Online betting to move abroad
26th June, 2009
According to egrmagazine.com, Ralph Topping CEO of William Hill, dropped his biggest hint yet of the possible move of their internet and telephone systems abroad, due to competitive pressures.
“We face worldwide competition from 400 or so English-language betting websites. In these circumstances, clearly we do not have the luxury of being parochial about our future or taking a simplistic stance on complicated issues,” Topping told the Financial Times yesterday.
William Hill managed to avoid a 2% tax increase in April’s budget as it would result in over 800 betting shop closures, however, the bookie is still unable to remain competitive whilst paying 15% tax in comparison to Irish bookmaker Paddy Power that only pays 1.5% in Ireland.
Financial pressures on the business have meant that they had to close 20 UK betting shops and have frozen 16,000 staff’s pay so far this year.
The British Government could stand to lose £45m in tax per year if the top three bookmakers in the country: William Hill, Ladbrokes and Coral were to move their operations abroad.
The treasury and culture department said that they would be very disappointed if the move did go ahead and will be reviewing gambling rules to make it less competitive between British bookies and offshore competitors.
By Faye
