700 William Hill Store Closures Planned
Big news has just been revealed by William Hill, who is a plc bookmaker based in London. The establishment was founded in 1934 and very well known across the UK. William Hill is mainly known for sports betting rather than an online casino, there are 2,300 shops in total which are run by 12,500 employees. Since the recent new betting laws have come into place in the UK it has not been a bright future for land-based casinos and betting shops. From April a new max bet of £2 came into place, there have been discussions of stores starting to close eventually. This is due to business being more successful online where there is no max bet of £2.
William Hills Plans
The first business to talk about store closures is William Hill. They have said plans have been made for stores to be shut from the end of the year. The plans state 700 store closures which will result in job losses for 4,500 people. These closures are due to the company seeing a significant fail in FOBT revenues. This is something I predicted when the new law came into place back in April. It seems the online casino industry is growing more than ever now and more successful which is also thanks to fewer regulations compared to land-based.
It is such a shame peoples jobs are on the line from a law change, the law was changed to benefit gamblers but can be seen as an unnecessary change to some. William Hill has said they will be providing support to all colleagues throughout the process when it comes into place. Also, apply voluntary redundancy and redeployment measures. Since this news, I wonder which big casino business will be next to make a similar announcement. What’re your thoughts on this announcement? Let us know!
