2007 William Hill Homepage

William Hill named after its founder, a Birmingham boy born in 1903 came from humble beginnings, when a young William while working in a local factory started collecting illegal bets from the locals on his motorbike. Later in 1925, he progressed to working as an on-course 'bookie' but quickly lost his capital. Following this failure he moved to London in 1929 where he started work at the Greyhound track taking bets and going on to open an illegal gambling den in Jermyn Street in 1934. Exploiting a legal loophole William Hill produced the first fixed-odds football coupon in 1944. William died in 1977 a year after his retirement.

The first legal William Hill betting shop was opened in 1966 but changed hands many times before being acquired by Brent Walker in 1989. However the previous owners Grand Metropolitan had exaggerated its worth and it had to be being bought out by the Japanese Investment Bank Nomura in 1997, hot on the heels of an investigation by the Serious Fraud Office which saw two of its Directors receiving jail sentences.

From their beginnings as a bookmakers and turf accountants in the shops and on the race tracks of Great Britain William Hill now offers promotional codes and bonuses for: casino games, skill games, online bingo, and online poker. Hill, now boasts virtual betting and should you need it ACCA insurance. Their dedicated mobile site offers a range of betting options from horse racing to football and their online betting has a dizzying array of ways to place a wager. Should a punter wish to place an in-play bet their shops offer live streaming which is second to none.

William Hill has always been aware of the negative aspect of gambling and has sought to address this by launching a staff training programme to discourage underage gambling.

In 2002, William Hill acquired Sunderland Greyhound Stadium followed by Newcastle Greyhound Stadium in 2003. Shortly after in 2005 the company purchased 624 betting shops in the UK, Republic of Ireland, Isle of Man and Jersey from Stanley Leisure for £504 million: the acquisition took the company past Ladbrokes into first position in the UK betting market prior to the sale of 78 shops. In November 2008, William Hill went into partnership with Orbis (formally OpenBet), and the Israeli software company Playtech launching their business online. In the same year self-confessed ‘rascal’ and university drop-out Ralph Topping was appointed Chief Executive. Topping had worked his way up through the ranks having started as a ‘Saturday boy’ at a branch in Hampden Park, Glasgow in 1973.

In 2012, they became the first UK ‘bookie’ to break into the US market acquiring three chains in Nevada the only American State to allow fully-fledged gambling. Hill took control of Sportsbrooks, Lucky Leroy’s and Club Cal Neva giving the company control of 55 percent of the states Sportsbrooks locations. Further securing their place as a market leader.

William Hill operates on a worldwide basis its main offices are in the UK, Gibraltar, and Ireland, employing about 16,000 people. By offering betting by phone, mobile, internet or at one of its 2300 UK-wide betting shops betting at William Hill has never been more accessible. On Grand National day in 2007, Hill took over 125,000 bets from its call center in Rotherham, South Yorkshire and on an average day the betting shops process about 1 million betting slips.