Vegas Golden Knights Partnership with Tout Service is Over
By
Feb 28, 2021
One of the more surprising, head-scratching, still can’t make sense of it, sports betting partnerships took place this past week as the NHL‘s Vegas Golden Knights formed a multi-year partnership with UpickTrade, a “sports betting recommendation service” based in Mexico. The partnership lasted 3 days, less than a Kardashian marriage as the Knights announced last night that the partnership is OVER.
https://twitter.com/hockeyaddicts/status/1365835895107117057
The partnership allowed UpickTrade.com in-arena and a presence on the team’s official website and social media platforms. Basically, this “partnership” is a traditional media buy with the goal for Upicktrade.com to increase their app downloads and website visits.
“The Vegas Golden Knights have ended their sponsorship agreement with UpickTrade. The organization will not have additional comments on the matter at this time,” the team said in a statement released Saturday afternoon.
“We are still in shock about the decision,” a spokesperson from UpickTrade told ESPN.
In happier time, the Knights released this statement:
“We are thrilled to partner with UpickTrade.com and become the first professional sports franchise to partner with a sports recommendation service,”(wow that sounds soo much better than “Picks Service”) Golden Knights Vice President of Global Partnerships Mike Mungiello said in a statement. “We are hopeful our fanbase will make UpickTrade.com a part of their sports pick betting process.”
UpickTrade.com charges clients $89 a month for its picks, including NHL games. The tout service claims to have over 6,000 clients and is the first service of its kind to partner with a professional sports franchise. This is also the first partnership between a Mexican-based company and an NHL franchise.
The deal with UpickTrade and the Knights had no restrictions with games involving Vegas which seemed to be the straw that broke the camel’s back. There were concerns about whether UpickTrade would sell picks on Knights games and if the company would have access to injury or lineup information directly from the team.
The partnership was widely criticized by the sports betting community, including industry experts, bookmakers, and bettors.
Who is UpickTrade and Their Shady 6000 Users
According to the press release, UpickTrade set up operations in 2017 as a sports betting recommendation service headquartered in Guadalajara, Mexico. The tout service sells picks for MLB, NFL, NBA, and NHL games using a highly sophisticated algorithm. Wow, that sounds soo unique, I have never heard a handicapper or service say they had a unique algorithm. (Insert sarcasm anywhere when reading that last statement)
Cappersreview discovered that UpickTrade created its domain in 2019 (but started its business in 2017) and has low SEO metrics despite its 6,000 customers. What does that mean?
In the search engine optimization world, in order for Google to favor you and send you traffic(meaning being on the first page results for google) you have to optimize your site and achieve a high domain authority. (Domain authority is graded between 0 to 100. The higher the number, the more trusted your website is, the better you rank)
Ok so their website is 2 years old and according to SEMRush, an authority when it comes to website metrics and SEO tools, their lifetime visits to the website is 5002 users. (This is a combination of organic and paid traffic)
It’s safe to say based on the metrics that 6000 users would have been difficult to obtain since they have only had 5000 users lifetime to the site.
Since the website is not their moneymaker, their app game must be killing it right? Think again…
According to Statistica, As of May 2020, apps from U.S. publishers generated an average of 1.24 million downloads per app. In contrast, the average number of downloads for the app was upwards of 500 downloads according to Google Play Store.
UpickTrade has a rating of 3.4 and 500+ downloads on the Google Play Store and on the apple store, it has a 4.5 rating. App downloads are not provided unfortunately but on both platforms, the app has relatively low visibility.
To sum it up, the website is not generating traffic and the app is not being downloaded enough to justify 6000 users. I am now starting to consider that these 6000 users were acquired by divine intervention.
Time to Look at Upicktrade.com’s Juiced Odds
When looking at records on UpickTrade’s website, they are not shy about betting juiced lines or having its customer’s purchase points for a game. On February 23, UpickTrade recommended the Milwaukee Bucks -7.5 over the Minnesota Timberwolves despite the line closing at Bucks -10.
Sure the bet still hit, but the odds were juiced to -192, and a lot of the bets have similar juiced odds. On February 22, UpickTrade recommended the Dallas Stars +1.5 puck line at -400 odds.
MINUS FOUR HUNDRED!
That alone should make any bettor using a tout service question what it’s doing. The Stars lost to the Florida Panthers 3-1 that night, causing bettors to lose on a bet that paid out 1:4 odds. Any bettor with knowledge around odds understands how careless it is to make a bet with -400 odds.
Something worth noting is that the currency used is MXN which is very confusing if you are US bettor. How will the company adjust to Vegas NHL bettors betting in USD? Did anyone in the Golden Knights organization download this app before this partnership was approved?
Criticism from the Partnership
The partnership the Golden Knights created caused many criticisms surrounding UpickTrade as the sports betting industry as a whole is questioning the move. UpickTrade’s website does not promote responsible gambling, and the picks the site touts are nowhere near responsible.
Tout services have been around since the 1980s, with 1-800 numbers to get picks. However, these clever tout services will give one bet to a client and give the other side of the bet. This helps cover their tracks and allows them to fudge numbers and promote “winners” that aren’t truly winners.
UpickTrade had the Golden Knights logo on its site before it was taken down on Thursday. That was the writing on the wall that this partnership was going to be short-lived.