Nevada Regulators Approve William Hill’s Nevada Gaming License
Industry heavyweight and British Top Bookie William Hill PLC was approved by the Nevada Gaming Commission today to acquire 3 Nevada based Sportsbooks.
William Hill agreed last year to pay $55 million to acquire American Wagering Inc., which owns Leroy’s, Brandywine Bookmaking LLC, owner of Lucky’s, and Club Cal-Neva’s sports book business in Northern Nevada.
“The plan is to consolidate the businesses to make it a financially viable business,” James Henderson, director of retail operations at William Hill, told the five-member commission.
William Hill is planning to spend $3 million in improvements before the start of the NFL and NCAA Football seasons start less than two months away. Will Hill has already offered wagering action on these sports internationally for many years. This will be a big move into the central nervous system of American sports betting.
William Hill posted $441 million in profits in 2011, with more than 90 percent of its business done through 2,370 betting shops in the United Kingdom. The bookmaker has more than 1.4 million active online customers, and processes more than 1 million betting slips a day.
“We are U.K. centric. Ninety-two percent of our revenue comes from the U.K,” said Ralph Topping, CEO of William Hill. “We see the opportunity to expand to other regulated markets and the U.S. is the most important and interesting to us.”
The publicly traded company operates in seven countries, including Italy and Spain.
William Hill has been a highly rated sportsbook with SportsbookAdvisor.com since it’s induction into the ratings chart. William Hill currently does not accept players from the USA but accepts players from Europe and Canada.