UK bookmaker William Hill said wagers at its Australian business fell 15 percent in the last half of 2017 as it prepared to implement a ban on offering credit lines to gamblers.
The company said wagers had been on the rise in 2017 until it started preparing for the ban.
William Hill recorded a pre-tax loss in 2017 after slashing the value of its Australian business, the company said.
“Offering credit or deferred settlement has been prohibited from 17 February 2018,” the company said in a press statement. “Approximately 30 per cent of William Hill Australia’s amounts wagered comes from customers using credit betting.”
William Hill’s Australian business has been placed under a “strategic review” and is now up for sale. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that several unnamed bookmakers have been interested and a deal could happen quickly.
Announcing its yearly results on Friday, William Hill revealed a £238 million write-down against its Australian business, which accounts for 7 percent of William Hill’s overall group revenue. The write-down pushed William Hill to a pre-tax loss of £74.6 million, the Herald report said.
In a later report on 2017, however, Chief Executive Philip Bowcock said that William Hill has been successful at delivering its three strategic priorities: rejuvenating its digital enterprise, bolstering its omni-channel proposition and gaining significant growth within the US. Bowcock said the company had also met its expectation to achieve £25 million in group cost savings.
However, William Hill also pointed to expected new Australian point-of-consumption taxes as a possible threat to the company in Australia. According to the Morning Herald, South Australia, Western Australia and Queensland have moved to introduce 15 percent taxes on digital gambling companies. Australia’s two biggest gambling jurisdictions, Victoria and New South Wales, are expected to announce similar taxes soon.
“While we remain one of the few profitable companies in the market, that profitability would be significantly impacted if, as is anticipated, further states introduce an additional 15 per cent point-of-consumption tax in the coming months and years,” William Hill said in its release.
Meanwhile, Australian betting exchange Betfair also warned that the new point of consumption taxes could harm the integrity of racing and sports if the cause Australian gamblers to move to unlicensed offshore sites.
In a report submitted to various state government officials, Betfair argued that the 15 percent rates are too high and would raise commission fees to unsustainable levels if the rates were applied nationwide.
Betfair Chief Executive Tim Moore-Barton said it would cause an integrity “black hole”, as betting activity through illegal offshore operators was un-trackable.
“We provide racing stewards and sporting bodies real-time access to our data to look for anomalies in betting patterns,” Moore-Barton said in the report. “This transparency is lost and not available when people bet offshore.”
Betfair said the loss of customers would also threaten revenue to Australian racing and sports bodies, as offshore operators do not pay fees.
