Finance Notes: Bookmaker Paddy Power Pinning Its Hopes On Mobile Gambling

Punter-friendly sports results stopped bookmaker Paddy Power from "repeating the double-digit profit growth of last year but an increase in mobile use offered hope for the Irish betting group's long-term fortunes." Paddy Power said on Tuesday that it had suffered an "exceptional run" in which it "found itself on the wrong side of horseracing bets." The industry is "also enduring" a "difficult" EPL season after a weekend in January "saw the top seven teams win in a single weekend." Bookmakers "rely on draws and upsets to counter payouts to winning punters" (FINANCIAL TIMES, 3/4). ... Bulgarian side CSKA Sofia has "officially been authorised to sell shares in the club to the public, the first club in the former communist East European Bloc to do so." The decision to allow the IPO "was taken at a meeting of the Bulgarian Financial Supervision Commission" (INSIDE WORLD FOOTBALL, 3/4).