William Hill Timeline

1964 :  A 25% tax was levied on Fixed Odds betting. This severely hampered growth of the business.

1966 :  William Hill finally bought into betting shops. In the same year betting duty was imposed for the first time at a rate of 2.5%, later raised to 5% in 1968 and to 6% in 1970.

1970 :  William Hill retired.

1971 :  William Hill died on October 16th. The William Hill Organization became part of the Sears Holdings Group.

1988 :  Grand Metropolitan, owners of Mecca Bookmakers, acquired William Hill, merging the two companies under the William Hill name. Bob Green becomes Managing Director, but later resigned to be replaced by Mike Smith. Peter Bromage-Smith bet £1000 at 12/1 on a White Christmas in London - he lost! William Hill sponsored a Chris Bonington led Yeti Hunt to Tibet - He returned with some evidence but not enough to land odds of 500/1 by convincing Natural History Museum to authorise payout. William Hill horse racing sponsorship package valued at £376,500.

1989 :  Brent Walker purchased William Hill. John Brown became Managing Director of the 1800 betting shop company. The company also has the largest Credit Betting operation in the world. In August William Hill were appointed Official Bookmakers to Golf's European PGA Tour and are represented on course at major events.

1995 :  From January 1st it became legal to open betting shops on a Sunday. From May betting shop windows no longer had to be obscured and the windows were permitted to display lists of odds and details of bets available within. A wider ranger of refreshments, including sandwiches and snacks were permitted in the shops. There was no longer any limit imposed on the size of TVs displayed in the branches. November: Lucky Choice betting commenced, a side bet based on the outcome of the Irish Lottery - William Hill initiative.

1996 :  Betting shop deductions were reduced by 1% from 10% to 9% following a concession in the Budget of the previous November. June 20th :  Amusement with Prize Machines were permitted in betting shops, with cash prizes of up to £10 allowed.

The shops were also allowed to sell racing related publications - books, newspapers, magazines etc. They were allowed to sell Scratchcards other than National Lottery Scratchcards; to accept Spot The Ball coupons and to pay out football pools winnings.

1997 :  It became legal for the location of betting shops to be advertised in newspapers/telephone directories. October 1st: Nomura (Grand Bookmaking Companies) purchased William Hill for £700m.

1999 :  William Hill's proposed stock market float was abandoned when the company was sold to Cinven and CVC Partners for a reported £825 million.

2000 :  William Hill launch off-shore telephone betting service. A call centre in Athlone , Republic of Ireland takes calls from punters and passes them on for acceptance to the William Hill International bookmaking company in Antigua. Deductions of just 3% are levied.

2000 :  William Hill became the first major bookmakers to offer a completely tax and deduction free betting service to UK based clients via the Internet. Hill's domestic site, www.williamhill.co.uk charged a 5% rate of deduction; the international site, www.willhill.com, charged no deductions at all. Later, as a special offer, the domestic site also went deduction-free.

2000 :  Advertising of off-shore betting facilities on Teletext etc
was banned.

2001 :  Chancellor Gordon Brown announced in the Budget that betting duty was to be abolished before January 1st, 2002.

2001 :  Oct 10th, Betting duty was abolished and replaced by Gross Profits Tax on bookmakers.

2002 :  On April 17th William Hill signed a five year deal with the British Horseracing Board for the commercial use of data in their fifteen hundred betting shops in England, Scotland and Wales, together with their telephone and internet betting operations.

Each bookmaker signing up to the deal will pay an annual charge of 10% of gross profits from horserace betting on horse racing in Great Britain, other than in respect of over the counter bets transacted in betting offices where the charge payable will be calculated by reference to the gross profit in each year from each betting office.

2002 :  William Hill successfully floated the Company on 20th June 2002 on the UK Stock Exchange at an offer price of 225 pence per ordinary share. The offer was in excess of 10 times oversubscribed.

2002 :  William Hill purchased the Sunderland Greyhound Stadium in September 2002

2003 :  William Hill purchased the Brough Park Greyhound Stadium in March 2003

2003 :  John Brown retires as Chairman on 31st December 2003

2004 :  Charles Scott is appointed Chairman with effect from 1st January 2004