William Hill Revenue Salvaged By US Expansion In Q3

William Hill released their Q3 reports and their US sports betting industry had a 55% surge in handle for 2020 compared with their year-over-year.
Revenue wasn’t as large, even with the uptick, because sports bettors were winning more of their wagers.
The US activity has helped even out William Hill’s reported losses from their UK markets.

LAS VEGAS – The William Hill Group posted their Q3 revenue reports on Wednesday, showing a considerable drop in profits across the board from a year-over-year standpoint but their US market has done well enough to sustain them.

Their Q3 documents show a 9% decrease in revenue compared to the business the company received in 2019.

However, the sports betting conglomerate’s continued expansions into the legal sports betting markets of the US have helped ease the blow that was seen in combined recorded losses for the first half of the year, which saw a revenue decline of 32%.

What William Hill Is Saying

William Hill attributes the large drop in numbers to the Coronavirus Pandemic. Starting in March, almost all major sports worldwide were shut down from playing to prevent the spread of COVID-19. This lull went on for months and sportsbooks were severely affected.

William Hill was part of the pandemic’s collateral damage because without sporting events to place odds on, their business had little else that could adequately replace these activities as a sportsbook typically relies on sports in order to function.

“Sports” is in the name sportsbook after all. Despite these figures, the company expects to make a turnaround as sports made their comeback to the world over the summer.

“The live sporting calendar has resumed, delivering a strong complement of fixtures across football, horse racing, tennis, and American sports. However, fixture lists remain out of step with prior years, and with many events continuing to be held behind closed doors, results have been more unpredictable than normal. As a result, we continue to see volatile gross win margins, and we would expect this situation to continue,” stated their Q3 Report.

Report numbers showed a 4% year-over-year loss in the UK’s internet and mobile sports betting activity while the US was up 14%.

For Q3, the US was up 10% overall and 6% from online wagers. William Hill plans to enhance their UK online sportsbook offerings to help boost engagement by sports bettors to use these applications more for wagering on sports matchups.

And branching out into the US markets, which has helped balance out their revenue numbers, will continue as more states legalize the pastime.

“We are now live in 14 states, having opened in Colorado, Illinois, Michigan and Washington D.C. during Q3 and Pennsylvania during October. Wagering growth was strong, taking 72% of handle through mobile channels. We were pleased to extend our media and digital presence to include ESPN through a multi-year co-exclusive agreement signed by our partner, Caesars Entertainment. In combination with the exclusive deal signed with CBS in February, William Hill US now has access to two of the top sports media brands in North America.”

What’s Next For William Hill?

Although the numbers have shown a decrease, the US industry has helped the company tremendously. Their American businesses are projected to bring in even higher revenues as the NFL season has begun, which is the most popular sport for the nation to place bets on.

The company’s Chief Executive Officer, Ulrik Bengtsson is confident that William Hill will close out the year on a high note.

“We have moved the company forward with our relentless focus on our customers, enhancing the competitiveness of our product, and maintaining player safety as one of our highest priorities. We have reinvigorated the leadership team and they, in turn, have empowered their teams to deliver on our plans,” said Bengtsson.

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Christina Monroe

Christina has been writing for as long as she can remember and does dedicated research on the newly regulated sports betting market. She comes from a family of sports lovers that engage in friendly bets from time to time. During the winter months, you can find Christina baking cookies and beating the entire staff at Mario Kart…the N64 version of course.