Paddy Power Launches First UK Casino Sportsbook at Hippodrome Casino

Paddy Power has opened its first UK casino sportsbook at the Hippodrome Casino in Leicester Square, London.

Paddy’s Sportsbook hosts 55 HD screens, including a 10-metre big screen, and a 360-degree bar. The venue can accommodate 120 guests across lounge chairs, tables and booths, and also provides self-service betting terminals.

The sportsbook will rival the Kings Sports Bar at Empire Casino, located a few doors down from the Hippodrome, for the custom of sports betting players and sports fans in central London.

A push for retail

Paddy Power, owned by Flutter Entertainment, seems to be making a play for more retail partnerships in the UK and Ireland. In September, the operator was announced as official sportsbook partner of the National Football League (NFL) in the two countries for the 2025/26 season.

The NFL partnership will allow for Paddy Power to leverage the NFL within the sports betting category and activate around retail and online sports betting in the UK and Ireland.

It is not entirely clear if the sportsbook opening at the Hippodrome ties in with the NFL partnership directly. However, the NFL is the first sport listed as showing at Paddy’s Sportsbook on the Hippodrome’s website, followed by other North American leagues NCAA college football and the National Basketball Association, which is unusual for a sports bar based in the UK.

Flutter already has a strong standing in the US with its FanDuel brand, although it does not appear to have leveraged this as yet via UK retail sports betting locations.

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A change in focus mirroring the US

Paddy Power’s recent moves could signify Flutter is seeing different opportunities in the future of retail, and could be moving away from the idea of seeing betting shops as the primary format of new retail sports betting locations.

While some land-based casinos in the UK offer sports betting, retail sportsbooks have traditionally been more common in Las Vegas in the US, where players can often view several big screens showing sports at a time with rows of seats located in a designated area within the casino.

In July, new regulations came into force in the UK, allowing converted casino premises to offer sports betting, effectively making it easier for venues such as the Hippodrome to expand their offering and include sports betting.

The number of betting shops in the UK has consistently declined in the last few decades, with the total number being 5,931 as of November 2024, which is down significantly even from 2016, when there were approximately 9,000 betting shops. This number has strongly been impacted by the reduction of maximum stakes on fixed-odds betting terminals, which were cut to £2 in 2019.

Another option at the Hippodrome

Sports betting is the latest entertainment option to be offered by the Hippodrome. The venue opened as The London Hippodrome, an indoor circus and variety theatre, in 1900. It has also operated as a music hall, a dinner dance venue, and a nightclub.

The building reopened as a casino in 2012, after the Gambling Act 2005 made it possible for casinos to offer live entertainment. Aside from casino games and bars including the new sports betting bar, the venue also offers a resident theatre show, Magic Mike Live.