Paddy Power is the oldest bookmakers based in Ireland, setup in 1988. They have over 200 shops in Ireland that are spread throughout the country. Their online betting arm PaddyPower.com offers a full range of online gambling options that includes poker, bingo, sports betting and casino games, as well as a selection of other real money games.
The company is often engulfed in controversy due to their quirky marketing ploys, advertisements and unusual promotions that offer prices on highly controversial betting markets. Nonetheless, the company has solidified it’s position as the number one gambling site in Ireland, staying well ahead of it’s second placed competitor Boyles Sports.
Paddy Power Poker Online
The PaddyPower Poker room runs on the Playtech software platform that powers the ipoker network. Prior to joining the iPoker network, Paddy Power was part of the old Tribeca Poker network, once infamous for it’s fish laden tables and super soft games. The old network consisted of just a few sites such as Victor Chandler and BlueSquare, as well as a handful of other well known multinational betting brands.
Due to the ultra competitive nature of the skin system that is employed on the iPoker network, Paddy Power struggled to gain any market share outside of Ireland. While due in part to the lack of brand recognition outside the Emerald Isle, it was also as a result of Paddypower’s strict anti-rakeback policy. In the early days of ipoker, under the table rakeback deals were rife, leading to a situation where skins were constantly poaching high value players from each other via ridiculously high rakeback %s some of which went as high as 70%.
The result of these deals meant that skins were working with lower and lower profit margins in order to keep their high rakers playing at their sites, rather than lose them to a rival skin who would outbid them by offering big rakeback deals. Playtech put in a number of countermeasures to combat this which at the start had a big impact. It forced parasitic skins that survived on illegal rakeback to shut down as they had too many winning players, something that resulted in massive fines and resulted in the sites having to close for business.
While this certainly helped and got rid of some of the worst skins of the network, it also led to another issue. Sites with bigger player pools, and thus bigger pools of fish were able to manipulate their ratios. Sites with a lot of losing and casual players could afford to hand out rakeback to higher value players without risking these fines, as they had bigger margins to work with. Massive sites and one time leading anti-rakeback advocates such as William Hill actively engaged in large under the table rakeback deals, safe in the knowledge that their large number of fish would offset the winners they brought in via rakeback.
In what is a dig-eat-dog system, and due to the nature of a skins system (the same issue takes place on every other major skin network such as Ongame, Merge, Entraction etc), PaddyPower eventually cracked with an obvious “if you can’t beat them, join them” attitude. While you won’t publicly find information about rakeback deals on Paddy Power, it’s common knowledge that some time in 2011 it became extremely easy to source a 50%+ rakeback deal at the site (something of course that Paddypower employees will deny).
How Does Paddy Power’s VIP System Compare to Other iPoker Skins
Paddy Power offer an extremely competitive VIP system and one that makes our top 10 list. While they are by no means the best, they do offer good rewards for loyal players, especially those who work their way to PaddyPower’s top VIP level. If you’re looking to bonus whore, then Paddy Power is a site you should consider after clearing the top 5 bonuses listed on the homepage of this site.
Be aware, one word of caution and something I find to be a bit of a nuisance is the companies aggressive cross promotion of their other gambling products. While I only signed up their to play poker and clear the bonus, I still find myself receiving regular emails on sports betting promotions and offers to play their casino games. This is something I find extremely annoying as it wasn’t something I asked for when signing up. However, given the nature of how online gambling companies work, it’s no surprise!
