William Hill is looking at moving its flagship UK online sportsbook operations from their current Openbet-provided platform onto its own proprietary technology, CEO Ralph Topping has revealed.
Topping told analysts in today’s H1 earnings call that the company was now upgrading the sportsbook platform it acquired as part of the recent Sportingbet Australia transaction, adding that: “I don’t want to leave you with the idea that the technology platform isn’t good – it is. It’s proprietary, which is great, as we want to use it elsewhere, and it worked exceptionally well.”
When asked later by analyst Ivor Jones of Numis exactly where the company intended to deploy its newly acquired platform, once improved to “suit the needs of a digital business,”, the William Hill boss said the US would likely be first, then admitted it was already looking into eventually using this in the UK.
“That’s slightly longer. It is part of my thinking that we could use that platform in the UK, but in the first instance, I would like to use it in the US. There’s a project underway to examine the feasibility of doing that.”
Topping admitted to Jones that such a migration would cost “quite a substantial amount of money”, also adding that:
“I don’t want the guys at what used to be called Orbis to start panicking at the moment. We are looking at a feasibility study. We’ve already had in my lifetime a pretty disruptive technology project at William Hill and it ties up an awful lot of resource. I don’t think it’s a huge gamble, but it’s a gamble nonetheless. We will look at that very carefully, we will be open with our suppliers on that, but if we decide not to do it, we decide not to do it.”
In sports betting, Hill’s said mobile continued to increase in importance for the group, increasing its share of online wagers from 38% to 40% from the first to the second quarter, with its iOS app having been downloaded more than one million times in the App Store since launch in February 2012.
The bookie was now ploughing considerable time and resources into positioning itself to take advantage of a “discernable” shift to mobile gaming, it announced today, with Topping revealing in the earnings call that his online team had set itself a tough two-year benchmark in this space.
“Here’s the new target: mobile will be 40% of gaming net revenue two years from now. Today, it’s 14%. 40% in two years’ time. My view? I think it’s a real stretch, but this team thinks it’s achievable and they’re betting their bonus on it,” said the Scot.
Article written by Stephen Carter
Great move - bored of seeing every operator use the same platform !