PADDY POWER BETFAIR
new entity – the organisation was formed in 2016 following the merger of Paddy Power Plc and Betfair Plc . “ Paddy Power Betfair is one of the world ’ s leading sports betting and gaming operators ,” advises Giles . “ We operate four main brands – Paddy Power , Betfair , Sportsbet – a major sporting operator in Australia – and TVG , a major operator in the United States . Worldwide we have about four million customers .”
Paddy Power was formed in 1988 through the merger of three Irish bookmakers . In 2000 , the company established its online presence with the launch of paddypower . com . In the same year , Betfair was launched . “ It was one of the first online gaming marketplaces for punters to bet against each other on sporting and cultural events around the world . This was revolutionary , nobody was really doing it in the market and certainly nobody was doing it as well as Betfair ,” comments Giles .
Over the years , the two companies expanded their respective online footprints with the introduction of online poker , mobile betting and online casinos . As the rival companies expanded , so did the amount of business being processed . “ In 2010 , Betfair ’ s exchange was processing more transactions than all of the European stock exchanges combined in a single day ,” advises Giles . In November 2011 , Paddy Power was the largest bookmaker in Europe by total share value .
The merger of the two companies created one of the world ’ s biggest online gambling companies , making it a FTSE 100 company . Paddy Power Betfair has over 7,000 employees and over 600 bookmaking shops . “ We operate on five real core values and they are – collaboration , integrity , agility , low ego and a relentless will to win ,” Giles observes .
GIANTS OF ONLINE GAMBLING Of course , merging two giants of online gambling has required a number of consolidation activities . One of the largest was the migration of data centres from the Isle of Man to Dublin . “ As part of the merger , we decided for operational and regulatory reasons to migrate two
50 October 2017