Paddy Power Betfair just released its Q1 earnings, and this is an investment enigma if I ever saw one. Cases can be made for both bulls and bears, though I tend to come out on the bull side. Paddy certainly is not a momentum play, but the stock does have a lot of appeal for conservative income investors. There is the potential for significant growth out of the U.S. and Australia, that is if you ignore the fact that Australia is in the middle of a major housing bust as we speak even worse than 2008, and has an off chance of being on the verge of a currency debacle as well. On a side note, if want to buy a house in Perth, now’s the time.

But if you want to own Paddy Power Betfair, don’t do it because you believe Australia is the immediate key to growth for the company. Also don’t do it thinking the US market could push it back to new highs. It might, but not any time soon. Do it, rather, because Paddy Power Betfair has a very strong balance sheet, a strong brand and stable business, and can’t fall much farther than it already has. Own Paddy Power Betfair for the boring reasons, the kinds you may hear in a dry lecture on how to parse your retirement portfolio that puts you to sleep. Don’t do it for the potentially exciting reasons. Those may end up working out or not, and at this point it’s hard to tell. Long term, everything should be fine for the company if you’re not actively trading it.

As my colleague Steven Stradbrooke points out, Paddy is treading water, using its recent acquisitions to make it look like it’s growing when it isn’t so much. A case can be made that it is, in truth, growing, sort of, and that bad luck has been stunting it. Then again, excuses excuses. If it were really growing, organic expansion should counter bad luck. The good news is that online sportsbook stakes increased 5%, stakes in the Australian market increased 17%, and retail sportsbook stakes increased 4%. So yes, more people are betting with Paddy than before, which means they’re doing something right.

The company’s press releases have a tendency to use hyperbolic language that overstates successes and hides weaknesses, which is consistent with its tendency for extreme political correctness that borders on saccharine adulation for the blithering PC trends of the day, as can be seen its annual reports. To some extent I can’t blame them because you have to play the right tune to all possible ears, but just going through its annual report is really annoying and eye-rolley. How many pages are dedicated to employment “diversity” (meaning superficial diversity of physical appearance or function or preference) while admitting that the gaming industry is not known for this sort of superficial diversity, but then saying that said diversity leads to better companies and yada yada. Pages and pages of this stuff. As far as I can tell, only diversity of talent and mind leads to better companies and everything else is irrelevant.