Punters may have trounced bookies of late, but game-changing merger is paying off

Breon Corcoran, Paddy Power Betfair boss

In the first half of this month, as Paddy Power Betfair was putting the finishing touches to its first set of financial results as a combined company, a couple of minor disasters struck the betting industry.

On the opening weekend of the English Premier League, the results went very much the way of the punters, costing bookies millions in just the opening two days of the football season. To make matters worse, the ...