William Hill has once again come under criticism over its responsible gambling policies as it became known that the bookmaker has sent an email to betting shop staffers encouraging them to inform gamblers that the maximum stake on fixed-odds betting terminals is yet to be reduced to £2 from £100.
The email, cited by The Times, reads that the operator has seen a “softening in [its] overall gaming machine performance” and that it is concerned this might be due to the UK government’s recent announcement that it would crack down on the highly controversial FOBTs.
William Hill has told its employees to make sure that players are aware they can still bet up to £100 every 20 seconds so they can “continue to enjoy playing gaming machines as they do currently.”
After completing their triennial review of the nation’s gambling industry last fall and an additional 12-week consultation, MPs announced last month that the maximum stake on FOBTs would be cut to £2 in hopes that the potential for large losses and damage the gaming machines might inflict on individual players and communities would be lowered.
However, reports emerged last week that the crackdown would not begin until April 2020 after a secret agreement between the Treasury and bookmakers.
Anti-gambling campaigners accused William Hill of trying to take all possible advantage of that backroom deal by encouraging its customers to wager the maximum bet allowed. Commenting on the latest revealings, Matt Zarb-Cousin of Campaign for Fairer Gambling, one of the organizations to have lobbyist the hardest for the FOBTs crackdown, told The Times that if gambling operators had had “any sense of social responsibility”, they would have adjusted the maximum stake to £2 right now.
Impact on the Industry
FOBTs are the UK gambling industry’s most profitable sector with annual gross gambling yield of £1.8 billion. According to preliminary estimates, the crackdown on the gaming machines would cost bookmakers nearly £500 million per year.
On the other hand, industry stakeholders are expected to reap nearly £4 billion due to the delayed start of the planned clampdown on the controversial machines. In addition, the Treasury will collect £1 billion in taxes until 2020 when the new maximum stake is expected to be implemented. MPs were thus accused that the crackdown was postponed namely due to concern over the tax losses that the government would suffer.
With over 2,340 betting shops across the UK, William Hill is the nation’s second largest operator of such facilities. These feature around 10,000 FOBTs. In 2017, the operator’s retail revenue, totaling £913.1 million, accounted for more than a half of its whole group revenue of £1.7 billion.
It is believed that the pending crackdown would hit William Hill really bad, particularly given the fact that its online gambling platform is failing to catch up with those of its biggest rivals. On the other hand, the company has managed to gain quite some footing in the newly opened US sports betting market. This could help it offset at least some of the losses it would suffer in its domestic market.
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