William Hill Gets Good Results from 2014 World Cup Betting

William Hill Gets Good Results from 2014 World Cup Betting

So far, UK bookmaker William Hill (WH) is seeing great results from the 2014 World Cup betting frenzy, since the corporate bookmaker has already surpassed its £200 million goal. Currently, WH is enjoying the largest share of the global sports betting market, taking in as much as £340 million in soccer betting — an achievement that is twice the turnover feat achieved from the previous 2010 World Cup tournament.

As of this date, the group game between England and Uruguay in the early stages of the tournament is the largest game for the UK bookmaker, as most of the £5.5 million placed as bets on the match were staked on a British victory. However, betting on England’s national soccer team has since ceased because the British team made an early exit from the World Cup tournament after losing the match against the Uruguayan team.

 

WH has not disclosed the exact figures on how much the company has already gained from the World Cup betting activities, but the results were enough to cushion the impact of the unexpected outcome of the Brazil-Germany match. Although both teams were a popular bet, a WH spokesperson reported that the bookmaker paid more than a million pounds for its odds-on offer of 300-1 for a Germany win. Moreover, not one of WH’s 120,000 customers who placed bets on the final score, wagered on a 7-1 result in favor of Germany. The company will be providing details on how much it gained from the international football-betting event, in the next financial report scheduled for release on August 01.

All pre-World Cup preparations in order to attract sports betting enthusiasts seems to be paying off, since there has been a notable increase in World Cup betting activities, particularly among the younger set of punters. Actually, most leading UK bookmakers launched initiatives aimed at boosting their share of the sports betting market via the World Cup, as the latter was deemed as the most viable opportunity for doing so. Betting operators have been proactively gearing up and are relentlessly promoting their respective betting facilities, in anticipation of the new taxes that the UK government will start to impose next year. Accordingly, the introduction of the new taxes alone will cost the gambling industry as much as £400 million.

William Hill’s World Cup betting achievement has dislodged Ladbrokes from being the number one market leader, as the latter reportedly encountered a series of setbacks with its online betting business. Still, Ladbrokes is pleased with the amount of business brought in by the World Cup event and with how customers are responding to the sports betting company’s mobile app. This is considering the fact that most punters are placing wagers via mobile devices.

Ladbrokes hopes remain high since the best is yet to come, predicting that the gambling industry’s overall take from the tournament will exceed the £1 billion mark. The second largest UK bookmaker forecasts that British punters would stake as much as £40 million on the forthcoming final between Germany and Argentina this Sunday.