The US magnate was given 14% chance of winning

Paddy Power Betfair cuts full-year profit forecast on Trump's shocking victory

The “unexpected US election outcome”, in which Trump triumphed over Hillary Clinton in November, cost the bookmaker USD 6.2M as it paid out to punters who backed him for the White House.
2017-01-23
Reading time 48 seg
The “unexpected US election outcome”, in which Trump triumphed over Hillary Clinton in November, cost the bookmaker USD 6.2M as it paid out to punters who backed him for the White House.

The impact was exacerbated by the group’s decision to pay out £800,000 to gamblers who backed Hillary Clinton even before the polls closed, on the assumption that the Democrat candidate would win.

With just a month to go until the election, Betfair gave Trump just a 14% chance of winning after a tape emerged of the presidential candidate boasting about groping women.

The bookmaker still gave Clinton a 74% chance of winning two weeks later, after the FBI reopened an investigation into her use of private email servers.

Created last year by the merger of Paddy Power and Betfair, the group also suffered a £35m hit from “customer friendly” sports results towards the end of 2016.

These included 12 goals in 12 games for Ibrahimovic, who the bookmaker said typically attracts the biggest stakes from gamblers betting on a goalscorer.

Revenues were up 11% but the group cut its forecast for full-year underlying profits, which it had previously said could reach £405m, to about the “mid-point” between £390m and £405m.

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