Paddy Power Review

It would be fair to say that Paddy Power is one of the more outlandish bookmakers out there, due in no small part to some of its fun and at times outrageous advertising campaigns. However the PR surrounding them should not mask the fact that this bookmaker is one of the biggest and best on the market!

Established in 1988 after the merger of three bookmakers, the Irish based Paddy Power has established itself not only as the biggest bookie in its native Ireland, but also a massive online and High Street presence in other countries such as the UK. ‘The Power’ was considered the strongest of the three brands from the merger, whilst Paddy and the green colours were added to emphasize the company’s Irish heritage – ‘thanks Paddy Power’!.

Controversy and mischief have never been far from Paddy Power’s agenda, and the company obviously thrives on the PR generated off the back of some daring stunts in the past. Some of its more memorable moments include offering odds on the then US president Barack Obama not ‘completing his term’, which was widely construed as the bookmaker offering odds on him being assassinated before the end of his term. In 2014 a statue of former Manchester United manager David Moyes turned up outside Anfield, a playful nudge to the hapless Scot’s poor season in charge at Liverpool’s bitter rivals and his ‘services’ to the red half of Merseyside.

Getting started with Paddy Power

As with most online bookmakers, Paddy Power has an incentive to entice new customers to their website, currently being advertised as a ‘risk free £10 bet’ on their homepage:

Customers registering for the first time and wishing to take advantage of this offer should hit the ‘Join Now’ blue button where they will be taken to another page containing the offer details and code and will need to hit ‘Join Now’ a second time:

 Step 1 of getting up and running on Paddy Power is filling in a fairly straightforward sign-up form. Paddy Power will require your name, address, date of birth, email address and for the customer to set a security question/answer alongside a password. This is all standard and should not take more than a couple of minutes to complete.

The customer at this stage also has the option to choose which currency they wish to bet in (GBP and Euro are offered as options) and also set a frequency limit for deposits – this can be either daily, weekly or monthly starting from £5. The promo code from the previous page is already auto completed which helps not having to go backwards and forwards to find it!

After submitting their details, most customers should find their account open and ready to deposit via automatic electronic verification – success! If however for any reason Paddy Power cannot verify your details, you will be taken to an additional step below to upload ID documents such as a passport or driving licence:

There is nothing to be worried about if you are taken to this page, it is a legal requirement for all bookmakers to verify customer details either electronically or through physically having sight of their ID documents via an upload.

The next step is to deposit funds – as you would expect from one of the largest online bookmakers, most options are catered for. Choose from debit card, PayPal, Paysafe, Skrill, Neteller, Bank transfer or MuchBetter:

Once funds have been deposited they will arrive instantly in your account (with the exception of bank transfers, which take 1-5 working days to process). Below the account balance has been updated after making a deposit via debit card and is always available to view in the top right hand corner of any page on the site.

Paddy Power deposit and withdrawals

Customers should spend some time to familiarize themselves with the minimum and maximum deposit and withdrawal amounts currently mandated by Paddy Power. With a debit card, there is a minimum deposit requirement of £5, as well as a minimum withdrawal amount of £0.01. Funds tend to arrive within 2-5 days when withdrawing through this method.

Bank transfers also have a minimum deposit amount of £5 but take 1-5 working days to be processed. The minimum withdrawal amount with a bank transfer is £10 and this also takes 1-5 working days to be processed, so customers may wish to consider more agile payment methods.

Neteller again has a minimum deposit amount £5 with a processing time of 1-4 hours before the deposit is available to bet with. There is a £1 minimum withdrawal requirement with withdrawals taking around 4 hours to be processed.

Paypal has a slightly different requirement – a customer will have to deposit at least £10 which will be processed immediately. Withdrawal requirements are similar to Neteller – a minimum of £1 and like Neteller, take anywhere between 4 to 24 hours to process.

PaySafeCard requires a minimum £5 deposit and is processed immediately. However, PaySafeCard deposits are only available in Austria, Finland, Germany, Isle of Man, Italy, Norway, Sweden, the Channel Islands, and the United Kingdom. Withdrawals via PaySafe are sent to a customer’s bank account.

To make a deposit via Skrill, will also require the standard £5 minimum requirement and it will be processed immediately. The minimum withdrawal amount is at a measly £1 and will take between 4 and 24 hours to be processed.

Finally bank transfers also have a minimum deposit amount of £5 but take 1-5 working days to be processed. The minimum withdrawal amount with a bank transfer is £10 and this also takes 1-5 working days to be processed, so customers may wish to consider more agile payment methods above.

New Customer sportsbook offer

Currently Paddy Power are offering a ‘£10 risk free first bet’ in an offer that is a slight departure from the normal free bets that most bookmakers offer. So how does a new customer qualify for this particular offer?

Step 1 is to open a new account with Paddy Power – follow our helpful guide and this should be easy to complete in a matter of minutes! The promo code is already pre-populated on the registration page, so there is no need to go fishing for this online.

Step 2 is to deposit a minimum of £10 to qualify for this promotion – again using our helpful guide depositing for your first stake money should be a doddle!

Step 3 is to place your first bet, and that’s it, you have qualified for this offer!

Example of how a risk free bet works

If a customer opens a new account and deposits £10 and then places a £10 bet on team X to beat team Y, for the purpose of this promotion they have placed a qualifying bet. If team X were to win, then that is the end of the promotion – it does not carry forward until you have made your first losing bet unfortunately. However if team Y were to be victorious then your first bet under this promotion is classed as a ‘loser’ and therefore Paddy Power will refund your £10 as cash back to your account.

Are there any bonus restrictions or small print?

As with most promotions, there are always a few details that a customer should be aware of. We found that the following apply to this particular ‘risk free bet’ promotion:

• Promotion is available to new customers only who are residents of the UK or Republic of Ireland.
• For the purposes of this promotion, your first ever Sportsbook bet will be counted as the qualifying bet.
• Maximum refund is £/€10, depending on what currency you opened your account and placed the bet in.
• Refunds will be processed within 1 hour after the qualifying bet has been settled as a loser.

Perhaps the most important part is around the deposit method used to fund the account – deposits made with e-wallets including Skrill, Paysafe and Neteller will not count towards this promotion and only deposits made via debit cards and Paypal are eligible. We also found mention of Apple Pay being eligible, which would make sense to entice Mobile and App users to register and play.

Paddy’s reward club

New and existing customers will be glad to hear that Paddy Power offer a generous reward club that offers incentives for placing regular bets:

The general premise for Sportsbook customers is by placing five minimum qualifying bets (defined as £5 or more) at minimum odds of 1/2 or above, customers can qualify for a free bet. For example placing 5 x £10 bets in a single week would mean Paddy Power reward you with a free £10 bet which is valid for 7 days. However only the winnings from this free bet would be received by the customer if the wager turned out to be successful. Full T&Cs can be found here: https://promotions.paddypower.com/paddysrewardsclub – as ever check the small print before you start placing your bets!

Paddy Power sportsbook

Paddy Power has a long tradition of offering a diverse range of sports to choose from and customers can rest assured that all their needs are catered for! For the traditional punter, Paddy Power offers a comprehensive range of markets on Football from around the world, with Horse Racing coverage also on a par with any other online bookmaker.

Staying true to its Irish heritage, customers can find a wide range of markets on sports such as Gaelic Games, whilst even fans from Australia are catered for with markets offered on Australian Rules Football.

Of course Paddy Power wouldn’t be Paddy Power if it didn’t have something unusual or interesting to throw into the mix and sure enough we found markets for Politics and Current Affairs on offer. Fancy a bet on who will be the next Pope? Not a problem, Paddy Power has a market for this:

Including eSports and Virtual Sports, we counted 25 sports available at Paddy Power for customers to get their teeth into. Football of course is the bread and butter of any online bookmaker and fans will not be disappointed when visiting Paddy Power. Taking a look at an upcoming fixture, we found 132 markets being offered, as well as a number of ‘Power Prices’:

Power prices are enhanced odds that Paddy Power offer to customers to increase their potential winnings should they place a successful bet. In the above market we found a range of good options including the home side to win 1-0, 2-0 or 2-1 – the odds have been enhanced from 9/2 to 6/1, well worth a punt in our opinion!

Placing a bet

With a comprehensive range of sports, markets and enhanced odds to get stuck into, customers will not be short of options when it comes to placing a bet. The process itself is painless, and with Paddy Power offering plenty of ‘Power Prices’ on most of its events, there are plenty of intriguing options to consider.

One point to note is that Paddy Power does not house a stats centre, form guide or match insights on the actual betting page, but instead customers will be redirected to its sister news website.

 The above opened a new tab for us and took us to https://news.paddypower.com/football/2020/05/31/football-tips-our-three-best-bets-for-koln-v-rb-leipzig-on-monday/

We found this not quite in keeping with many of the other leading online bookmakers, and some customers may find the lack of data available on the actual market page slightly disappointing.

Adding to betslip

Confident that betting on this fixture should see a RB Leipzig win, we made use of Power Prices to get 11/4 on RB Leipzig to win 1-0, 2-0 or 2-1, and duly added to our betting slip, which now shows the selection, odds, stake amount and potential returns:

Bet confirmation

After hitting the Place Bets blue button, it’s game on! The bet slip updates to confirm the successful wager and again reiterates the total stake, potential returns and details of the selection:

Fantasy Paddy Power

A somewhat unique feature offered by Paddy Power is the ‘Fantasy Paddy Power’ option. This brings to life every fanboy’s dream of traditional fantasy league football but with a number of daily, weekly and monthly contests on offer to make picking your dream team just that little bit more interesting! Below is a selection of ‘contests’ we found available to enter:

Customers can then select their team from a predefined list of games. Below we are given three upcoming German Bundesliga fixtures to get our teeth into – let the stats nerd out and analysis begin before we settle on our killer starting XI!

With entry fees as low as £1 for the above event, diehard Fantasy League fans will enjoy taking a break from traditional betting and diving into a bit of fun in choosing their winning combination!

Live streaming

Paddy Power offers its customers access to live streaming events all year round, another great feature that allows armchair fans to get closer to the action, and of course place some bets! Below Paddy Power are keeping up customer spirits in lockdown by streaming a live Darts match with coverage coming directly from the player’s home!

With high quality streams on a range of sports, this option allows customers to not only enjoy a fix of free sporting action, but also get involved in some in-play action. In the above event customers can bet on the overall winner, predict the correct score and who will score the most 180s, all with the option to cash out. With sports streamed from around the world daily there is always something to keep the average sports fan interested, and a market to place a bet on!