The Irish economy’s stuck in quite the rut and the knives are out all around Europe. Spain and Portugal are waiting for it to fail so that they can blame their own downfall on the leprechauns in the Irish Sea. Thankfully, for the Irish economy, help is at hand in the shape of online gambling powerhouse Paddy Power.
Paddy calls the country home and looks as though he’s more than happy to help the ailing economy. The site today announced 375 new online jobs, bringing the total amount of jobs at their West Dublin base to 2,210. They’re also adding 130 online jobs in the mine-field of Australia, where they own Sportsbet and IAS. This is all part of 1,440 jobs to be created across its online, retail and telephone businesses by December 2013.
All this news comes on a day that they improved on their impressive first half 2010, sportsbook stakes growing 34% year-on-year from 1 July to 15 November and the amounts staked in Australia and the UK also gave reason for optimism, despite the drop-off in Irish revenues.
Amounts staked down-under rose 6% year-on-year in the same period, with net revenues in the UK growing by 17%.
To celebrate all this growth, rumours are that Paddy Power are going to the European Central Bank in Frankfurt to build a massive Hollywood-style sign outside. It’s their style after all.
