Paddy Power founder, Stewart Kenny, is alleged to have secretly lobbied the Irish government into banning the legalisation of Fixed Odds Betting Terminals in Ireland back in 2009.

I would love to be a ladybird on the windowsill of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Fixed Odds Betting Terminals (FOBTs) session scheduled for January 11, 2017, after The Times claimed Paddy Power founder, Stewart Kenny, secretly lobbied against the legalisation of the machines in Ireland.

The session – called Testimony From The Bookmakers – is the final one scheduled before the APPG passes their findings to the person in charge of the Government’s Review of Gaming Machines and Social Responsibility Measures which includes casting a beady eye over the impact that FOBTs have on society. Paddy Power representatives will join BetFred, William Hill and Ladbrokes Coral in a session one assumes the bookies will argue for the right to keep the machines that collectively earned them £1.75 billion in the last year.

Kenny resigned from the Paddy Power board in August, but The Times article will go down like the Titanic in the inner sanctum of the Association of British Bookmakers (ABB) who incidentally boycotted the last APPG meeting saying it was nothing more than a ‘kangaroo court.’