Paddy Power Betting

Paddy Power is an incredibly popular sportsbook maker (the largest in Ireland) with associated casino and poker rooms. As well as offering online services, they have 143 traditional betting shops in Ireland and 31 more in London. They also allow clients to bet by telephone, interactive television (via NTL and Telewest) and WAP. They are about as financially secure as bookmakers can get, and are listed on both the Irish and London stock exchanges with a turnover of more than £900 million.

Taking inspiration from the colours of the Irish flag, the Paddy Power site home page greets visitors with a green, white and orange home page. Seven main categories of betting opportunities are presented as a row of tabs across the top of the screen, and the rest of the page provides news and links to specific events, such as live betting on televised sports and forthcoming football matches. All of this makes for a visually pleasing and easy to navigate main page that's hard to fault.

One of the most innovative features of the Paddy Power site has to be the Real Time Racing facility. Simply download a special application to your PC and you will be able to watch a virtual representation of greyhound races from Swindon in either 2D, as you would see on a regular TV screen, or 3D, which allows you to manipulate the camera. The result is something that looks very much like "virtual racing", but in this case the images are based on real dogs running a real race in real time. A lot of hard work has gone into the image recognition system employed to provide this service, and it really does demonstrate what a decent sportsbook can do when they commit themselves to putting the customer first.

The rest of the site is equally impressive, and placing bets is a breeze. Just select whether you want to take the current odds or SP about a selection, then click on the "Bet Now" icon at the bottom of the screen and all that's left is for you to confirm the details. There's no need to log in beforehand as you can do that at the same time from the confirmation window, which is very useful if you're in a rush.

Add to all of this a plethora of special bets, a full range of audio commentaries and a built-in bet calculator for figuring out all sorts of accumulators and you have an online sportsbook you can actually look forward to using. Top marks!