William Hill: profits hit by increased taxation from the government

CEO James Henderson said the firm’s fortunes were hit by £44m in gambling duties but pointed to growth overseas.

With profits down £21m, the new point of consumption tax and the increase in machine games duty were highlighted as major contributers, with the cost of both put at £44m.

UK bookmaker William Hill has reported a fall in half-year profits after being hit by changes to betting taxes.

“Forecast wise, we would not expect much change to day from our PBT £261m and EPS of 25.3p with the additional £5-10m anticipated machine play impact offset by the higher H1 profit base”, he wrote.

He said his Project Trafalgar, to build up a proprietary online system and in-house expertise to rely less on third-party developers, was making excellent progress, but the company is still seen to be lagging rival Ladbrokes despite Hills’ claims to be the “leading UK online operator”.

Meanwhile, the bookmaker branched out to the online lottery market after taking a 29.4% stake in NeoGames.

William Hill has an option to acquire the remaining 70.6% of NeoGames exercisable after either three or five years.

US-focused NeoGames was founded in 2005 and provides online lottery products and services to lottery rights holders to 10 countries across the world, including in the US, Italy, Portugal and Spain.

Amounts wagered with William Hill US were up 49%, with net revenue rising 30%.

Henderson said: “The board is confident that the group remains well positioned to gain share in key markets, notwithstanding the impact of increased taxes and regulatio”.

The interim dividend was raised by 0.1p to 4.1p. The stock has risen by nearly 20% in the past 12 months.