Paddy Power Review: Jokes, Boosts and Football Gimmicks, and What the Underlying Prices Look Like

Paddy Power's marketing is a comedy sketch with a bet slip attached. The question for us was simple: strip away the green goalkeeper's jersey and the woodwork rules, and are the prices underneath worth a deposit? Our answer is "fair, not cheap", and the rest of this review is the detail behind that.

Where the prices actually sit

Bookmaker margin is the number that decides what you pay over a season, and Paddy Power does not win it. The TNT Sports betting page compared the Premier League's opening round and found an average margin of 6.58% at Paddy Power, against 5.33% at Coral and 7.38% at William Hill. The same page quotes 6.76% elsewhere in its text, so treat the exact figure with care. A separate independent review puts the all-market margin higher, at 7.63%.

None of those are alarming. They are not sharp either. On a plain match-result bet you will often find a better price somewhere else, and a 1% difference in margin costs you roughly a pound on every £100 staked over time.

Why people still use it: the features

The reason to open an account is a set of football features that most rivals do not copy exactly.

Win More markets. For 2026/27 the company counts shots that hit the woodwork as shots on target in selected competitions, including the Premier League, Champions League and FA Cup. If you bet on player shots, that is a real change to the rules of the bet, and it favours you.

Super Sub. If a player you backed is substituted, the bet rolls onto the replacement. It is a useful protection on anytime and first-scorer style bets.

Ghost Leg. This token applies to pre-match Bet Builders. If one leg loses, the winning legs still pay. The promotional screen in the app states a minimum of five legs and minimum odds of 3/1, so it is a feature for long builders, not for a quick two-leg bet.

Each of these is a product with conditions, and the conditions are where the money goes. We would read the terms on every one before using it.

Power Prices and money-back specials

Power Prices are daily boosted odds on selected markets. They apply to the bet slip without an opt-in, which makes them easy to use. Whether they beat the market depends on the day: a boost from 3/1 to 7/2, one of the examples we saw quoted, is a real gain, but only on a market you wanted to back anyway.

Money-back specials work differently. On certain races the stake comes back if your horse is beaten, but usually as a free bet, and free bets pay out only the winnings. A £10 free bet at 5/1 is worth far less than £10 of cash. Racing Post's review covers the racing side, and Paddy Power's coverage of Cheltenham, the Grand National, the Epsom Derby and Goodwood is one of the better parts of the product.

The new-customer offer, read closely

The headline is "Bet £5, get £30 in free bets". The small print on the app's own promotional image says the first bet needs minimum odds of evens (2.0), a promo code is required, only deposits by Pay by Bank, Apple Pay or debit card qualify, and the free bets expire after 30 days. That is typical of the UK market and not unfair, but the free bets are not cash. If you want the lowest prices, you are tied to the offer's minimum odds and expiry dates while the free bets last.

The app and the social layer

The iOS app holds a 4.7 average from 267,084 ratings (UK listing, version 11.5.0), which is a strong score for a betting app. It adds The Feed, where users share and copy bets.

Copying other people's bets is the feature we would use least. A shared bet tells you what someone else wanted to back, not whether it was good value.

Who should and should not use it

Use Paddy Power if you bet on football accumulators and Bet Builders, you follow the major racing festivals, and you enjoy the promotions enough to read their terms. It is a sensible second or third account.

Do not use it as your only account if price is what you care about. A bettor who compares margins before every bet will find cheaper football prices elsewhere, and an account that nudges you toward boosts and gimmicks can work against that discipline.

Responsible gambling

You must be 18 or over, and nothing here is a way to make money: bookmakers set odds with a margin built in. Set deposit limits before your first bet, treat free bets as entertainment spending, and use the account's time-out and self-exclusion tools if the bets stop being fun. In the UK, support is available through BeGambleAware and the National Gambling Helpline.