William Hill Bookmaker Review

More Detail About William Hill Bookmaker

William Hill Bookmaker accepts bets from one hundred sixty nine countries. It has annual turnover of in excess of thirty billion pounds. Its internet division offers online sports betting, casino, poker and bingo. There are over two thousand three hundred retail betting shops.

William Hill also takes bets by telephone through its huge call centres in the UK, capable of answering six hundred calls simultaneously. Its betting service was started in 1934 by the man who gave his name to the company. The company was in at the start in 1961 when betting shops were legalised in Great Britain. However, WH was very slow to embrace the internet when others started launching online betting sites in the UK in 1998. Amazingly the company has re-written history and its corporate website makes the false claim that WH launched its sportsbook online in 1998! In fact it was several years after that.

Despite that reticence to join the internet era, William Hill Bookmaker now takes almost more bets than anyone else in the online betting business. In 2009 it relocated its remote online betting business to Gibraltar, an offshore low-tax jurisdiction, to avoid paying the higher UK taxation as well as the UK horse racing levy.

The online software used to be in-house, but after it failed to match up to that of its competitors, and revenues decreased in a booming market, Hills partnered with Israeli software house Playtech in 2008. Arguably they acted in haste. It was a deal that heavily favoured Playtech, who were left owning twenty nine percent of William Hill's online operation and Playtech was also paid over one hundred million pounds!

There was a lover's tiff in February 2011 when WH sought a legal injunction to prevent Playtech discussing a merger with its nemesis and arch-rival Ladbrokes.

In October 2011 over 200 Hills employees based in Israel walked out on strike at proposed plans to move their jobs either back to the UK or Gibraltar, even though there were no such plans. Hills' management acted quickly and decisively to resolve the situation and now everything is back on an even keel.

In terms of sponsorship, William Hill Bookmaker supports UK horse racing with sponsorship of races at all levels, including the showpiece King George Chase at Kempton on Boxing Day, second only to the Cheltenham Gold Cup in terms of prestige. In 2011 they also became the sole title sponsor of the BBC televised UK Championship snooker tournament.

William Hill's accounts:

2010: Led by their betting in running product, William Hill's 2010 accounts revealed that their income from the internet betting had increased by a quarter on the previous annum. The betting in running had seen bets placed increase by over one hundred percent, while sports betting in all saw the sum total of the value of wagers made increase by a whopping sixty percent. Their director of finance also boasted about how the World Cup 2010 had made them shedloads of cash and was a record result for any World Cup. They had the pathetic performances by the abysmal England team to thank. Our guess is the 1-1 draw with the USA probably filled their satchels even more than the thrashing they received from Germany!

2011: These showed total profits at £1.1billion. The online betting contribution of £321million saw a 28% rise in profits on the previous year. Interestingly over 90% of profits came from the UK market and CEO Ralph Topping suggested international expansion was high on the wish list. Topping also confirmed they would like to break their ill-conceived ties with Playtech and would have the opportunity to buy out that firm's 29% share of the online business later in 2012.

Despite various small setbacks in the last financial year, the overarching trend with the finances sees continued strong results and profits at William Hill Bookmaker.