William Hill: 30% of VIP accounts have been closed in last year
Industry execs defend their record on problem gambling at a parliamentary committee hearing on Wednesday
William Hill has closed 30% of its VIP accounts in the last year, the firm’s online MD Phil Walker said yesterday during a parliamentary committee meeting on responsible gambling.
Walker was one of five executives to face a grilling from Labour MP for Swansea East Carolyn Harris, who chaired yesterday’s APPG meeting on gambling related harm alongside former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith.
The MD sat alongside Sky Betting & Gaming CEO Ian Proctor, bet365 co-CEO John Coates, Flutter Entertainment Europe CEO Dan Taylor and Tombola CEO Phil Cronin.
Walker said 30% of VIP accounts had been closed down in the last year due to doubts over source of funds, while Taylor said Flutter was closing approximately 70,000 accounts per month.
“We do close down an awful lot of accounts,” John Coates told Harris, before the Welsh MP replied: “You do close down a lot of accounts but that tends to be when people win and not because they are problem gamblers.”
GVC CEO Kenny Alexander was also expected to attend but pulled out this week due “business commitments”.
Harris described Alexander’s no-show as cowardly, leaving his chair empty at the table alongside his place mat, in the middle of the other attendees.
Today, the @GRHAPPG is taking evidence from some of the major bookmakers trading in the U.K. This is part of our evidence session assessing the impact of gambling. pic.twitter.com/8tJfq805SK
— Ronnie Cowan MP (@ronniecowan) September 4, 2019
The five gambling bosses faced questions on several key topics, including stake restrictions, VIP strategy and whether UK operators should be made to keep their physical businesses on UK shores.
Harris also asked Coates, Proctor, Walker, Taylor and Cronin to reveal their annual salaries, offering a two-way choice of over or under £500k.
The panel was then asked about their punting activity, including how much they would wager on the average bet. SBG’s Proctor said no more than £50, as did Hills’ Walker, while Coates said he was no longer allowed to gamble on sports due to his involvement with Stoke City football club.
When Paddy Power’s Taylor revealed his average betting stake was around £100, Harris gasped, adding that you could “feed a family of five” for the same amount.
All five bosses admitted the industry had made costly mistakes in the past that were likely to have negatively effected problem gamblers, but insisted that significant strides have been made in the last five years.
“I have been in online gambling since the very start,” Coates said, during the meeting. “I can genuinely say over the last four or five years that there has been an absolute sea change in the desire and implementation in all areas.
“This is the case whether it be on matters of affordability, advances in analytics or the interactions and interventions over markers of harm,” he added.
These sentiments were echoed by SBG CEO Proctor, who said: “In the past we have got quite a lot wrong, but during my time in the industry I have seen a huge shift in the last two or three years to make things better and safer for everybody.”