Did you have any kind of betting strategy for the Big Bet Leaderboard? Did you back the favourite and then the underdog in-play? Or did you decide to mix your bets up based on your own opinion?

Well, the first thing I noticed when reading the “terms and conditions” was that only the profit counted towards points. That means that higher odds gave more expected points.

"I knew higher odds gave me more expected points"

So, at first, I was mostly backing the underdog in pre-play and making some speculative bets in-play based on my own opinion as to how the match was going.

Then, at the end, when I was already the leader I started to try and protect my spot.

Something like guessing which bets would make more sense or were more likely for the players immediately below me to bet on and trying to choose bets to make some points to keep the lead if any of those events occurred.

Who did you think would win the tournament at the beginning and did your opinion change as the tournament progressed?

Every model that I saw had Brazil as the favorites, so who am I to disagree? It didn’t change throughout the tournament, really. I feel like they have a very solid defense and creative attacking players.

"Every team had deficiencies"

But, watching the matches, there were no really outstanding teams.

All of them had some visible deficiencies, so in hindsight, several of them could’ve reached the final and win it at the end.

Which team are you going to bet on for the final and why?

It was a very hard choice, but I went with France. For me, they have more ways to be successful. Headers, counters and individual plays are all ways in which France can score. As for Argentina, I feel like it will be very hard for them to win if Messi is not on a good day.

How do you think the final will play out?

Ah, the million-dollar question (or 100 thousand to be more precise). I believe that Argentina will have more possession, which is scary when you have a player like Messi.

"Ah, the million-dollar question - or one-hundred thousand to be more precise"

And France will try to play a faster, counter-attacking style when with the ball, which is also scary with a player like Mbappe. I feel like it is a very evenly matched duel.

Where will you be watching the final on Sunday?

Probably at a friend's house. Shoutout to Edu a.k.a. Cotoquinho.

Can you tell us why you enjoy betting with Pinnacle?

I got to know Pinnacle when my account on another bookie got limited. I didn’t even know that was a thing at that time.

"Margins at Pinnacle are very competitive"

Honestly, it is shocking that this is the standard. The moment you start to make a profit, they limit your betting. It feels really unfair and takes a lot of the fun out of it, even for a casual player like me, who treats betting as entertainment and doesn't expect to make a lot of money out of it.

I would expect more people to feel the same way and start using non limiting bookies like pinnacle or sites where you don't bet against the house, like exchanges. Anything other than that doesn’t make sense to me.

Maybe many people aren’t aware of this limiting practice or don’t know an alternative and that's why it is still the standard. I don't know.

Also, the margins at Pinnacle are very competitive.

Do you have any helpful insights for future players of Pinnacle Big Bet in the future on how to win the big prize?

Other than the things I’ve already mentioned, an important one is to bet on every match, of course. The bet limit for points was $10 pre-play and $10 in-play. So I made sure to bet at least that in every single match to maximize my winning chances.

Is there anything else you would like to share with us?

I almost gave up on the promotion in the first round of the WC, haha. I had bet in pre-play on Saudi Arabia in their match vs Argentina. Their odds were in the 20s.

"I was in 7th... and 900 points behind the leader"

When the leaderboard was updated, sure I had made 200 points, but another player had made more than a 1000. I believe he betted on Saudi Arabia pre-game and on half-time - if you saw that match you know how crazy that seemed.

So I was in 7th place, but a staggering 900 points below the leader. At that time I felt like it was over. But I continued playing just for the sake of it. And it worked out in the end.

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