PaddyPowerTrader Review

Paddy ceased its spread betting operations in March 2011.

Corporate History

Formed back in 1988 Paddy Power plc is Ireland's largest bookmaker, with Paddy himself a betting industry celebrity. From its inception Paddy Power swiftly became a shining light in the Irish and UK betting industry. Innovation has been key to the success for the company who from day one sought to be different from the chasing pack. The vision was simple, position betting as entertainment; make betting with Paddy Power a fun experience that meant a lot more than simply winning or losing money. Paddy Power is a member of both the UK and Irish stock exchanges with a total amount staked of almost €1.8 billion.

The company has as an unusual approach towards betting; Paddy Power is committed to making low-stake betting more entertaining and accessible. Through this strategy the company has developed a strong reputation as 'The Punter Friendly Bookie' and has become renowned for its unique 'Money Back Specials'.

 

PaddyPowerTrader

Paddy Power's financial spread betting venture, Paddy Power Trader was launched in the summer of 2007. It is run by London Capital Group, a quality company with a proven track record. The betting firm's financial trading division claims to have 50pc of its customers in the Republic of Ireland and the remainder mostly in the UK. The site allows spread betters to bet on the performance of currencies, bonds, oil, gold and even socio-economic conditions and the credit crunch.

Although Paddy Power is mainly a sports betting operation do not let this put you off. Continuing with Paddy Power's core principles of being Fun, Fair and Friendly, paddypowertrader.com aims to provide a service for all kinds of customers, be they industry professionals, or retail investors. To this end, the site provides financial spread betting education and support to users via on-line tutorials, weekly market wraps and the opportunity to practice with virtual cash by opening a 'Demo Account'. Customers can also access financial spread betting blogs, written by experienced traders who detail the ups and downs of their own trading experiences, allowing them to interact with other traders to help build their financial spread betting skills.

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How To Trade On The PaddyPower Trader Platform

Good Points

  1. Paddy Power Trader is very much targeted at brand new or novice financial bettors and in this regard they should be highly commended. There is a wealth of knowledge that can be accessed even before you start betting, including guides, jargon busters and even a trader academy.
  2. Paddypower Spreadbetting. They're part of London Capital Group's spreadbetting network - they just use their own front-end. However, what makes Paddy unique is that they invite a number of experienced spread betters that offer regular comments and updates; very useful for newbie traders to see how the professionals do things. For instance, a guy by the pseudo name of 'FT' publishes a weekly commentary reviewing his trades - he doesn't do so by text but instead records his trades on video and speaks about his best (and worst) trades. This really helps Paddy stand apart as you can learn a lot in terms of technical analysis by such commentaries.
  3. PaddyPowerTrader offer a demonstration account with £10,000 paper money and you can keep this open for as long as you would like.
  4. To spread bet at Paddy Power Trader you will need to register an account (this will be separate to an existing Paddy Power account).
  5. Robust trading platform with online execution, interactive charting, portfolio management tools and quite a lot more.
  6. Initial stop losses are automatically set by the provider on positions to restrict losses, these can however be adjusted by the user.
  7. Weekly wraps packed with news and comments on the latest industry movers and shakers are freely available. There are even trading blogs you can access with diaries of other traders and a community to post questions to. Perhaps the best platform on the market for a beginner.

Bad Points

  1. Although PaddyPower are run by London Capital Group (which run Capital Spreads) they seem to add an extra point to some buy orders.

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