UpickTrade Dropped as Vegas Golden Knights Predictions Partner

The Vegas Golden Knights have reversed their deal with Mexico-based betting prediction platform UpickTrade on Saturday.

Vegas Knights Renege on UpickTrade Deal 

It took all but a few days for the Vegas Golden Knights to make a U-Turn and reverse their partnership with tipping platform UpickTrade, responding to a sea of boos and criticism. Marking a landmark moment for UpickTrade, the partnership was supposed to be the Mexico–based prediction platform’s big moment, but it turned out to be its biggest let-down.

“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 Golden Knights stated tersely on Saturday. 

UpickTrade said they were in shock. The platform announced the partnership last week and immediately elicited a strong response from industry experts, responsible gaming bodies, and even fans, prompting the Golden Knights to stop and have another think-through. 

Nevertheless, the deal was supposed to be a pivotal moment for both participants – the first time a tipping platform and a sports franchise had teamed up. Announced on Wednesday, Golden Knights made UpickTrade its “Official Picks Service Partner,” and that came with dedicated signage on social media and at the team’s T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

Short-Lived Time of Joy 

Back on Wednesday, Knights, vice president of global partnerships Mike Mungiello said that he was hopeful that through UpickTrade, the team would bring sports fans a new product and a new level of satisfaction. 

For his part, UpickTrade CEO Lazo Reyes called the deal “historic.” However, the industry at large didn’t respond to it as kindly. There were concerns that UpickTrade would have inside information to the Las Vegas Knights lineups, injuries, and more, making for stilted betting odds that are not determined based on market conditions. 

As mentioned before, problem gambling was another concern to address. UpickTrade refuted some of the claims, arguing that it had never asked for nor expected to receive any information from the Knights that would have helped the platform provide better odds obtain unfairly.

The industry of selling “winning picks,” though, has been one of the most criticized products of sports betting. Not even the affiliate business or the sports betting industry itself has come under as muck backlash, mostly because of the dishonest means used during the 1980s and 1990s. 

Basically, many companies back in the day were accused of selling different lines to different people on the same game, winning the bad industry rep.