Irish bookmaker Paddy Power is no stranger to controversy. The company, which offers online sports betting and gambling (as well as conducting business through licensed betting shops throughout the U.K. and Ireland), has raised public criticism in the past by taking bets on the first animal to be driven to exinction after the BP oil spill, on whether or not president Barack Obama will be assasinated (although, thankfully, they took this one down), and on the potential exinction of the polar bear. Nice guys, huh?
As of Friday, another controversy was brewing around the Irish company, as photos surfaced online of swaths of the Brazilian rainforest cut down to spell out encouragement for England's national team. However, almost as soon as the photos appeared online, the debate began as to whether these images are real or yet another PR stunt aimed at driving attention to the bookmaker ahead of the World Cup. It stands to reason that this could all be a massive hoax, given some of the other stunts Paddy Power has pulled off over the years: from running an ad campaign that showed sight-impaired footballers kicking a cat, to adding a jockey to the famous hill-carving of a white horse in Uffington, Oxfordshire.
This wouldn't be the first time Paddy Power has altered the landscape for promotion (Photo: Paddy Power Blog)
In the case of the Uffington horse, it did turn out that Paddy Power had actually added the jockey to the prehistoric hill carving. However, the company was careful to note on their blog that they were careful not to harm the landmark in the process – and it was returned to its previous state after-the-fact. So, even if this latest controversy proves true, it wouldn't surprise us here at The18 if the company had a clever explanation. (For instance, we've heard rumors that this section of forest was going to be cut down anyways by a logging company, so perhaps the Irish company simply "beat them to the punch.")
No official word yet from Paddy Power, but the company did issue the enigmatic tweet below, which strangley seems to have been taken down. We'll keep you posted.
