Top UK Sports
Betting Firm Sells off Italian Venture
July 3 - Even Great Britain's largest land and online sports
betting company, William Hill, is susceptible to failure,
the most recent example being the company's announcement that it
is pulling out of Italy barely 18 months after setting up a
betting joint venture in the country.
William Hill has reportedly written over 1 million pounds though
its Italian joint venture and, as a result, has agreed to sell
the struggling sports betting operation to one of its main
competitors, Turkish gambling operator, Intralot, for 4.3
million pounds.
While around 12,000 Italian gaming licenses were granted in
2006, William Hill's joint venture with top Spanish gaming firm,
Cordere, secured only 57, which proved to be too 'insufficient
for the company to generate a feasible and attractive long-term
return'.
This is the second major blow to William Hill in the past
year, the first being six months ago when the company was forced
to write of a massive 26 million pound investment in an in-house
sports betting software development division, that ultimately
failed to deliver.
What's more, new William Hill chief executive, Ralph Topping,
reportedly has plans to revamp the company's struggling online
poker operation, which is failing to meet expectations. Its
online poker room, powered by
Cryptologic software, is failing to increase its
player base.
With Cryptologic's contract with William Hill up for renewal at
the end of this year, Topping may consider switching to another
online poker network that is more attractive to players in terms
of offering hundreds of millions of pounds in poker prize money
each month.
Last year William Hill's online gambling division gross win
dropped by 8 percent while it operating profit dropped by 17
percent, as it its competitors gained the advantage. As a
result, William Hill has retained the services of software firm,
Orbis, to upgrade its online betting presence.
Visit
William Hill now.
|
|
|
