Next year’s point-of-consumption tax will offer William Hill the chance to take market share and “shove a hosepipe down and turn the tap on” weaker UK rivals, its boss said today.
In response to a question during the company’s Q3 earnings call as to how he saw the impact of next year’s switch to an online tax regime based on location of consumer, rather than company, CEO Ralph Topping said: “We are convinced we are gong to grow market share over the course of the next couple of years. If you look at the last three years, our market share has grown by about 2.5 percentage points. I’m confident that point-of-consumption tax has a silver lining in it, and that is the growth in market share.”
He explained: “I think a large organisation as us with the upwards momentum [we have] should do very well out of point-of-consumption tax in the medium- to long run. Competitors will do what they have to do. As a large organisation I think we are in as good a place as most. Our intention as we go through is if [we see] those who are struggling, we will shove a hosepipe down and turn the tap on.”
Topping was speaking after the operator warned there was no certainty it would make up a £20m shortfall in operating profit incurred during the third quarter. This tumbled 31% year-on-year due to “a marked adverse swing in gross win margin, in both retail and online”, according to finance director Neil Cooper, with the main driver being football results, although it also lost £2.5m to one lucky gambler in the online casino.
Topping however emphasised that underlying performance remained strong, “[t]he fundamentals in this business are right” highlighting “a steadfast change in online volumes since the start of the football season”. Sportsbook turnover was up 51%, new accounts by 35% and average weekly accounts by 41% during August and September, Topping revealed.
“With turnover and growth like that, You don’t need to be Einstein to work out where that could take us when results switch from punter to bookmaker friendly”.
Topping also admitted that the planned move to the Will Hill brand down under would likely start with an interim transition to either the Sportingbet or Centrebet brands.
“There’s a lot of work to be done on the William Hill organisation to get exposure in Australia. I think we have to be very careful about how we do that. Do I think we will end up as William Hill over the fullness of time? Yes I do, but in the meantime, I think the debate is essentially down to Sportingbet and Centrebet.”
Article written by Stephen Carter
