Paddy Power has ended its sponsorship of televised football matches with RTE, Irish terrestrial TV broadcaster, ahead of a new voluntary code of conduct.
Observed from 1 January by members of the Irish Bookmakers Association (IBA), the code brings a whistle-to-whistle ban on sports betting advertising during sports broadcasts, mirroring UK gambling’s self-imposed restrictions.
The company stated: “Paddy Power doesn’t just support the incoming whistle-to-whistle ban as a company, we have already taken a market-leading position on this intervention.”
The betting platform will no longer serve as a partner of RTE coverage of 2021/2022 international men’s football matches, and last September, Irish bookmakers adopted the new code-of-conduct that immediately placed a ban on credit card wagering across retail and digital businesses.
The code was then adopted, as the IBA noted some industry frustrations in the Irish government failing to progress on updating the republic’s gambling laws – as a Dáil mandate that was pledged for 2021.
Ending its RTÉ coverage, Paddy Power stated that it had previously taken the decision to ‘voluntarily implement a pre-watershed whistle-to-whistle ban on advertising ahead of Euro 2020’ – which applied to any adverts run on RTÉ in the interim.
