The fact that so many bets are unique means that operators are able to make their own odds that they’re comfortable with. Not only this but novelty bets can serve as fantastic vehicles for PR opportunities, regardless of whether they’re won and can increase acquisitions.

When it comes to novelty bets, few do it much bigger and better than Paddy Power. The Irish bookmaker has built a reputation for being at the forefront of novelty betting. This is a reputation, Marc Warren of Paddy Power says, they worked hard to create.

He explains: “We see it as a core part of our offering. We’re very proud of the fact that we have Europe’s biggest novelty betting book and that we offer bets as diverse as what the weather is going to be like at Christmas to reality TV to anything that’s topical in the news.”

While it may be considered a core part of the Paddy Power offering, it still only makes up a small percentage of their revenue. It’s more than likely that for other iGaming operators who put less of a focus on novelty or prop betting it barely registers in their income.

Despite this, novelty bets are still well worth doing and are able to get people talking about your brand. So creating the right sort of bets must be time consuming business, especially when the Paddy Power website currently offers bets on more than 20 random topics.

These topics range from Michael Jackson specials to bets regarding French politics and just about everything in-between. The extent of bets on offer highlights one of the key factors of novelty betting and creates major appeal to prospective bettors.

Warren reveals that when it comes to determining what they’ll offer a bet on it’s really quite simple. He adds: “If people are talking about it in the pub or talking about it in the street it is by and large something that they would be interested in betting on and thankfully they come and talk to us about that.

“It’s absolutely driven by the needs and wants of our customers. We want people to come to us and tell us what they’re interested in betting on.”

This is an interesting approach as it’s one of the few areas of betting where the wagers on offer are entirely dependent on the bettor. Instead of being offered a list of different bets, customers are able to suggest wagers. Of course, this approach brings with it a list of other factors that have to be taken into account by the operator.

Warren reveals the process Paddy Power go through when approached with a new form of novelty bet:

“We look at them in the way that we look at any other bet. We research the market, we do our work on the form and we make a judgment call accordingly and whether that’s a market that interests us. There are certain bets that we don’t take purely because we’d know that those markets were pretty closed or it was a foregone conclusion.”

So perhaps there is more work that goes into novelty bets that meets the eye. Other than novelty bets that we’ve come to expect such as whether it will snow on Christmas day, who will win reality TV shows and who will be elected into prominent positions, there are some that you wouldn’t think of quite so easily.

Prince William and Kate Middleton’s wedding sparked a wide range of new bets this year including offering punters the opportunity to bet on the length of Kate’s train. Altaf Bharde even placed a bet nine years ago that his son, who was one at the time, would play for the England football team by the time he was 21. Bharde bet £50 back in 2001 and received odds of 10,000-1 with William Hill.

At the time Graham Sharpe, a spokesman for William Hill said: “In terms of the subject matter this is a very popular bet these days but I am little concerned that I have set up a financial time bomb.

It is the threat of the potential financial time bombs that often puts operators off from offering novelty bets. Those offering the bets fear that the punter may well be more knowledgeable on this topic than they are themselves. Paddy Power deals with this by ensuring that employees throughout the company are well prepared to offer novelty bets.

Warren explains: “Novelty is a wide word and can include reality TV or sports novelty bets so these bets are something that we work across the whole company. Of course there are specialists within these topics, people who know about some topics more than others like in any betting company.”

“As a whole, we all take an interest in pricing so we’re constantly learning as a company what represents good value to a bettor.”

But offering novelty bets, especially on sports, isn’t a decision that should be made lightly. With the recent spot fixing issues in cricket, it has become obvious that people are able to fix a variety of mundane aspects of sport and even wider life.

“We’ve always been careful about any bet that we’ve taken and we have to be proactive in spotting issues like these,” reveals Warren.

However, this precaution can easily be countered leaving operators with thousands of ways to grab the headlines.

Online gambling has many forms – casino, sports, poker, bingo and many others make for a vast array of betting options. But none of these products can generate immediate interest quite as effectively as novelty betting.

Entertainment News

Paddy Power: overtired and showing off?

There’s no doubt that Paddy Power has done a good job in branding itself as the novelty betting bookmaker. It will offer odds on pretty much any topical news event and establish a betting angle in order to earn itself publicity.

Indeed the more controversial the story the more likely it will seize upon it, which is why offering odds on markets such as which animal will be the first to become extinct due to the BP oil spill or who will replace the Pope once he resigns due to recent child molestation scandals in the Catholic church are deemed to be fair game.

It’s a tried and tested formula that was originally conceived by Blue Square, who first targeted the cheeky chappy 20 to 30 something demographic in the UK with thought-provoking advertising and odds markets and cornered the marketplace at the start of the online gaming revolution a decade ago until it was taken over by The Rank Group – at which point it just became boringly mainstream and left the space for Green Square to exploit.

The Irish bookmaker’s approach has been clever, though, because not only does it manage to generate free newspaper and website column inches worldwide, but it has been prepared to back up its controversial image with targeted advertising campaigns, such as the blind footballers advert.

In fact the nearer the knuckle its ad campaigns, the better the publicity. One of its adverts, in which a group of disabled diners do a runner from a curry house in their wheelchairs, was banned by the advertising watchdog – and you get the feeling that was their intention all along. Like a notorious footballer who gets on the front page as well as the back page of the newspapers, Paddy Power operates on the premise that any publicity is good publicity.

All of the above is well-conceived, deliberate branding, which is worthy of commendation. But its the insistence on offering odds on anything and everything that lets it down. You can guarantee that as soon as any news story breaks, like Ronaldo having a lovechild, for example, they will offer odds on who the mother is. This isn’t creative marketing. It’s predictable and dull.

As is its claim that novelty marketing is in itself a big earner. “We’re in the entertainment game,” claims Sharon McHugh, Paddy Power’s PR agent. Erm, no you’re not Sharon, you’re in the bookmaking game. “We believe that if people are talking about something in the pub with their friends, they should be able to bet on it. We’re lucky enough that a lot of the ideas come to us through our customer requesting odds or suggesting we offer odds on something.”

Yeah right. Or maybe just your marketing team. Their latest claim is that the prediction of Paul The Octopus has turned the World Cup final betting around on its head. Actually, no it hasn’t, because Spain have been the tournament favourites ever since Brazil got knocked out of the tournament, so Paul the Octopus has got sweet FA to do with punters’ betting habits. But then that wouldn’t be a good story, would it?

To establish itself Paddy Power’s branding has been strong. It has sold itself as brazen and controversial and good for a laugh – and has been prepared to back up this position with considerable advertising Euro. But it’s now time it credited the betting man with more intelligence. Like an attention-seeking child who just won’t shut up, someone needs to tell Paddy Power that it’s overtired, showing off and past its bedtime. So it might as well be me.

Marketing News

Not tonight, love, I'm downloading my apps

Is it just me or does every UK betting website look the same these days? I understand that there is a need to identify the product you are selling and also to ensure new customers don’t get lost in navigation, but is it really a good idea to be a sheep?

Indeed, in the defence of sheep, being a sheep is all they have ever known, so being a sheep is no bad thing – unless of course you find yourself on the next truck to the abattoir. In the world of eGaming, though, surely a new focus, a new look, a brave new step would be no bad thing?

In the early days when companies were scrambling around to grab whatever land had yet to be claimed, some bookmakers tried to not only create an identity, but also to offer interesting content. The layout of the sites had yet to be controlled by a few software houses and bookmakers weren’t limited to functionality by dictatorial back-end suppliers. Unfortunately, though, this changed quite quickly when bookmakers started to use one of two main suppliers.

Suddenly, instead of being able to build and do whatever they wanted they had to wait in project line (the length of the line depended on which bookmaker you were) to eventually get told that the project was not cost effective or would take too long to deliver. In other words, it was scrapped.

These days all the major players’ websites look like they have been designed by someone that would prefer be in bed with an iPhone rather than Megan Fox and I demand to know why.

What is the bookmakers’ differential? The odds certainly aren’t. With bookmakers scared of putting their heads above the Betfair price threshold they need to come up with exciting products that set them apart. Everyone, rightly so, has jumped on the in-running wagon. But even here the products are unbelievably similar.

At least Bodog have thought outside the box in this regard and shown that the creative thought process is alive and well with their ‘Who Killed Archie Mitchell?’ live betting offering? This is a rare exception to the increasingly monotonous rule.

I believe, that if you take brand loyalty out of the equation there is room for a forward thinking bookmaker to mop up the floating punters. Give them a reason to keep coming back to your site. Wow them. Excite them. Offer something new. But, please stop copying each other, as progress will surely soon grind to a halt.

Business News

And it seems that the punters are piling in on David Beckham joining young Tiger on mysinglefriend.com in the not too distant future. Read more.

Entertainment News

Snow good

With the cold snap continuing to cause havoc across the UK, thousands of people are betting the wintry weather will remain, with William Hill saying it has received an estimated 22,000 bets on a white Christmas and Ladbrokes offering its shortest ever price on it snowing in London on 25 December at odds of 11/8. Read more.

Lifestyle News