{"id":672996,"date":"2026-11-02T20:40:11","date_gmt":"2026-11-02T20:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/672996\/"},"modified":"2026-11-02T20:40:11","modified_gmt":"2026-11-02T20:40:11","slug":"colm-meaney-and-aidan-gillen-set-to-star-in-film-about-gambling-company-paddy-power-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/672996\/","title":{"rendered":"Colm Meaney and Aidan Gillen set to star in film about gambling company Paddy Power \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Irish actors Colm Meaney<\/a> and Aidan Gillen<\/a> are set to star in a new film about the rise of betting company Paddy Power<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Brian Gleeson<\/a> and Alex Murphy<\/a> will also appear in the upcoming movie.<\/p>\n

The film, which was announced by Irish media production company Playhouse Studios, is based on Punters: How Paddy Power Bet Billions and Changed Gambling Forever<\/a>, a book by journalist Aaron Rogan.<\/p>\n

Peggy Cafferty, chief executive of Playhouse, said the story of the betting company \u201cstood out immediately as a story with real scale, authentic dark humour, grit and tenacity\u201d. <\/p>\n

Paddy Power was formed from the merger of three Irish bookmakers in 1988 and has grown into a global gambling firm<\/a> listed on the New York Stock Exchange with a market value of \u20ac13 billion.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Former Paddy Power chief calls for draconian tax on online casinosOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Cafferty said \u201cyou could not make up this incredible story\u201d about the growth of a company that \u201crefused to play by the rules\u201d and \u201cstepped outside the norms of marketing with brilliant twists and always with wit\u201d. <\/p>\n

Details of the production first appeared in film industry publication Variety. <\/p>\n

According to its synopsis, the movie, titled Paddy Power, recounts the \u201ccrazy true story of how one man bet big on brash advertising and brought online gambling \u2013 and addiction \u2013 to every corner of the globe\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"ActorActor Aidan Gillen will star in the film. Photograph: Fran Veale for The Irish Times <\/p>\n

It describes the project as \u201can inherently Irish origin story\u201d that shows \u201chow a few chancers changed the world as we know it, destroying hundreds of thousands of people\u2019s lives forever\u201d.<\/p>\n

Paddy Power was cofounded and managed for years by Stewart Kenny before he became an outspoken critic of the gambling industry, criticising poor regulation and lack of protections for vulnerable gamblers.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0How Flutter lost its winning streakOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Rogan, deputy editor of the Business Post, said the making of the movie from his book was \u201cas exciting a thing that can happen to a journalist or reporter that people think your work is worth dramatising\u201d. <\/p>\n

He said it was \u201creally flattering\u201d. <\/p>\n

Rogan said there were \u201cserious aspects\u201d in the story but it was also a \u201cvery bantery, laddish company\u201d that \u201cpurposefully caused controversy, but did it with a bit of humour\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a company that always fascinated me because it was such a big part of sort of cultural and sporting life in Ireland, but also this huge, huge commercial success as well,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\"AA Paddy Power betting shop in central London. Photograph: Carlotta Cardona\/Bloomberg via Getty Images <\/p>\n

\u201cI could see from being a customer of theirs that it was a very sophisticated company and I thought that was worth looking into.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was around the time that I think the issue of problem gambling was coming up more and more so my starting to report on them came at that part of their history.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Irish actors Colm Meaney and Aidan Gillen are set to star in a new film about the rise…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":672997,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[117394,129773,227052,135057,93,53797,61,60,53796],"class_list":["post-672996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-aidan-gillen","tag-alex-murphy","tag-brian-gleeson","tag-colm-meaney","tag-entertainment","tag-flutter","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-paddy-power"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=672996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/672997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}