William Hill is the latest to report reduced profits

William Hill has announced its results for 2009 and to quote Ralph Topping the Chief Executive it has been a “rotten” year blaming as others have done “rotten” football results (which means the favourites won and the punters won, no problem there then!) and the cancellation of many horse race meetings and a general decline due to the economy. He said “While we would normally expect fluctuations in sporting results during a year, these were more extreme in 2009 than we had experienced previously. Having said that, the online side of the business which is relatively new for William Hill is reportedly up over 60% so are people really cutting back on their gambling or are they just doing more of it from the comfort of their own home. Reinforcing this argument is the fact that the bookmaker has already closed 14 shops in Ireland and is said to be reviewing the remaining 35 but as they have well over 2000 shops this is a fairly small review. Interestingly enough Ladbrokes also reported a reduction in profits for the same period. William Hill said it was looking forward to the World Cup this year as the last one generated over €5 million. We find it a little hard to feel sorry for them but that’s a personal opinion only.