Paddy Power shrugs off punters’ luck to drive sales

Bookmaker Paddy Power, which is in the middle of a £5 billion merger with online rival Betfair, has posted resilient sales growth offsetting an unfavourable run of results that favoured punters.

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The Irish-owned bookmaker said that wins by favourites such as Bayern Munich, Barcelona, Manchester United and Juventus in Champions League games earlier this month helped punters betting on accumulators.

Meanwhile, Paddy Power said September was a good month for horse-racing punters. Even so, the group said that at its shops, like-for-like betting stakes grew 7 per cent and same-floorspace revenues lifted 1 per cent in the period between 1 July and 15 November.

It added that online betting stakes jumped 23 per cent, while revenues rose 7 per cent. As a result, Paddy Power said it continued to expect its operating profit in 2015 to show a “mid to high single-digit” percentage increase over 2014.

The company said it expected to publish shareholders’ documents relating to the merger in the coming weeks.