Paddy Power, PartyGaming Shares Monitor

Paddy Power ended up 2.7pc after buyers were not discouraged by poor trading update from UK gaming group Rank. It said sales were hit by the smoking ban, which hit its bingo business badly.

Rank Group on Wednesday scrapped its final dividend payment, blaming tough trading in its bingo and casino businesses.

Rank said its Mecca bingo like-for-like revenues in the 14 weeks since Sept 1. were down 18 percent, admissions were down 15 percent and spend per head fell 3 percent.

It added that Grosvenor casino like-for-like revenues were down 7 percent, admissions were down 5 percent and spend per head was down 2 percent.

Online gambling firm PartyGaming, owner of websites including PartyPoker and PartyCasino, is expected to provide a trading update shortly. The outlawing of internet gambling in the United States has hit profits hard. The firm recorded a pre-tax loss of £23.5 million in the six months to the end of June, compared to a profit of £149.1m in the same period last year.

The company announced Thursday the appointment of four new non-executive directors to its board, including life peer Lord Moonie.

Lord Moonie was previously a Commons MP and was parliamentary under secretary for state at the Ministry of Defence from 2000 to 2003.

The online gaming company has also recruited Stephen Box, who from 1997 to 2002 was FD of National Grid.

The other two non-exec directors are John Davy, the representative of shareholders Ruth Parasol and Russell DeLeon, and Emilio Gomez, the representative of shareholder Anurag Dikshit.