William Hill is committed to customer protection and safer gambling and has been getting on with raising standards. Whether by doing more to protect under-18s and other vulnerable people from exposure to gambling adverts, or identifying at-risk players through technology, we are continually driving up standards to ensure gambling remains as safe and enjoyable as possible.
William Hill was a founding member of the Betting and Gaming Council (BGC), which represents approximately 90% of the non-lottery gambling industry in the UK. William Hill works proactively with other BGC members to raise standards, notably through the Safer Gambling Commitments. Our participation in industry working groups has led to improved codes of conduct and a range of voluntary initiatives.
There has been considerable regulatory change for the industry. In the UK, we have seen a compulsory requirement for all online operators to make changes to how they operate, including: a ban on gambling with credit cards; a ban on reverse withdrawals; restrictions on bonus offers and requirements relating to reality checks (time checks for customers).
We welcome the Gambling Act Review launched by the UK Government in December 2020 and have been actively engaging with the Government as part of the review process to ensure that any new regulations work alongside progress made by our industry and provide clarity and certainty for customers, operators and all those who work in the sector.
We believe it is important that the review is evidence-led, strikes the right balance between protecting the vulnerable and the continued enjoyment of the many tens of millions who happily place the occasional bet, as well as taking a critical look at the growing risks of the black market where there are no consumer protections. In the UK, a recent study by PwC found that unregulated gambling sites were visited c.27m times in a year and the proportion of UK online gamblers that have used an unlicensed operator in the last 12 months has nearly doubled in the last two years from 2.2% to 4.5%.
Key performance measures
| Objective | Measures | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Encourage safer gambling by all customers |
% of online UK customers using deposit limits |
42% |
32% |
18% |
Year-on-year comparison is not possible due to change in methodology. 2020 includes William Hill Gibraltar + Mr Green + Evoke. |
|
Protect the vulnerable |
Number of safer gambling interactions (William Hill UK) |
Retail 24,644 Online 877,872 |
Retail 33,789 Online 200,771 |
Retail 41,837 Online 36,758 |
William Hill took a proactive approach to customer interaction given the Covid-19 backdrop and our approach to continual improvement. This resulted in a very significant increase in total number of customer interactions online. It also led to an increase in retail, relative to the number of trading days (taking into account Covid-19 shop closures). |
|
Number of self-exclusions excl. via multi-operator schemes (William Hill UK) |
Retail 4,784 Online 102,596 |
Retail 8,794 Online 85,803 |
Retail 10,890 Online 38,913 |
Number of customers self-excluding directly from William Hill Retail was impacted by Covid-19 shop closures. Rise in online self-exclusions driven by significant increase in safer gambling messages providing information to customers about the tools available. |
