Paddy Power’s Joe Lee Leaves the Company
Paddy Power’s head of the UK and Ireland has left the company. Joe Lee was a former trader and was responsible for the company’s ‘Trump Betting’ campaigns. Lee spent ten years with the operator.
Paddy Power’s Head of the UK and Ireland Leaves the Post © Pixabay.
After ten years with the company, Joe Lee, Paddy Power Betfair’s head of UK and Ireland, has called time on his stint with the controversial operator.
Lee first joined Paddy Power Betfair in April 2008 as an American sports senior team leader in Dublin in Ireland before moving to Melbourne to perform the same role with Sportsbet.
Lee spent four years in Australia before rejoining the Irish bookmaker in January 2016 as head of product management.
One of Lee’s most prominent roles while at Paddy Power was taking the lead in the Paddy Power Betfair’s ‘Trump Betting’ campaigns when Donald Trump was the president of the United States. The operator had a market which allowed customers to place bets on all things Trump-related, such as how many Tweets he would make overnight.
The often mischievous campaign even saw ‘Juan Direction.’ To honour Trump’s 2016 visit to Scotland, Paddy Power sent a troupe of wandering Mexican mariachi players to welcome Air Force One when it arrived. The Mexican-themed band was a sly reference to Trump’s pledge to build a wall between the USA and Mexico.
Lee moved on to become Paddy Power Betfair’s head of the UK and Ireland in December 2018, and when Joe Bidden replaced Trump in the 2020 election, he took on the role permanently.
After his departure, Lee said the time was right for him to leave the Flutter family and look forward to future challenges.
He said: “All good things must come to an end, and given the extensive learnings and industry experience I take with me, I feel the time is right for a new challenge, be that in the gaming industry or beyond.”
“My time with Paddy Power, and ultimately what was to become Flutter Entertainment, has been hugely rewarding and I will be forever grateful for the opportunities it presented.
“Obviously one of the highlights was when I worked with some very clever, quick-witted people on our Trump Betting project. A lowly job description publication snowballed into something significant and all of a sudden there were interviews with CNN, the New York Times and Sky News.
“It would be remiss of me not to mention the wonderful colleagues I worked with during my time across my various roles – people will always be the linchpin of any business and I’ve met some truly great ones all across Flutter,” he added. “I was recently approached by a senior executive to offer some opinions on the direction of travel of the industry. It’s a project that has certainly piqued my interest in this space given the substantial industry knowledge I possess, and has subsequently resulted in a number of additional contacts.”
Paddy Power has long been regarded as an operator who likes to sail very close to the wind and has often fallen foul of the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).
In 2010, Paddy Power ran a commercial which simulated violence against an animal by a blind person while they were playing football. The ASA received 1313 complaints about the advert and is one of the most most complained-about TV adverts of all time.
