Sunday 24 May 2009

Paddy Power Palpable Error


Some of you may have read about the friends of amateur Shane Lowry, who backed him at 3000 to 1 to win the Irish Open last week.

Paddy Power accepted the bet, but the day after the tournament was over, one of the lucky punters, Noel Egan, read in the paper that a Paddy Power spokesman was saying there had been a mistake. The price should have been 300-1. When Paddy Power were contacted, he was told that Paddy Power “don’t mind bad publicity”, and that were they to take on “the might of Paddy Power, they wouldn’t win and might get nothing”. They were then offered 1000 to 1, and had until Tuesday morning to decide, before they received another call saying that they had just 10 minutes to decide, before it would be withdrawn.

The offer was accepted, but how palpable an error really was that? Given that no amateur had EVER won the first professional tournament he has entered, 300 seems a little short.

The full story of Lowry’s win is here.

I did like the line where Noel decided to put 100 euro on Lowry to win. “The difficulty was that when he put his card into the hole in the wall, the response was disappointing.” Classic!

Anyway, his brother Gerard agreed to loan him the hundred. I hope he got paid back.

1 comment:

Paul said...

Palpable bollox, methinks. Mr Power isn't quite so jovial when there's a big pay out due. Great blog as always, Cassini