SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Controversial bookmaker Paddy Power is set to face more media backlash and animal rights protests regarding the opening of its latest betting market.
The Irish operator has opened up betting on which animal is likely to be killed next at Copenhagen Zoo, in what may just be the Irish bookmaker’s crudest sports betting market yet. Last February the bookmaker came under public and media backlash following its Oscar Pistorius – murder trial campaign.
The Danish zoo put down four healthy lions on 24 March – just weeks after sparking worldwide outrage by shooting dead a giraffe. The bookmaker is offering bets on the “next Copenhagen euthanasia report”.
It singled out a zebra at the zoo as a 5/1 favourite of being killed next, followed by a polar bear at 8/1. Odds on an antelope have been put at 6/1 and 14/1 on a tiger, while a hippopotamus is the “current outsider” at 40/1.
Paddy Power defended its decision to open the betting market, by informing the public that they had tried to negotiate buying any remaining lions, but their offer has been refused by Ulrich Lindegaard Christensen, the zoo’s sales manager, who told them “he could not take their offer seriously”.
