William Hill: why we made our Gibraltar move

ONLINE BETTING AND GAMING is a fiercely competitive business. But it is also one where William Hill has a huge opportunity ““ as long as we are able to compete on a level playing field.

That is why we have taken the decision to move William Hill’s online sportsbook to Gibraltar, a logical step in the evolution of WilliamHill.com and our online entity, William Hill Online.

Any company which wants to be a leading online betting and gaming business on the international stage has to take every competitive advantage possible. And it was simply impossible for us to compete from the UK, as the current 15% gross profits tax regime and 10% levy on all UK horseracing bets accepted discriminates against onshore operators. Existing offshore operators don’t have those costs, giving them more capital to invest in growing their businesses.

Although that was a point which we made repeatedly to the UK government, who has always claimed that it wanted to be an international centre for gaming, we got no response. The decision to move was one we could no longer avoid making. Our online operations now have a really bright future.

Relocating our online betting teams to Gibraltar, alongside our suite of existing casino, poker and other gaming products, is going to provide significant synergies further that will help us grow.

Moving our online betting activities to join our existing gaming operations in our William Hill Online headquarters in Gibraltar will also make us more efficient operationally.

Gibraltar is a centre of excellence for online betting and gaming, giving us access to a skilled workforce while offering a competitive tax regime. Around 60 employees have already relocated from the UK to the jurisdiction since the beginning of 2009 to support the expanded operations and we expect this number to grow.

Off-shoring is a key part of that drive and will mean we can compete on a global basis. Our online business already has a strong presence and player base in the UK, but it is becoming increasingly international, both in Europe and beyond. This globalisation is also reflected in our online operations, with our egaming headquarters and gaming activities in Gibraltar, marketing teams in Israel and customer services in Bulgaria.

As for those who have claimed that moving offshore will increase the risk of match-fixing or corrupt betting, bookmakers are the ones that suffer if fraudulent bets are placed. They have no interest in lowering their guard when it comes to monitoring these criminal activities.

Moving to Gibraltar will enable us to continue our focus on internet gaming and betting, which up until we entered into our partnership with Playtech had become the underperforming cousin to the rest of our business.

Already, we have seen marked improvements in our online activities: online bingo revenues have grown by 50% over the past 12 months and our overall egaming revenues rose 58% in 2009 to £100m, compared with £63m last year. These figures reflect the immediate impact of combining the Playtech brands with the William Hill name last year. We are also confident the migration of our online casino to the Playtech platform by year-end, in addition to the poker players we will ‘re-recruit’ once the poker player-base has been migrated from the CryptoLogic platform to Playtech, will continue to feed this growth.

All these moves will increase our cross-selling capabilities, which when allied to the competitive edge we will gain in online betting thanks to our relocation, will enable our online division to achieve even more.

This article first appeared in the September issue of eGaming Review.

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