Paddy Power bets on sports insurance

ONE MORE THING:Never one to miss a trick, bookmaker Paddy Power is now offering sports risk management to its corporate customers.

The idea is simple: if you sponsor a golf tournament and you offer a large financial incentive to the first players to get a hole-in-one, then you can lay some of that risk with Paddy Power.

Similarly, club or player bonuses paid by sponsors for success achieved can be hedged with the bookie.

Likewise, retailers who offer rebates on goods sold if certain outcomes are met can hedge their bets through this form of sports insurance.

Earlier this year, car dealer Frank Keane availed of Paddy Power's newest service after offering a refund to purchasers of BMWs if Ireland won the Rugby World Cup.

We know now that Keane needn't have bothered but there was a time when we deluded ourselves into thinking that Drico and the lads could bring home the bacon.

This is one of three businesses launched by Paddy Power this year, along with financial spread betting and a Spanish language website.

To push the sports risk business along, the bookie recently hired Rod O'Callaghan from phone operator O2, where he was head of mobile content.

A "modest" amount of business has been written to date, but the company plans to crank up the marketing of the product in 2008 and will also be targeting the UK and other European countries.

With sports sponsorship globally estimated to be worth about $25 billion, capturing even a small fraction of that market would make it nice little earner for the self-styled "Punter-Friendly Bookmaker".