William Hill is the UK based online gambling group that runs gambling operations, online and land based. It has hundreds of betting shops that are spread across the United Kingdom, and when it comes to its online operations, it has plenty of brands including William Hill Online Sportsbook, William Hill Casino, Wilma Hill Poker and Bingo. These brands offer online gambling services to players from around the world. The company has been expanding its activities in the Australian market so it can capitalize on the potential of this market. William Hill has recently announced that it has suffered a 28% decrease in the profits of its digital division, despite the great increase in its mobile gambling operations.
The gambling group has posted great indications of growth in many key areas which were mainly led by the Sportsbook operations but when it came to the land based retail operations, they underperformed tremendously. The Sportsbook bets grew by 24% in the thirteen weeks that ended on the 1st of October. This increase was led by the football wagers that witnessed an increase of 49 percent, as for the mobile wagering, it witnessed a greater increase that amounted up to 115%. This resulted in a great increase in the net revenue of the mobile gaming operations. That increase amounted up to 126%. The staking of retail football also increase 27% in that quarter.
The operating profit of the group suffered a decline of 31%, which translated to 24 million British Pounds. The company was also upfront when it came to facing the matter as the CEO of William Hill, Ralph Topping, stated that there is no certainty that the company will be able to make up for the shortfall by the end of 2013.
Ralph Topping did not only address the shortfall as he also talked about the overall results. He stated that the online sportsbook growth in staking keeps going from strength to the next with a great growth in football betting with the start of the new season, which was also driven by the new products of William Hill and its successful marketing campaigns.
He also added that the attention that the company is paying towards the development of the mobile operations continues to yield its wanted results as it generated 41% of the wagers at the sportsbook operations. The results were not as good as the same period of last year, especially with the outcomes of the football matches mainly going the gamblers’ way.
On the other hand, The Expansion of William Hill in Australia seems to be going very well, especially after the purchase of Tom Waterhouse and SportingBet, which are two of the biggest names in the online gambling scene of Australia. It seems that Australia is the next big target for William Hill.