Chief Executive David Harding said William Hill is too big to bid for the state-owned bookmaker. “We probably couldn\’t bid for the lot on competition grounds,” he said. “If they were to break it up into parcels we could bid for that.”
Harding also ruled out the acquisition of any of its online gambling rivals.
“I know dotcom is the sensation at the moment, and we have done well in that space, but we\’ve got 2,200 betting shops out there grinding out good solid cash, week in week out,” he told Reuters.
The UK bookmaker, which is enjoying a reasonable run of results on soccer and horse racing, recently announced a deal with GameAccount to launch a dedicated William Hill Skill Game service powered by a fully integrated, browser-based solution available in 7 languages and 11 currencies.
Elsewhere, Sports Cafe, owner of the Sports Cafe and Sports Cafe Bet brands, announced that following the recent developments in the online gaming sector, it is withdrawing from its operations in this space.
Durham-based Pagebet, which is expected to post at least a 15 per cent increase in turnover this year, said that after a two-years development the company is on track to launch its website in November.
Managing Director David Archer said: “We hope to be in a position for a test run in the next two weeks and to launch the site in November.”
Commenting on recent developments in the US, Archer added: “It was never our intention to take bets from US residents. The taking of bets from US customers either over the phone or the internet had always been a grey area. The UK will be our principal market and it will be a few years before we get far enough in that market before we will be confident of targeting overseas markets.”
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