Online betting pays out for William Hill
Bookmaker William Hill reported strong growth with sports betting and sportsbook leading the way, in its trading statement for the 13 weeks from 2 October to 31 December.
Online net revenue increased by 14 per cent, benefitting from improvements to mobile gaming.
Ralph Topping, chief executive of William Hill, commented:
Q4 proved a strong end to the year as we enjoyed continued momentum in sportsbook with 38 per cent more wagered in Q4 on a 13 week basis than last year. This demonstrates our competitive strength in online ahead of the expected introduction of the point of consumption tax in December 2014. We made good progress on key initiatives in the quarter: improving our mobile gaming offer, rolling out the Eclipse gaming machine to over a third of our estate.
William Hill has placed its hopes in a new development centre in Tech City in order to attract the tach savvy talent it needs to react to changes in the gaming industry as online gambling continues to change the landscape of sector.
However, the company has suffered a £13m loss over the past week due to football results that were "highly unfavourable with an unusually high number of odds-on favourites winning."
William Hill’s Sportsbook app has been downloaded by more than 1.3m iOS users and generates £23m in turnover every week.
And with 8.6m customers William is the UK’s largest bookmaker.