Hills Dennounce Hellish Year

25th February, 2010

One of the best uk casinos and sportsbook has revealed it's latest figures for the previous year, in what their CEO called a 'hellish' for all UK bookies.

Regardless of a strong end to the year, William Hill unveiled a 9% fall in it's profits for 2009, before tax, to £198m.

Winnings from in-shop machines rose by 8%, but that could not make up for shop business falling 16% overall to £203m. This loss was compounded by their telebetting business weighing in with a £1.8m loss - from a £5.9m profit in 2008.

Ralph Topping, CEO of William Hill said it had been a 'challenging' year, that was 'characterised by significant volatility in sporting results' which he added to by saying 2009 was 'hellish for bookmakers'.

He also said that the results of their telebetting services meant that they would also review all parts of this business, including their call centre which was housed in Sheffield and Leeds...

'By the end of this year we'll have taken action on it. Either we move the centres offshore, stay where we are or close one'.

Hills' online business was the only relative star of the show, coming in 4% up on 2008 to nearly £1bn in revenues and a good start to the current year sees it's online division already 22% up on 2009.

Topping added that he expected the World Cup to help ease financial pressures this year, with an expected £10m from the 30 day event.