William Hill has announced it is to cease providing services to Greek customers tonight ahead of the introduction of criminal charges and financial penalties for operators targeting the market without a local licence.
The London-listed betting and gaming operator posted the following notice on its Greek language website yesterday: “We regret to inform you that William Hill has decided to withdraw fully from providing services to the Greek market for legal reasons beyond our control by 23:59 Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2012.”
Hill’s withdrawal follows the Greek Gaming Commission issuing a one-month warning on 5 November to operators targeting the market without its permission to either apply for a licence or exit, with those failing to do so being blacklisted, IP blocked and subject to financial penalties and/or criminal sanctions.
The Gibraltar-licensed operator was not among the 24 companies that opted to start paying taxes on Greek operations under an interim arrangement from last August, when the country passed its law to licence and regulate online gambling in the country, so like Betfair, could have faced a potential claim for backdated taxes on past revenues had it decided to apply for a licence at this time.
Following this morning’s report of William Hill Online’s pull out from Greece, the London-listed company this afternoon updated the market that it had been expecting to generate £4-5m of operating profit this year from providing online betting, poker and casino services to residents of the EU Member State.
Article written by Stephen Carter
