Paddy Power to grow retail presence

Irish betting and gaming giant Paddy Power still intends to keep growing its retail network, despite its intention to enter a mega-merger with UK online rival Betfair in a bid to hold a sizeable chunk of the ever-increasing digital gaming market.

Online revenues are increasingly driving growth in the betting sector and earlier this week, as part of its interim results, Paddy Power noted a 26% year-on-year increase, to just over €200m in its own European online revenues for the first half of this year.

The same division saw operating profit rise by 21%, on the same period last year, to €31.6m.