William Hill move telebetting to Gibraltar

William Hill has announced that they intend to close their telephone betting section in the UK and move it to Gibraltar in order to save money.

They said that they are doing this as other betting exchanges and telebetting operators are “enjoying significant tax advantages”. Last year they paid £265 million in UK taxes and levies. Last year William Hill’s telephone betting business lost £1.8m and they are expecting a small operating loss for the first half of this year. By moving to Gibraltar in the last quarter of this year, William Hill are expecting to save between £4 and £7 million each year in costs and but the move is going to cost them a one off £7m. Last year the company relocated their online division to Gibraltar. 

All William Hill telephone customers will continue to be serviced by William Hill Online partnered with service provider Vertex. They said that Vertex will be taking over the Sheffield based call centre and William Hill’s Leeds centre will be closed and staff shall be offered alternative positions.

The company’s online division will be running the new telephone betting business and customers shall be able to use their telephone betting account to complete online transactions. William Hill Online is a joint venture with Playtech however, any profits or losses made by its telebetting business shall be kept by William Hill, except from an annual fee of £0.5m to Playtech to pay for telephone betting support.

The Chief Executive of William Hill Ralph Topping said, “This significant change to our telephone business is a response to the challenge of competing with betting exchanges and offshore telebetting operators, all of whom have benefitted from significant cost and tax advantages over UK bookmakers. This has made it impossible for our existing business to compete profitably from the UK.”