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Paddy Power

Paddy Power profits plummet 20% despite acquiring 148,000 online bettors during the World Cup

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By John McCarthy, Opinion Editor

August 28, 2014 | 3 min read

Bookmaker Paddy Paddy has attributed a six-month 20 per cent drop in operating profit to a bad run of luck - despite the firm recording industry-leading digital growth with almost 150,000 new mobile and tablet gamblers joining the site during the World Cup.

Paddy Power, the self-described mischievous bookmaker

The UK leader in digital gambling has saw profits double in the last half decade but it reported a 20 per cent drop in operating profit to 60 million Euros in the first half of 2014.

The firm also announced that it acquired 148,000 new online customers during the World Cup where it saw “very strong brand exposure” courtesy of the Paddy Power social team - who gave the Drum a behind-the-scenes peek at their strategies during the tournament.

The 'luck 'o the Irish' failed the Dublin-based firm after it suffered from an industry-wide blow resulting from a “horrific run of sports results" during a summer packed with sports.

Patrick Kennedy, chief executive of Paddy Power, said: “The punter friendly results in football and racing which impacted the gross win percentage in the initial six months of 2014 failed to put a halt to our gallop with strong underlying performance and accelerating top line momentum delivered in the period.”

Kennedy expressed optimism for the second half of 2014 however stating that the firm acquired more new sportsbook customers on the Paddy Power website in the last six months than in the whole of 2013.

He added: “We had a cracking World Cup which generated stakes of almost 200m million Euros, 130 per cent ahead of the previous tournament. Australia continues to power ahead and Italy has made significant progress.”

Cormac McCarthy, chief financial officer of Paddy Power, told Reuters: “There has been an extraordinary run of results. We always say to people that the run of results can go against bookies. Every separate event is a new coin toss.

“The top line is powering ahead. We have seen a very strong return to more normalised sports results. That gives us a lot of confidence in the long run that our margins are fine.”

During the World Cup the cheeky bookmaker even enlisted the help of physicist Stephen Hawkings to create a formula for success for the struggling England football team.

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