William Hill counted the cost of another battering from punters today as the bookmaker responded to the Chancellor’s Budget raid on the industry with sweeping store closures and the loss of 420 jobs.
The bookie’s first-quarter operating profits sank 14% on last year after two golden weekends for gamblers when a host of football favourites won, costing the industry a fortune in payouts on winning accumulator bets.
William Hill lost £13 million in one week in early January and suffered almost as badly on the weekend of March 22, when 13 favourites won.
Chief executive Ralph Topping said: “We’d performed really strongly after week two. Online made back what it had lost and we were clawing back a good amount of the hit to retail. And then we got hit again.”
Topping revealed plans to close 109 shops following the Government’s surprise hike in duties on controversial gaming machines, which the bookie estimates will cost it £22 million. “We fully expect other companies in the industry to be in a similar position,” he told analysts.
He added that women, part-time workers and young workers would bear the brunt of the staff cuts.
“Both groups are Government targets. All of them have lower-than-average opportunities to find other jobs. That is the basic reality,” he warned.
