PADDY’S DAY: Hollywood Project to Bring Paddy Power’s Wild Origin Story to the Screen

One of gambling’s most popular success stories is headed to the big screen. Paddy Power is a new feature film set to dramatize the rise of a global betting powerhouse from the merger of three Irish bookmakers.

Colm Meaney, Brian Gleeson, Aidan Gillen and Alex Murphy are set to star—with Ted Lasso’s Matt Lipsey attached to direct. No release date has been announced.

The film is based on journalist Aaron Rogan’s 2021 book Punters: How Paddy Power Bet Billions and Changed Gambling Forever. It marks the first title from Irish production company Playhouse Studios’ original scripted slate and is being adapted by writers Dale Longmore, John Quinn, and Brian Durnin.

“It’s an Irish story with global appeal,” Rogan told Variety, “and the growth of the gambling industry in the U.S. in recent years makes this adaptation all the more timely.”

Power Play

The story begins in 1988, when the Kenny O’Reilly partnership, the Richard Power Group, and Corcoran’s merged to create Paddy Power. Stewart Kenny (with partner Vincent O’Reilly) had operated Kenny O’Reilly, while David Power was associated with the Richard Power Group and John Corcoran ran Corcoran’s.

What followed was far more than the creation of another betting chain. Through provocative advertising, publicity stunts, and an eager willingness to court public controversy, Paddy Power built one of the international gambling industry’s most distinctive brands.

As sports betting migrated online, the company expanded well beyond Ireland, launching its first online platform in 2000. In 2016, Paddy Power merged with Betfair, with the combined entity ultimately adopting the corporate name Flutter Entertainment in 2020.

“Paddy Power stood out immediately as a story with real scale, authentic dark humor, grit and tenacity,” Playhouse Studios CEO Peggy Cafferty told Variety. “You could not make up this incredible story.”

Cafferty said the film chronicles “the extraordinary rise of one company that refused to play by the rules and set out on a path of ambition, risk and consequence,” adding that Paddy Power repeatedly “stepped outside the norms of marketing with brilliant twists and always with wit.”

Surprises Ahead

The film’s synopsis describes the project as “the crazy true story of how one man bet big on brash advertising and brought online gambling—and addiction—to every corner of the globe.”

Although the synopsis does not name the man, some secondary industry coverage has identified the film’s central figure as co-founder and former chief executive Stewart Kenny, who led the company from its 1988 founding until 2002.

Producers have not yet disclosed which real-life figures will be portrayed by stars Aidan Gillen, Colm Meaney, Brian Gleeson, or Alex Murphy.

The casting carries an added layer of irony. Before signing on for the feature film, Meaney starred in Paddy Power’s high-profile Cheltenham Festival advertising campaigns in 2020 and 2022, serving as one of the public faces of the bookmaker’s trademark Ireland-versus-England banter.