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Paddy Power

What does Paddy Power offer?

Paddy Power offers a wide range of gambling opportunities through its betting shops, telephone betting service and internet sites.

Betting with Paddy Power

Paddy Power’s main internet site, www.paddypower.com, enables you to bet on a large number of sports and special events, such as:

• Football - a dedicated soccer section of the site enables you to bet on Premiership matches, League matches, FA Cup matches, World Cup matches, UEFA Cup matches, Irish football matches, internationals and many more. If you would like to know more about How to Bet on Football or more about forthcoming Football Events, visit our Football pages.
• Horse racing – a dedicated racing section of the site means that you can bet on daily race meetings or on future key events in the horse racing calendar such as The Queen Mother Champion Chase, the Cheltenham Gold Cup, the Grand National, the 1000 Guineas and the 2,000 Guineas. If you would like to know more about How to Bet on Horse Racing or more about forthcoming Horse Racing Events, visit our Horse Racing pages.
• Greyhound racing – you can also bet on daily greyhound racing and special events such as the Irish Greyhound Laurels and the Irish Puppy Derby through the racing section of the site.
• Other sports – you can bet on a wide range of other sporting events through Paddy Power including: golf, snooker, hurling, baseball, tennis, rugby league, rugby union, cricket, basketball, boxing and American football.
• Lotteries – you can gamble on a number of overseas lotteries, including the Irish lottery, the Spanish lottery, the German lottery, the New York lottery, the Hong Kong lottery and the Canadian lottery.
• Special events and bets – you can also use Paddy Power’s site to make bets on special events. For example, you can:
• Bet on television shows (the X-Factor, the Eurovision Contest and Big Brother), literary prizes (such as the Guardian First Book award)
• Bet on current affairs (such as the results of the next General election, the next leaders of the main political parties, who will become the next Pope)
• Bet on annual events such as whether or not there will be snow at Christmas and who will be number one in the charts at Christmas.
• Bet on financial matters, such as where the FTSE will close.
• Bet on sporting events such as the Olympics.

About Paddy Power

Paddy Power is the largest provider of fixed odds sports betting in Ireland and is the country’s largest bookmaker, with 176 betting shops in Ireland and the UK.

The History of Paddy Power

Here are some of the key events in Paddy Power’s history:

1988: The company was founded after a merger of the three high street bookmakers Kenny O’Reilly Bookmakers, P. Corcoran Bookmakers and Richard Power. Their aim was to make ‘low-stake betting’ more entertaining and accessible. They introduced a money-back option for gamblers, which allowed them to corner the Irish market.

1996: Paddy Power launched its telephone betting service in Ireland, Paddy Power Dial-A-Bet. Since then Paddy Power has become the market leader in telephone betting in Ireland

2000: Paddy Power launched its online betting service, www.paddypower.com. This has become the fastest moving part of the business.

2001: This was a key year in the history of Paddy Power.

Firstly, the Irish Republic introduced a horseracing levy, which forced Paddy Power to move its central operations to the UK to avoid paying a 15% gross profits tax. This led to the establishment of Paddy Power betting shops in the United Kingdom, and Paddy Power Dial-A-Bet was also launched in the UK in October 2001.

Secondly, Paddy Power launched a highly controversial advertising campaign. The advert showed two old women crossing a road. The picture had a lorry approaching the pensioners and the tag line, “let’s make things more interesting”. This was taken to imply Paddy Power was taking bets on who would survive the road crossing, though Paddy Power said it was highlighting, “everyday situations as competitive fixtures,” and the poster was only suggesting bets on who would get to the other side of the road first. The advertisement was subsequently banned by the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority), but the controversy improved awareness of the company.

2002: Another key year in Paddy Power’s history. Firstly, Paddy Power enamoured itself to its customers when it announced that it would be refunding the bets of customers who had bet on Ireland to beat Spain in a World Cup football match. Customers had lost out when Spain beat Ireland in a penalty shoot-out, but Paddy Power decided to refund pre-match single bets of up to £250.

However, Paddy Power also came under fire for inviting gamblers to bet on who would succeed Pope John Paul II. Although criticised, Paddy power took over 10,000 bets on the identity of the next Pope before Joseph Ratzinger became the 265^th pope, Pope Benedict XVI in April 2005, following John Paul II’s death.

2005: Paddy Power gained more publicity this year with another highly controversial advertising campaign, which was again banned by the Advertising Standards Authority. The advert showed an adapted version of Leonardo de Vinci’s painting, “The Last Supper”, showing Jesus and his apostles gambling.

To see what other users think about www.paddypower.com, visit our Reviews section.

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