In around 24 hours time, Paddy Power shops throughout Ireland and the UK will be packed to the rafters as the Cheltenham Racing Festival gets under way.
Last Thursday however, as biblical rain soaked all that dared set foot outside their front door, the offices of Flutter entertainment -the parent company of Paddy Power- is a picture of serenity. All the hard work is done and all that’s left to do is wait for the racing to begin.
Before long the main man himself appears for a chat. Son of co-founder David, head honcho Paddy is looking forward to the biggest week of the year. As he sits in his Cheltenham ‘war room’ surrounded by humourous slogans poking fun at anyone and everyone, he lays out what a successful week for the company looks like.
“Going into Cheltenham talking to the ‘bean counters’ - and it’s usually thanks to our department - the company doesn’t really expect to make money this week,” says Power with a chuckle.
“Cheltenham would be a week where you hopefully break even after all that and hope that people choose Paddy Power and we increase our customer number”
At the time of its founding in 1988, Irish bookies were second-class citizens to their English counterparts who ruled the roost.
John Corcoran, David Power and Stewart Kenny took the bold step at the time to pool their resources together to compete with the establishment.
“The idea behind Paddy Power was born out of necessity.
“At the time, Irish bookies were pretty dingy. They weren’t very salubrious, and when the English firms opened up, those shops were like mega shops compared to the Irish.
“They used the Power name because it was well known since my great-grandad back in the 1890’s, and Paddy just to be Irish.
“So I’m not named after a bookie, but it’s a coincidence of a name really.”
The set up at Paddy Power in 2023 is a far cry from the dingy early days of Irish bookmakers.
Inside the retail hub, dozens of screens adorn the walls. From here, the team can control exactly what is shown on screen in 600 stores.
With thousands of staff needed to man these shops, next week's rostering is a mammoth operation in itself. Added to this are Paddy Power TV and the radio channel and the size of the entire operation comes to the fore.
While terms like ‘entertainment’ and ‘experiential’ fly around the office, it would be remiss to say that the company isn’t interested in making money. At the end of the day, it’s a business and it operates as such. As Power puts it, “We want our customers to come in with 100 quid, leave with 90 and enjoy the experience enough to use Paddy Power again.”
Sometimes these best-laid plans don’t work out. Take the 2016 Premier League for example where 5000/1 Leicester shocked the World to win the title. Power refers to this as a ‘fairytale’ event, one that allowed the company to put on an open-top bus tour in celebration of its brave customers.
These ‘fairytale’ events however are becoming more infrequent. Paddy puts it down to the mathematicians that are getting better and better. One such maths whizz is Seamus Hazlett. As head of racing risk, it’s his job to ensure that the odds make sense.
“There’s a team of experts here. What these guys don’t know about horse racing isn’t worth knowing.
“They’ll price the races independently. They’ll discuss why they landed on that price and have a good healthy challenge on how they got there.
“You arrive then at a consensus of these prices. These are published and these are then our go-to market prices.”
A myriad of factors ranging from what competitors do to the feeling amongst punters on the day cause these odds to fluctuate. For people like Hazlett, their job is to make sure that the odds make sense and limit the risk that the bookmaker takes on.
This might not be the worst thing given the quantity of bets expected this week. In the past, Cheltenham used to roughly equate to 3 weeks of regular trading and would make or break the year. With the rise of football in particular as a ‘betting sport,’ this is no longer the case.
But the volume is still immense. Over the next four days, a staggering amount of bets will be placed. Between Paddy Power and it’s partners, Power reckons the final figure will be “The guts of 100 million.”
For now, all is quiet. The calm before the storm.
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