your mind…

HOS: Integrity of sport is obviously important to us. If we see any evidence that compromises that, we’d reach out to the appropriate authorities. Fixing hurts us as much as anyone…sometimes more. We are keeping an eye on any strange betting patterns that emerge. So far, there have not been any.

Q10. From @krisse68 : I expect Chile to win their early matches! #WC #Easy #Money

HOS: Used to the climate, could play in their favour. Spain and Netherlands are both tough though. Going to be a fight.

Q11. From @M0djadji : Would you consider offering markets on more English Non League Football? It’s very popular

HOS: We might offer English conference (north & south), but haven’t decided yet. Let us know if you’d like to see that. (Note from our Manager of Social Media: You can always send requests like that to market-request@pinnaclesports.com.)

Q12. From @Doctor_Horse : Overpriced and underpriced teams for the world cup outrights? And players for golden boot?

HOS: I’ll let our head of Soccer props answer that on Thursday

Q13. From @MConsty1 : Did you trade football either pre-match or in play before you took up your role?

HOS: I bet on it before working here, then did a lot of pre-game trading once I was hired.

Q14. From @ddivecch : Do you think the climate in Brazil will have a large impact on the field or is the weather angle over rated?

HOS: I mentioned Mexico v Croatia earlier…bettors may be over-compensating. That said, it’s clearly a factor to consider.

Gary: People keep going back to the fact no non-South American team has ever won a World Cup on South American soil.

Q15. From @Itfc1972 : Any large bets been laid so far?

HOS: Nothing huge. We generally see those kinds of bets closer to game time. They’ll come though:)

Q16. From @pstreett3 : What’s the biggest difference between betting World Cup as opposed to EPL? What key trend do you expect to see from WC bettors?

HOS: I think we’ll see more betting with passion bets than we normally see with domestic leagues. World Cup tends to bring that out in people.

Q17. From email: How has betting on the first group games looked so far? More than you expected? Less?

HOS: Even with the $1 million limit announcement, we’ve gotten more early action than we expected. We’ve seen a lot of movement on unders in most games, but that was to be expected. In the past, in big tournaments like World Cup, the early rounds have been low scoring. As we get more test matches played, we got more action because those games inspire betting, show strength/weakness. People didn’t think Germany looked too good yesterday.

Q18. From@MuckedNuts : How many (or what %) of your traders are former financial markets traders?

HOS: We (soccer) have some. I think trading a match is very similar to trading a financial market. A deeper understanding of game theory can also be very helpful.

Q19. From @rmb_1983: With lots of money taken on Brazil do you offset liabilities on the exchanges or just prey to the Samba gods they don’t win?

HOS: No, we don’t do that, but we offer attractive prices on their opponents to manage our risk.

Thanks everyone for your questions. This has been a lot of fun. We’ll do it again some time!

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