Talk:Paddy Power

DOES THE PERSON PADDY POWER OWN PADDY POWER BOOKIES OR HE IS JUST THE MARKETING MANAGER?!?
My father grew up in a small town in South West Ireland in the 1930's and he can remember his mother giving him a couple of shillings to go down to the bookies and put on a bet for her every now and then. The bookies was Paddy Power, and from what he remembers, Paddy Power was the owner (though that was obviously the 1930's and that particular Paddy Power is long since dead I would have thought?)
 * I've been wondering the same thing.Bogger (talk) 08:49, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm also wondering this as Paddy Power from Paddy Power Bookmakers is talking with George Lee on RTÉ Radio 1's The Business this minute. 86.42.27.176 (talk) 09:46, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

I am Paddy Power (no - really!) Do I own the company, not really - it's a long story so make yourself comfortable! I am the son of one of the founders of the company and I am sorry to say I wasn't named after the company and it wasn't named after me.

My quick family history goes something like this...in 1894 my great grandad, Richard Power, was working in a drapery store in Waterford (south east Ireland). He was the junior so was the guy that was sent to the bookies to put on bets for his colleagues, he realised soon enough that they weren't the greatest punters ever and didn't send him to collect winnings that often (or ever!). So he then started to take the bets himself and pretend he had placed them with the bookie.

In the summer of 1894 he bunked off work and went to Tramore races. He bumped into his boss who sacked him for not being at work. So, as you could do at the time, he stood up on a tea chest started shouting the odds and taking bets and thankfully the first favourite got beat....he was now a bookie! He managed to build up a chain of Richard Power shops across the country and even went over to England for the big meetings to bet on the rails. At a time when bookmaking probably wasn't as reputable as it is today, Richard built up a really strong reputation for having great staff and being a great payer. To get a job in one of the Richard Power shops you needed a letter from either your bank manager or your Archbishop (very Irish!!).

Anyway, that's the background. The family business was passed to my Grandad (Paddy) who I unfortunately never met as he died when my father was about 16, he was training at weekends to go into the family business while studying in school and then university (accountant) - my Granny held the license in the meantime and I believe she was the first woman to hold a bookmaking license.

So then in the mid 1980s the betting tax in Ireland was halved and lots of English bookies came into the Irish market. The local bookies were really struggling to compete and John Corcoran (of Patrick Corcoran bookies) approached Dad (David) and suggested that they get together to set up a big Irish brand to compete with the English lads. They both agreed, got Stewart Kenny (Kenny O'Reilly bookies) involved, threw all of their shops in the pot, picked the best 40 and decided on the name Paddy Power (Power name had a great rep, has a nice ring to it, and most importantly at the time Paddy highlighted the Irishness...unfortunatley it had nothing to do with me!). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Therealpaddypower (talk • contribs) 09:48, 19 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Are you by chance related to 'Peter Powers' world renowned somnambulist/mind games reader. Until his male and female planks in various theatres in Scotland (mostly Glasgows Pavillion) before his timely downfall (Now look into they aye's not aroon the aye's, but into my aye's) Ha ha the balding beard (as bad as his firkin wig) wearing fool.
 * Did make a few bob, but shoulda seen his own sudden drop from the storks bill ?????? 2A00:23C4:B925:101:BD:D36:75AF:3D6B (talk) 21:29, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Novelty - Controversy merge?
Like the novelty section, the controversy section is about novelty/special bets that drew a few headlines (the only difference being that these were 'controversial'). I can't think of a good reason to have them in a separate section. Anyone object to the merge? Hazir (talk) 10:26, 28 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Speaking of controversy, it may just be my opinion that Paddy Power is a bit stingy. If I wanted to win €100 on a Fianna Fail + SF coalition for the next Irish Government, I might be soft enough to pay €2 for it. The actual price for it will equal €4. Is it just me, or are they stingy?
 * Hi, if you want to discuss Paddy Power's margins, I recommend Googling a UK sports betting forum. Hazir (talk) 13:02, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Scotland vote
Paddy Power has (essentially) been the only bookmakers that have offered anyone a chance to bet on the Scotland referendum in 2010. They have pulled it back, just wondering if anyone knows why. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.134.28.194 (talk) 10:23, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Your question is best answered by Paddy Power's customer service. Hazir (talk) 13:02, 9 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Here is just to confirm that other bookies have made it possible to bet on whether or not there will be a referendum. If I bet £10 on that it will not happen, I can have a net gain of £1 on dec 31.st in 2010. How much is that one pound actually worth, once inflation has taken its part of that money? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.134.28.194 (talk) 07:38, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Innacuracies on the page
While I am here...

There's a few missing facts and other innnacuracies in this article. I don't really want to edit an article about the company I work for so I'm mentioning them here. Would someone be able to take a look?

We are the biggest bookie in Ireland - but not just that, we are also the biggest quoted betting company in Europe now and also the biggest corporate bookie in Australia. At a below the line level we have a b2b relationship with the French PMU and have just signed a partnership deal with British Columbia Lottery Corporation who are the only operator permitted under Canadian law to offer sports betting in BC - we're supplying their sports betting business with product, pricing and risk management services for three years.

We've now got 218 shops in Ireland and 156 in the UK.

We don't sponsor Swansea City or St Pats (although we did once).

We did pay out on New Zealand and Stoke - we do this all the time, and as with Massa we regularly refund bets if we feel punters have been cheated - a good recent example is Wales in the RWC after Warburton got sent off.

The comments under criticism are a little unfair. The Obama bet was an absolutely standard "to serve a full term - yes or no" bet, we offer this on politicians and governments all the time and in the states it was relevant because of the Clinton impeachment story. We certainly NEVER offered a market on Obama to be assassinated and we never would - it was interpreted that way by some of the press and perhaps we should have been more aware in terms of seeing that coming.

Similarly, we don't welsh on bets - we're in the business of taking them and paying out when they are winners - our reputation is one of the cornerstones of our business. The story around Shane Lowry is a bit misleading - the odds had been offered in error over the counter by a member of staff in a shop (they were never our actual odds which had been available online etc). When we realised what had happened we didn't just apply the rules and settle the bet at the correct odds at the time of placement, we got in touch with the customers affected and agreed a payment with them that was less than the false odds but significantly more than they would have got according to the rules (I should know as I dealt with this and spoke to everyone involved personally). Like I said above, I don't really want to just dive in and edit this page (it's probably against guidelines in fact) but would someone look at it for me?

cheers Paddy — Preceding unsigned comment added by Therealpaddypower (talk • contribs) 10:24, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

OK, going to make a couple of changes (strictly factual!), hopefully that's ok. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Therealpaddypower (talk • contribs) 11:20, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Suggested additions to the page
Hi, Could someone (not me, for obvious reasons) update the page to include these up-to-date facts and more relevant information?

Paddy Power is now the largest bookmaker in Europe (see http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/paddy-power-biggest-in-europe-2940154.html)

Group income was €444m in 2010 (see annual report on www.paddypowerplc.com)

On May 14th 2010, Paddy Power acquired a majority stake in Australian bookmaker SportsBet (see http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=afzmafgveatA&refer=australia)

Paddy Power now has over 200 shops in Ireland and over 150 shops in the UK (full list at http://www.paddypower.com/bet/shop-locator)

Paddy Power was placed 6th in the Management Today "Britain's most admired companies" list (see http://www.managementtoday.co.uk/go/bmac) and was ranked 1st for "quality of marketing".

thanks. Therealpaddypower (talk) 17:43, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm happy to make the updates myself if someone gives me the go ahead.


 * I added most of those per your request on my talk page. --John (talk) 22:29, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Removal of section Paddy Power Poker
The section on Paddy Power Poker is unreferenced and the factual content could be merged with the rest of the article. It seems to me that it does not justify its own section and risks cluttering the page as well as perhaps possible being construed as advertisement for the service. Any objections? Reichsfurst (talk) 16:17, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

External links modified (January 2018)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 external links on Paddy Power. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20130119094411/http://www.paddypowerplc.com/cms/board_of_directors to http://www.paddypowerplc.com/cms/board_of_directors
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20160124122113/http://www.paddypowerplc.com/ to http://www.paddypowerplc.com/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120524045908/http://www.bettingon.com/articles/2012/03/09/paddy-power-white-horse-stunt to http://www.bettingon.com/articles/2012/03/09/paddy-power-white-horse-stunt
 * Added tag to http://www.paddypowerplc.com/

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 00:01, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

It's not "gaming". It's "gambling"
Wikipedia is at least TRYING to be consistent in referring to companies like that this as involved in "gamBLing", not "gaming", which is about video-games. "Gaming" is a sleazy attempt to "brand" the gamBLing industry as something other than what it is: gamBLing. Wikipedia should, if it wants to be encyclopedic (i.e. not controlled by the public-relations firms that gamBLing-companies hire to sanitize the industry's image), be consistent in refusing to allow the word "gaming" to be interchanged with "gambling". The article at the time I'm typing this contains some instances of the word "gaming". That's not encyclopedic. That's PR for the industry. It's an attempt to change how you FEEL about something by using different words, rather than FACTS. It's no better than when the pornography industry refers to itself as the "erotica" industry. Don't get me wrong: I'll oppose any legislation against either gamBLing per se or smut per se, just as I'd oppose legislation against marijuana use per se, but when a friend of mine is a pot-head, I say he's a pot-head, not a "frequent recreational consumer of cannabis".2600:1700:6759:B000:E894:BFCC:705D:880 (talk) 07:22, 26 May 2024 (UTC)Christopher Lawrence Simpson