Paddy Power to open Spanish betting site

[jetset]

NEW SPANISH ONLINE BET SITE FOR PADDY POWER

Focus of new operation will be football

Irish online betting group Paddy Power.com is to augment its German foreign language gambling website with one in Spanish, although unlike its Internet operations in the UK, Ireland and Germany, the Spanish site will focus primarily on football rather than horse racing, Biznews reports.

The bookmaker is hoping to have the new site up and running in time for the start of the new Spanish football season at the beginning of September. The company has already begun recruiting Spanish-speaking staff, and may also open a number of betting shops in and around Madrid.

The company's chief executive, Patrick Kennedy revealed earlier this year that the company was examining expansion opportunities in a number of European countries, with Italy, Poland and Portugal on the short list.

Over half of Paddy Power's Euro 45 million profit was generated through online operations last year, and this success looks set to continue through 2007. The company indicated in a trading update last month that turnover from its online operations was up 26 percent in the opening months of 2007.

Paddy Power clearly has ambitions in the lucrative Spanish sportsbetting market. Latest figures estimate that a total of Euro 22.68 billion is spent on gambling in Spain each year, in a market forecast to grow to Euro 39 billion by 2010. Online gambling is expected to be worth over Euro 4.2 billion by this time (see previous InfoPowa reports).

Spain is increasingly being seen as an attractive destination by large bookmakers. Firms such as William Hill and Betbull have both recently put joint venture agreements in place with many more expected to follow suit.