Paddy Power in Heart Attack Tweet Outrage

The dangers of thoughtless tweets have already been seen in various walks of life and now the giant betting firm Paddy Power has been caught up in a controversy because of an offensive message they retweeted

The incident happened during the recent FA cup game between Manchester City and Manchester United. It seems that one of the Irish gambling firm’s customers tweeted them asking if they could place a bet on one of the players having a heart attack during the match.

The tasteless tweet was apparently based on the fact that Bolton Wanderers player Fabrice Muamba suffered a heart attack during a game against Tottenham Hotspur recently.

The message was retweeted by a member of staff at Paddy Power and was immediately greeted with outrage when other followers of the firm’s tweets saw it.

Human Error to Blame

Ken Robertson is the head of communications at Paddy Power and he says that the issue was due to “human error” as one of the betting firm’s team had misunderstood the original tweet and published it on this basis. He said that it was taken off as soon as the error was noted. It seems that the staff member who published it thought that the message was about fans suffering from the tension of the big game.

He also added that Paddy Power controls its own social media output and that they have set guidelines for staff which have been in use for some time now. However, they “continually evolve” in order to keep up with the changing face of social media.

The incident with Muamba happened on the 17th of February and he spent almost a month in hospital under observation following the heart attack.