Our Company Ethos

Setting a Guinness World Record for the biggest ever strip poker tournament, sponsoring the World’s first Father Ted Festival, having a Tongan International Rugby player change his name by Deed Poll to Paddy Power for the duration of the 2007 Rugby World Cup……just a few reasons why Paddy Power has become a household name synonymous with fun and entertainment.

Formed back in 1988 Paddy Power rapidly became a shining light in the Irish and UK betting industry. Innovation has been the key to the success for the company who from day one sought to be different from the chasing pack. The vision was simple, position betting as entertainment; make betting with Paddy Power a fun experience that meant a lot more than simply winning or losing money.

This dogged refusal to conform and obsession with delivering an unparalleled customer experience ensures that Paddy Power holds a specials place in the minds of punters.

Our History

2011

There’s nothing we love better at Paddy Power than when people show initiative and in June 2011 a young out-of-work Galwayman caught our eye...

2010

To celebrate the 2010 Festival, we installed our very own Hollywood-esque sign on Cleeve Hill...

2009

One of our more bizarre partnerships of 2009 took place in June with the organisers of Ireland’s biggest ever skinny dip.

2008

Easily our most colourful sponsorship of 2008 was the Bingham Cup, more commonly known as the Paddy Power Gay Rugby World Cup.

2007

It doesn’t have to be about betting, it just has to be good craic – that’s our unofficial motto! That certainly rang true with our sponsorship of the first ever Tedfest which took place on the remote Aran Islands off the western shore of Ireland. As the name suggests it was a Fr Ted festival.

2006

A highlight of the year once again involved the 3rd round of the FA Cup. This time it was Alonso’s wonder goal for Liverpool against Luton which hit the headlines.

2005

This was the year Paddy Power found religion. But it began with a truly jammy sponsorship in the FA Cup 3rd round.

2004

Every year at Paddy Power is varied, there are always highlights and lowlights. Catherine Egan will have very fond memories of 2004 she picked a horse in every race at Fairyhouse races early in the year and put down €10 for them all to win. One of the horses she had picked wasn’t running, so she decided to go for a horse called Munster instead because Munster had won their Rugby match the previous weekend – inspired!

2003

Now this was a busy year! If you were a punter it was a bonanza. The Cheltenham festival is always the most important year in the calendar and when favourites win, bookies lose – it’s quite a simple formula.

2002

The only way to make a splash in a new market was to get tongues wagging. The UK was the target, the grannies was the ad.

2001

It was time to think big, this internet thing was really taking off! We were ready to spread our wings and take the fight to the big boys across the water. We had beaten them on our own patch, now for the away fixture.

2000

We were all relieved to wake up on New Year’s Day and discover that the world hadn’t in fact ended due to the millenium bug. To celebrate we decided to launch Paddy Power on the internet and after much debate came up with the very imaginative name – paddypower.com

20th Century Paddy!

The 20th Century seems like such a long time ago and as a company we were still in our short pants back in those days. That didn’t stop us from having fun though and very quickly we become famous for our whacky, innovative, sometimes crazy special offers. There are umpteen examples to choose from, and we’ve chosen just a couple from the Paddy Power archive.