Our history
Gambling – particularly on sporting events – is ingrained in our culture. You can find references to it by historians throughout the ages as far back as Herodotus, Western culture’s ‘Father of History’. The English language is peppered with phrases we use without thinking about which stem from our love of gambling – ‘you bet’, ‘I bet you are’, ‘put your money where your mouth is’.
A trusted brand
In earlier times most gambling was done behind closed doors. When William Hill founded the company in 1934, the industry had no governing body, and bookies were not even legally obliged to pay a customer’s winning bet. This, of course, was a great business opportunity: William Hill built a reputation on being knowledgeable, honest and trustworthy. The company started out as a postal / telephone betting service where a punter would send a bet with a cheque weeks in advance of an event.
New on the high street
In 1961, betting shops became legal, with William Hill joining the market in 1966. Shops were heavily regulated, however, to encourage people not to loiter. It was during this period that they got something of a reputation for being dens of iniquity with their blacked-out, closed windows, and murky, smoky atmosphere. With the arrival of television, however, betting became more of a leisure activity, with people spending time in betting shops to watch the races or the football. When the UK’s National Lottery began in 1994, placing a bet became a much more socially acceptable activity. As legislation changed, shops became bigger, lighter, and air conditioned, and started to include games as well as betting.
Betting goes online
1998 was an important year for William Hill, when we became the first in the industry to launch an online betting facility, our Sportsbook. The internet has changed the face of the industry, bringing in new, younger punters for a range of gambling and gaming activities, as well as providing an easy way to place a bet. Some things don’t change though – our reputation for honesty and integrity and our exceptional customer service are as important to today’s punters as they were in the days of placing a bet by putting a cheque in the post.
| 1934 | William Hill founded the business as a postal / telephone betting service. |
| 1961 | 1 May: betting shops became
legal. |
| 1964 | A 25% tax was levied on fixed odds betting. |
| 1966 | William Hill bought into betting shops. In the same year betting duty was imposed for the first time at a rate of 2.5%, later raised to 5% in 1968 and to 6% in 1970. |
| 1970 | William Hill retired. |
| 1971 | 16 October: William Hill died. The company became part of the Sears Holdings Group. |
| 1988 | Grand Metropolitan, owners of Mecca
Bookmakers, acquired William Hill, merging the two companies under
the William Hill name. |
| 1989 | Brent Walker purchased William Hill. John Brown became Managing Director. William Hill had 1,800 betting shops and the largest credit betting operation in the world. In August William Hill was appointed Official Bookmakers to Golf's European PGA Tour and was represented on the course at major events. |
| 1994 | The National Lottery was introduced. |
| 1995 | The National Lottery scratch card was introduced. Both represented threats to William Hill’s profitability. |
| 1996 | 28 September was a great day for punters in racing history, when Frankie Dettori rode seven consecutive winners at Ascot against high odds. William Hill paid out £8 million. |
| 1996-97 | William Hill introduced new numbers
betting products and amusement with prizes machines (AWPs) in shops
to counteract the effects of the National Lottery. A reduction in
betting duty also helped, as did the decrease in popularity of
scratch cards. |
| 1997 | 9 October: Nomura (through Grand Bookmaking Company Limited) purchased William Hill for £700m from Brent Walker. |
| 1998 | May: William Hill went online with the launch of the online betting service, Sportsbook |
| 1999 | William Hill's proposed stock market
float was abandoned when the Company was sold to Cinven and CVC
Partners for £825 million. |
| 2000 | William Hill launched an off-shore telephone betting service. A call centre in Athlone, Republic of Ireland took calls from punters and passed them on for acceptance to the William Hill International bookmaking company in Antigua. Deductions of just 3% were levied. |
| 2000 | William Hill became the first major bookmaker to offer a totally deduction-free betting service to UK-based clients via the internet. William Hill's domestic site, www.williamhill.co.uk, charged a 5% rate of deduction; the international site, www.willhill.com, charged no deductions at all. Later, as a special offer, the domestic site also went deduction-free. |
| 2000 | Advertising of off-shore betting facilities on Teletext etc was banned. |
| 2000 | William Hill launched the online casino. |
| 2001 | Chancellor Gordon Brown announced in
the Budget that betting duty was to be abolished before 1 January,
2002. |
| 2001 | 10 October: betting duty was abolished and replaced by Gross Profits Tax on bookmakers. Offshore telephone betting and internet Sportsbook operations were repatriated to the UK. |
| 2002 | 20 June: William Hill floated on the London Stock Exchange at an offer price of 225 pence per ordinary share. The offer was oversubscribed in excess of 10 times. |
| 2003 | March: William Hill purchased the
Brough Park Greyhound Stadium. |
| 2003 | 31 December: John Brown retired as Chairman. |
| 2004 | January: Charles Scott became Chairman. |
| 2005 | Gambling Act received Royal
Assent. |
| 2005 | June: William Hill purchased Stanley Leisure PLC's retail bookmaking operations in Great Britain, Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland, Jersey and the Isle of Man. |
| 2008 | February: Ralph Topping replaced David Harding as Chief Executive. |
| 2008 | October: William Hill announced the combining of the online business with purchased assets of online software company Playtech, to create William Hill Online, Europe’s leading online gaming and sports betting business. |
| 2008 | November: new Sportsbook launched with Orbis technology. |
| 2009 | April: £350m (net of expenses) raised through 1 for 1 rights issue to restructure balance sheet after debt refinancing. |
Registered Office: Greenside House, 50 Station Road, Wood Green, London N22 7TP.
Registration Number 4212563 England
