William Hill

William Hill is one of the oldest established names in bookmaking and as the number one bookmaker in the UK and Europe, WilliamHill.com is a good place to start for those new to internet betting.

The William Hill betting website was re-launched in 2008 when William Hill Online was established as the leading online gaming and sports betting business in Europe.

The company's betting interests extend to Retail, where they are the UK's largest High Street bookmaker; Telephone, where the business first began and Online, serving online customers in over 175 countries.

As to be expected from such a successful and experienced operator, William Hill supports its stylish website presentation with some of the best customer services around.

BACKGROUND

William Hill was established in 1934 as a postal/telephone betting business being run behind closed doors and has expanded to become one of the best-known and trusted names in the betting business.

Betting shops were legalised in 1961 and William Hill entered the high street market a little later in 1966 at a time when draconian rules discouraged people from remaining in betting shops with closed windows and smoky atmosphere giving betting shops a poor name.

As legislation was updated over the years, William Hill were able to provide larger, brighter and more welcoming shops that totally changed the perception of High Street betting.

William Hill became the biggest UK bookmaker when acquiring Stanley Leisure PLC in 2005.

William Hill created its online Sportsbook in 1998 and developed the service to include an online casino in 2000. Currently, the William Hill Online portfolio consists of Sports, Casino, Poker and Bingo.

In 2008 William Hill formed a joint venture with leading software provider Playtech to create William Hill Online . William Hill Online has since become one of e-gaming's leading online betting operators with great innovations to the William Hill in-play and mobile offering . 

OFFERS AND PROMOTIONS

William Hill has avoided complex FREE BET offers to welcome new customers to its Sportsbook, opting instead for a simple offer that new customers easily understand.

The William Hill £25 FREE BET is an uncomplicated match bet, the FREE BET is added to the first bet placed, this essentially doubles the stake. The conditions are straight forward too, deposit £10, make a bet with a minimum £5 stake, ensuring the single/cumulative odds are bigger than 1/5 (1.2).

William Hill Sports has two permanent offers, Match Winner and Best Odds Guarantee. Match Winner features a specific event or selection each day and William Hill promise to increase the odds on offer for the featured event. William Hill's Best Odds Guarantee applies to every UK and Irish greyhound race, accept the odds available when your bet is placed and should the SP be bigger, William Hill will match the SP.

Casino, Poker and Bingo follow the example with easy to follow welcome bonuses and William Hill proved a Promotions page which fully explains every offer and bonus.

BETTING OPPORTUNITIES

William Hill Online provides a comprehensive array of Sports betting options and markets. More than 25 various sports are available in addition to betting markets on Politics, Poker tournaments and TV shows such as X Factor and Strictly Come Dancing.

William Hill provide an exhaustive option of betting markets for all major sports such as Football and Horse Racing and you will also find a wide range of Special bets based around breaking sports news such as Next Manager etc.

In-play betting markets for live televised and live streaming sporting events are one of the main options and William Hill ensures a huge choice of in-play betting markets are available round the clock.

The full William Hill Online portfolio is available at the William Hill Online site with Casino, Poker and Bingo supplemented by Skill Games and Virtual Sports.

In 2011 William Hill added Italian , Irish and Canadian sites to it's international portfolio , expanding the reach to 26 different language sites which are available to more than 175 different countries .

DESIGN AND LAYOUT

The William Hill Online website is built on Openbet technology and its appearance is designed to look quite different from the usual style of internet betting sites.

William Hill have been able to provide a lot of features and information into a stylish layout that is easy to follow and lets customers identify upcoming betting opportunities or navigate to the markets stored in the deeper reaches of the website.

William Hill avoids the use of distracting pop-up banners or flashy images preferring a simple, professional style which allows visitors to browse the site without unnecessary intrusion.

NAVIGATION

Customers familiar with other betting websites will quickly adjust to William Hill's layout on first arrival and feel at ease browsing around the site.

William Hill provide the usual tabs to navigate to the different gaming areas on the site, but have elected to go without a navigation sidebar in preference to keeping links to the top of page. This means links to the various sports and other site features of the William Hill Sportsbook remain prominently in view at all times.

The subtle choice of font colours makes it easy to identify the extra features on the website.

Registration and Log In are positioned where visitors would expect them to be and there are plenty of options to make a deposit into your William Hill account including PayPal as well as the more familiar Visa, Delta, Mastercard, Neteller etc. The time taken to process withdrawals will depend on the customer's bank and withdrawal method, however William Hill accept Quick Cash which is instantaneous.

William Hill customers are able to print off a receipt should they find it convenient to collect from one of William Hill's betting shops.

Placing a bet is straight forward, the Bet Slip is always available and William Hill has made it simple to edit should the customer wish to make changes and an easy to use bet calculator accompanies the Bet Slip.

William Hill has also provided a handy link to results (with a search feature), located right beside the Bet Slip. William Hill allows the results process to be customised by use of 'My Favourites' feature, which will benefit frequent customers unable to watch the events live.

MOBILE BETTING

William Hill has a Java application that can be used on most modern mobile phones which can access all the major betting markets and commentaries.

iPhone users are able to download an application compatible with their handsets. William Hill's mobile applications provide account holder with access to the Sportsbook and Casino Club.

William Hill also has introduced some great mobile innovations such as Shake-A-Bet , mobile casino and has followed up it's exclusive Racing Post -partnered horseraing iPhone App with a similarly co-branded product for football entitled Football Bet .  

LIVE STREAMS

William Hill provides live video streams with channels for Football, Tennis and Volleyball via WHTV, which are available free of charge.

Live video streams for UK and Irish Horse Racing are also available and William Hill asks customers to place a bet with minimum stake of 50p in order to watch. William Hill also provides a Radio service with audio commentary of the day's racing and in-play markets between 2pm-10pm every day.

FORM AND STATS

William Hill has teamed up with Racing Post to provide comprehensive form for UK and Irish Horse racing with links to racecards with full form, stats and trends.

Football form and statistics are available via an icon alongside each market but the javascript can be unreliable and frustrating with no response.

Some of William Hill's other sports betting markets will display the chart icon suggesting there is a link to form, but in fact customers are more to link to football stats which is not helpful when betting on Volleyball.

William Hill provides regular previews of betting major sporting events with frequent reports and updates. The archive of articles is huge but William Hill provides a nice layout behind Sports Betting News link to make finding the relevant information painless.

Similarly if you want to catch up with race commentaries, William Hill a selection of Podcasts within this area of the site.

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