The Irish bookmakers this week applied to Guinness World Records in the hope of having their record attempt formally recognised. However, the record attempt will not take place in Ireland because the bookmakers fear that Irish people will not be willing to get naked in big enough numbers.

According to Brendan Murray of Paddy Power, the record attempt will most likely take place in Germany due to that country's more liberal attitude to the human form.

"It is highly unlikely that we'd make the attempt in Ireland because there is no nudist culture in Ireland", explains Murray. "Germany is the birthplace of modern naturism and nudity is far more established in German culture than it is in Ireland. In places like Germany or Scandinavia people sunbathe naked in public parks, whereas that simply does not happen in Ireland. Irish people still tend to snigger at the idea of being naked".

The gambling giants have applied to Guinness World Records and hope to get the go-ahead to organise the event over the next four to six weeks, with a view to holding the game of strip poker towards the end of the summer.

The suggestion of hosting a giant game of strip poker began as an April Fool's joke. However, after receiving some positive feedback, Paddy Power decided to look into the possibility of hosting the event.

The company formally applied to Guinness World Records last week and hopes to identify a venue in Germany to host the event once it receives the go-ahead from Guinness. Despite having a wide range of bizarre records, there is currently no record for strip poker.

"We are hopeful that they will give us the green light to proceed, " says Murray. "It is quite a rigorous procedure but the fact that there is no existing record for the world's largest game of strip poker will stand in our favour.

"Once we get the go-ahead we will try to organise it quickly enough. We want to hold it during the summer months because if we're going to be asking people to strip naked we have to make sure they are warm".