William Hill to Close 700 Betting Shops in the UK

William Hill is going to close nearly 700 licensed betting offices in the UK due to the government’s clampdown on fixed-odds betting machines.

“William Hill has entered into a consultation process with retail colleagues over plans to close around 700 licensed betting offices. This follows the Government’s decision to reduce the maximum stake on B2 gaming products to £2 on 1 April, 2019. Since then the company has seen a significant fall in gaming machine revenues, in line with the guidance given when the government’s decision was announced in May 2018. A large number of redundancies is anticipated with 4,500 colleagues at risk,” the company stated.

B2 gaming machines, also known as fixed odds betting terminals (FOBT), were introduced into betting shops in 1999 and since then, the number of terminals in bookies has grown to 33,468 in the UK. The maximum bet on FOBTs was cut from £100 to £2 in April this year. FOBTs have been under heavy criticism for a number of years for encouraging high-stakes gambling and exposing people to the risk of gambling addiction.