• William Hill has just been fined £6.2m by the Gambling Commission for accepting money from criminals without carrying out proper background checks. And this is an industry that talks about.
• William Hill Plc has branded 2020 as a ‘challenging but transformative year’, as the heritage bookmaker moved to finalise its £2.9 billion takeover by US partner Caesars Entertainment. Adjusting for the H1 closure of its UK retail betting estates, William Hill recorded a full-year net revenue decline to £1.3 billion, down 16% on corresponding 2019.

In 2018, William Hill was fined £6.2 million by the Gambling Commission for systematic failures regarding anti-money laundering and problem gambling. The operator was found to have accepted large deposits of cash linked to criminal activity between 2014 and 2016, resulting in £1.2 million in financial gains. In October, US gambling and hospitality giant Caesars Entertainment agreed to purchase British online gaming firm William Hill for a whopping $3.7 billion. The second lockdown will only go on to increase the business volumes of online gambling.

William Hill saw its profits plummet by 91 per cent in the past year amid the mass cancellation of live sports events and temporary store closures.

The bookie, which is being snapped up by US casino giant Caesars Group in a £2.9billion deal, was left nursing underlying pre-tax profits of £9.1million, down from £96.5million in 2019.

The betting giant's 1,414 shops have been hit hard by repeated lockdowns, prompting its retail arm to slump to a £29.5million loss as like-for-like revenues fell 30 per cent.

But, William Hill's online arm, which accounts for 61 per cent of group revenues, delivered a 3 per cent rise in earnings to £121.9million.

Boss Ulrik Bengtsson said the group's betting shops traded strongly when they were able to open.

He said: 'Retail bounced back very quickly and I anticipate that to happen again, we can then assess the long-term performance.

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'We will come back strongly and quickly.'

Net revenues slumped 16 per cent as the pandemic led to widespread disruption of live sporting events as well as the retail and casino closures.

The company said: '2020 has been a decisive year for William Hill, with careful financial management leaving the balance sheet in a healthy position, enabling the group to capture the opportunities that 2021 will bring through the acquisition by Caesars and their intention to seek suitable partners or owners for the non-US business.'

William Hill agreed to a takeover by Caesars in November and its suitor saw off competition from rival bidder, private equity giant Apollo.

Meanwhile, rival Ladbrokes owner Entain, also reporting today, fared better over the year thanks to surging growth in its US joint venture and the switch to online gambling.

The group swung to a pre-tax profit of £174.7million last year against losses of £164.4million the previous year, while underlying operating profits edged 2 per cent higher to £529.5million.

It hailed 20 quarters in a row of double-digit online net gaming revenue growth and said BetMGM, while its joint venture with MGM Resorts, notched up an 18 per cent boost in market share.

The BetMGM business delivered better-than-expected revenues of £127.5million in 2020, it added.

Shares in William Hill are down 0.15 per cent or 0.40p to 270.80p. A year ago the share price was 139.75p.

William Hill is a betting and gaming company, which employs approximately 16,000 people.

William Hill was founded in London in 1934 as a telephone bookmaking business and created its first licensed betting offices in 1966.

In June 2002, William Hill was floated on the London Stock Exchange. In 2005, it acquired Stanley Leisure plc’s licensed betting offices in the UK and Ireland, which resulted in William Hill becoming the UK’s largest bookmaker.

William Hill’s business strategy is based on these pillars:

• Multi-channel: capture an increasing share of customers’ gambling spend across both the retail and online channels in the UK.
• International diversification: leverage the company’s expertise in international markets to grow non-UK revenues and profits thereby diversifying and reducing business risk.
• Technology: use technology to provide a competitively differentiated product suite.

William Hill’s believes sports betting, which it considers one of its main areas of expertise, is the most important product for attracting and retaining online customers in the UK. This is because it targets the largest single segment of the online gambling population, has a relatively low cost per acquisition, the longest customer lifespan and the best cross-selling potential along with the greatest opportunity for product differentiation.

William Hill is comprised of four businesses:

Uk Gambling Law

• The high street-based operation in the UK, with approximately 2,370 licensed betting offices, which provide betting opportunities on a wide range of sporting and non-sporting events, gaming on machines and numbers-based products including lotteries.

  The UK is William Hill’s primary market.

• Digital betting and gaming via www.williamhill.com providing customers with the opportunity to access William Hill’s products online.

  The UK online market, including mobile, is the fastest growing segment of the UK gambling industry.

• William Hill Australia, which offers online betting in the Australian market.
• William Hill US, which operates sports books in Nevada and is the exclusive bookmaker to the Delaware state sports lottery.

William Hill’s betting products are divided into two categories: sports betting and betting on other events. The most popular sports betting products are horse racing, football, tennis and greyhound racing. William Hill also offers odds on many other sports such as rugby, cricket, golf, motor racing, darts, snooker, American football, Australian Rules football, baseball, basketball and ice hockey.

William Hill accepts a range of different types of bets from simple bets on the outcome of a single event to more complex bets, such as accumulator bets on the outcome of a number of different matches or sporting events.

William Hill Gambling Online

Other events include bets on non-sporting events, such as the outcome of political elections, television competitions and popular music chart results, as well as high profile novelty bets.

William Hill’s gaming products, whose outcome is dependent on chance, include slot machine games (played either on physical machines or online), casino games, bingo, poker and other skill games. Skill games, are games, it is argued, where the odds can be changed over the long run based on the application of skill (for example, games between customers such as poker).

With William Hill’s gaming products, the customer bets against the house and the William Hill makes its profit based on probabilities in the long run of different events occurring and uses “house” rules and procedures to apply risk limits.

William Hill has extensive experience in the following risk management and bookmaking procedures, which it believes are essential to operating a profitable betting operation:

• Imposing bet acceptance limits.
• Hedging.
• Expert odds compilation.

In addition, the breadth of betting opportunities that William Hill offers to customers, enable the company to spread its risk over a large number of events.

William Hill Casino Uk

William Hill’s gaming products (casino games, slots, poker and bingo) increase the company’s opportunities to cross-sell multiple products to customers, maximising the customer spend across channels. Profits from its gaming products gaming are more predictable than sports betting margins, which fluctuate, and provide a more stable source of revenue for the company.

William Hill has rolled out self service betting terminals in its high street betting shops. The goal of this is to bring the massive product range that it has created for its online customers available to its retail customers.

In the UK, in-play betting and mobile gambling have been the key drivers of growth in the past few years. William Hill, along with much of the gambling industry, relies on third party software suppliers for its online offerings. William Hill’s intention is to develop more of its software in-house, in order to bring customers a more differentiated offering and to deliver innovations to customers faster and more frequently.

William Hill Casino Club Uk

Part of William Hill’s online offering provides destination-themed gaming. Alongside its Vegas product suite, William Hill provides a Macau casino along with a “Mayfair” branded product offering.