Six Month Profit Increase Reported For Paddy Power

Paddy Power PLC, which is considered as being the top bookie operation in Ireland, has announced this week that it has experienced an 11 percent gain in net profit during the first-half. It is believed that acceptable World Cup football returns have been an aid in this. There was also an heartening growth in the group's over-the-counter, Internet, and telephone markets.

The company is located in Dublin. It has reported that its January to June net profit rose from Euro 15.8 million to Euro 17.5 million (US$22.4 million), as compared with the same 2005 period. During that same period it took in a total in bets of Euro 877.6 million (US$1.12 billion). This is an increase of 27 percent when compared with last year's Euro 690.1 million.

Paddy Power during the proceeding year, had opened 27 more traditional betting shops in Ireland and Britain. This is where is continues to receive most of its revenues. Growth however, has been shown to be much more robust on its three Web sites. These sites run casino-style games, books on current affairs and sports, and poker. It was this year that the company launched online bingo. In doing this they were seeking to attract the female gamblers. They also commenced a German-language site in order to take advantage of the World Cup that was held in Germany.

Company Chairman Fintan Drury said that through the World Cup the company was successful in achieving their target for absolute profits. They did this however, with a higher than expected turnover. He said that the matches paid off very well with eighteen of twenty-two matches being won by the favorites.

According to Patrick Kennedy, the company’s Chief Executive, the company was anticipating positively the expected British betting rules liberalization to occur next year, and especially the permitting of betting shops to remain open as necessary.

Over the same 6-month period the company’s cash reserves increased by 30.6 percent to Euro 68.3 million (US$87.4 million). This figure includes Euro 12.9 million (US$16.5 million) in customer accounts deposits which are applied to bets being placed online or through the use of the phone.

At Paddy Power website on the Internet you can set up a betting account using several denominations. Included are U.S. dollars. Nevertheless, the company is looking at real problems in its attempt to build up an American customer base.  That is because the United States law is geared to prevent gamblers from using U.S.-based credit cards in order to deposit or to withdraw funds from online gambling web sites.

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