|
|
. |
| |
|
|
| |
William
Hill
b. in Birmingham 16 July
1903
d. 16 October 1971, Newmarket
William Hill was born the second son and fourth of the eleven
children (there were also a twin son and daughter who died at birth) of William
Hill, journeyman coach-painter, and his wife, Lavinia Knight, the daughter of a
farmer who also kept an inn on the border of Warwickshire and
Leicestershire.
William ran away from school at the age of 12 to work on
an uncle's farm. During World War 1, Hill worked as an apprentice at the BSA
works in Birmingham. He was still in his teens. Here he took up bookmaking in a
small way, by collecting bets on his motor bicycle. In 1919, Hill joined the
Black and Tans while underage and was stationed in Mallow, County Cork,
Ireland. He spent a lot of his spare time in Moss Foley's pub in the town. Mrs.
Foley took a liking to him. Hill was dispatched a few miles out the country to
guard one of those big houses, owned by the gentry. Mr. and Mrs. Foley felt he
was too young for that assignment and feared that somebody might take a potshot
at him. Mrs. Foley appealed direct to the British Commanding officer to let
Hill stay in town and the request was granted.
Returning from duty he
tried bookmaking for real at the races but took on bigger punters than he could
cope with and went bust pretty quickly. He re-started the business with smaller
action and eventually got together the finance to move to London. In 1923 Hill
married Ivy Burley, a ladies' hairdresser of Smallheath, Birmingham.
In
London William started with pony racing at Northolt Park, Britains only track
for trotting (opened in 1929, occupied during the war and never re-opened) but
later switched to concentrate on dog racing and did well enough to rent an
office in Jermyn Street. There he exploited a loophole which allowed credit or
postal betting but not cash. Success came and he moved to much larger premises
in Park Lane. More so he was also interested in breeding horses and in 1943
bought a stud at Whitsbury in Hampshire.
In 1944 Hill produced the first
fixed-odds football coupon, and set up a separate football
company.
Nimbus was foaled at Whitsbury stud in 1946, and, having been
sold for 5000 guineas at the yearling sales, won the 1949 Two Thousand Guineas
and Derby. In 1945 William Hill bought Sezincote stud in Gloucestershire, where
he stood his stallion Chanteur II, sire of Pinza, winner of the 1953 Derby. He
won his first and only Classic when Cantelo triumphed in the 1959 St. Leger. He
won the Gimcrack Stake and Champagne Stake in 1958 with Be Careful.
At
the 1955 Royal Ascot meeting, when his runner failed to get takers for a
£4,000 bet Hill wanted to lay-off, he made the impulsive decision to quit
on-course bookmaking. In 1960, Ladbrokes went into the football business, and
Hill sued them for infringement of the copyright in his coupon. The case went
to the House of Lords, where Hill won the £1 damages for which he had
asked, with costs.
William Hill and Lionel Barber had bought 75% of
Holder's Investment Trust, to which Hill sold his interests between 1955 and
1961 for over £5 million. This purchase of a ‘shell’ company
was the first time that the manoeuvre had been executed and the first time that
a bookmaking company had been floated on the stock exchange.
William
Hill missed out on the betting shops. He didn t foresee the palatial palaces of
today where the punter can see live racing. If he did, he was afraid of their
impact on the working man. He was a socialist all his life and thought the
betting office might lead the working man astray. Hill would have stuck to
credit betting and fixed odds only for his friend Jack Swift persuading him to
get on the bandwagon in the late sixties before it would be too late. He did
that and acquired quite a number of shops. He had to play second fiddle to
Ladbrokes and could no longer use the tag world's biggest bookmaker.
In
his heyday at the big meetings like Ascot, Epsom and New-market, Hill would
take £20,000 a race throughout the day and he was up against real
bookmakers in the shape of Willie Preston, Percy Thompson, Jack Burns and
Hector MacDonald. He would stand horses in the ante-post market to lose upwards
of £100,000, which was a lot of money.
On one occasion he laid
Raymoung Guest 100/1 to £500 each way about a foal that had just been
born winning the Derby. The foal, named Sir Ivor, finally won the Derby at 5-4,
causing considerable embarrassment to the William Hill organisation.
In
the end he concentrated mainly on breeding and had a number of stud farms in
England. It was while he was attending the October Sales at Newmarket in 1971
that the end came a heart attack and it was all over.
He died in the
Rutland Hotel, Newmarket on October 16, 1971. He was 68 years
old.
|
William
Hill Timeline
1903 : b. in Birmingham 16 July
1934 : William Hill foundered the business which has become the
second largest in the UK.
1961: Harold Macmillan's Conservative
Government legalised betting shops
1964 : A 25% tax was levied on
Fixed Odds betting. This severely hampered growth of the business.
1966 : William Hill finally bought into betting shops. In the same
year betting duty was imposed for the first time at a rate of 2.5%, later
raised to 5% in 1968 and to 6% in 1970.
1970 : William Hill retired.
1971 : William Hill died on October 16th. The William Hill
Organization became part of the Sears Holdings Group.
1988 : Grand
Metropolitan, owners of Mecca Bookmakers, acquired William Hill, merging the
two companies under the William Hill name. Bob Green becomes Managing Director,
but later resigned to be replaced by Mike Smith.
1989 : Brent Walker
purchased William Hill. John Brown became Managing Director of the 1800 betting
shop company. The company also has the largest Credit Betting operation in the
world. In August William Hill were appointed Official Bookmakers to Golf's
European PGA Tour and are represented on course at major events.
1995 : From January 1st it became legal to open betting shops on a
Sunday. From May betting shop windows no longer had to be obscured and the
windows were permitted to display lists of odds and details of bets available
within. A wider ranger of refreshments, including sandwiches and snacks were
permitted in the shops. There was no longer any limit imposed on the size of
TVs displayed in the branches. November: Lucky Choice betting commenced, a side
bet based on the outcome of the Irish Lottery - William Hill initiative.
1996 : Betting shop deductions were reduced by 1% from 10% to 9%
following a concession in the Budget of the previous November. June 20th :
Amusement with Prize Machines were permitted in betting shops, with cash prizes
of up to £10 allowed. The shops were also allowed to sell racing related
publications - books, newspapers, magazines etc. They were allowed to sell
Scratchcards other than National Lottery Scratchcards; to accept Spot The Ball
coupons and to pay out football pools winnings.
1997 : It became
legal for the location of betting shops to be advertised in
newspapers/telephone directories. October 1st: Nomura (Grand Bookmaking
Companies) purchased William Hill for £700m.
1999 : William
Hill's proposed stock market float was abandoned when the company was sold to
Cinven and CVC Partners for a reported £825 million.
2000 :
William Hill launch off-shore telephone betting service. A call centre in
Athlone , Republic of Ireland takes calls from punters and passes them on for
acceptance to the William Hill International bookmaking company in Antigua.
Deductions of just 3% are levied. William Hill became the first major
bookmakers to offer a completely tax and deduction free betting service to UK
based clients via the Internet. Hill's domestic site, www.williamhill.co.uk
charged a 5% rate of deduction; the international site, www.willhill.com,
charged no deductions at all. Later, as a special offer, the domestic site also
went deduction-free. Advertising of off-shore betting facilities on Teletext
etc was banned.
2001 : Chancellor Gordon Brown announced in the
Budget that betting duty was to be abolished before January 1st, 2002. Oct
10th, Betting duty was abolished and replaced by Gross Profits Tax on
bookmakers.
2002 : On April 17th William Hill signed a five year
deal with the British
Horseracing Board for the commercial use of data in their fifteen hundred
betting shops in England, Scotland and Wales, together with their telephone and
internet betting operations. Each bookmaker signing up to the deal will pay an
annual charge of 10% of gross profits from horserace betting on horse racing in
Great Britain, other than in respect of over the counter bets transacted in
betting offices where the charge payable will be calculated by reference to the
gross profit in each year from each betting office. William Hill successfully
floated the Company on 20th June 2002 on the UK Stock Exchange at an offer
price of 225 pence per ordinary share. The offer was in excess of 10 times
oversubscribed. William Hill purchased the Sunderland Greyhound Stadium in
September 2002
2003 : William Hill purchased the Brough Park
Greyhound Stadium in March 2003 2003 : John Brown retires as Chairman on 31st
December 2003
2004 : Charles Scott is appointed Chairman with effect
from 1st January 2004
In 2005 William Hill bought 624 betting
offices in the UK, Republic of Ireland, Isle of Man and Jersey from Stanley
Leisure for £504 million: the acquisition briefly took the company past
Ladbrokes into first position in the UK betting market in terms of shops but
not revenue. The Office of Fair Trading made William Hill sell 78 of the 624
Stanley shops due to concerns over anti-competitive practices.
Amidst fears
that William Hill had overpaid for the Stanley shops, the company was relegated
from the FTSE 100 index in December 2005.[16]
In November 2008 William Hill
went into partnership with Israeli software company Playtech, to remedy its own
failing online operation. The company wrote-off a reported £26m when
scrapping their previous in-house system. In June 2009 William Hill backed
Playtech despite their partner having a quarter of its stock market value wiped
out following a profits warning.
2016: William Hill published
their first app for Android and iOS platforms. The mobile app is a great way to
stay up to date and place your bets wherever you happen to be. This app is not
ony compatible with Android phones but also tablets and iOS
devices. |
 |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
. |
|
|
Main Menu
