William Hill and NetRefer are pleased to announce their partnership to enhance William Hill Online’s Affiliates United program through NetRefer’s Performance Marketing suite.

Rated by EGR Magazine as one of the most powerful gaming operators on the planet, William Hill Online is a significant partner and an exciting addition to NetRefer’s growing client base. This partnership continues to assert NetRefer as market leaders in affiliate management and performance marketing.

William Hill Online’s new affiliate programme will offer state of the art functionality including fully managed online hosting, advanced media tracking, dedicated customer support and account management, flexible reward plans, attractive affiliate commissions, on time payments, and extensive reporting along with other industry leading marketing tools. This will empower the business with all the necessary functions to support CMOs, marketing and affiliate managers and affiliates effectively and efficiently.

William Hill Online has always enjoyed a very strong brand image, and through the implementation of their new affiliate platform, this will encourage further growth for their online business, a key objective for all NetRefer’s online gaming partners.

Anat Errell, Head of Marketing Operations for William Hill Online, said: "This is a very important chapter in our business, and we are very excited to be working with the industry leaders in affiliate marketing to ensure all our esteemed affiliates and marketers are provided with the leading edge solution in the business. We are proud to have selected NetRefer as trusted partner for our marketing solutions".

Julian Buhagiar, CEO of NetRefer Malta, said: "It has been a pleasure to work closely with the marketing and technical teams at William Hill Online to ensure they are provided with all the latest marketing tools to fulfil their requirements. Our goal is to ensure all the affiliate team as well as their affiliates are provided with a fully configurable rewards engine, clear and flexible reporting, in-depth analytics as well as user friendly dashboards available in over 99 languages to ensure market reach and localisation for William Hill’s entire online brand."

The British bookmaker William Hill has very strong ties with various sporting associations, and quite rightly too. They make their money from sports-betting, but have a very strong online presence, not only in sports-betting, but for bingo, spread, betting, casino games and even online poker. Online gambling and sports-betting firms in particular have a long history of sponsoring sports teams, but this time William Hill has gone really big and is supporting an entire association – William Hill will become an "official supporter" of the national Scottish team, after signing a two year agreement with the Scottish Football Association.

William Hill’s Chief Marketing Officer – Kristof Fahy – says these are exciting times in football and they are extremely excited to be involved with the Scottish National team. The road to Rio is on, so, not only does the sponsorship agreement strengthen their ties with football in Scotland, they also get to jump aboard the Road to Rio bandwagon. The 2014 FIFA World Cup will be held in this World-class Brazilian city. The William Hill Scottish Cup is already sponsored by this firm, and they serve as the Scottish Premier League’s (SPL) official betting partner.

Obviously William Hill would love to see of the Scottish side go all the way to a place (if not the top) in the 2014 World Cup finals. But one thing it is going to be, is a fascinating journey.
Campbell Ogilvie, who is President of the Scottish Football Association is in turn delighted to have Will Hill as their official sponsor – heck they need all the help they can get – but the brand has already showed robust commitment to Scottish football, so this is not a new in-road for them. The online gambling company seriously are one of the biggest Scottish football supporters. This new sponsorship merely cements their position as such even more.

The agreement comes into force with immediate effect; in fact we expect they have had the new shirts made already! William Hill receives a whole host of sponsorship rights; these include; branding, hospitality, advertising, and exclusive content and imagery.

It is interesting to note that this British Bookmaker is also one of the sponsors of the English Football Association, but there is no conflict of interest. They have served as an official supporter of the England side and FA Cup in the past, and will continue to do so till the end of the FIFA World Cup in 2014.

After England’s dismal performance at the 2010 FIFA World Cup, let’s hope that the Scottish side can show them a thing or two this time. There was massive debate after England was sent home – about whether or not this team had become too spoiled by their mind-blowing earnings, and had somehow come to the conclusion that when they were playing for their country, they had the right to underperform. Let’s hope things have changed somewhat, and there will be a different performance in 2014.

William Hill could be taking a BIG gamble by taking on Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs Service, but then again taking BIG gambles is their business! The British Bingo industry has done this and won when Mecca went to European Union Supreme courts to support their contention that they were being over-taxed on ‘interval’ bingo games. It was worth the fight for Mecca (the Rank Group); we can’t remember the exact figure, but at the end of the day HMRS had to pay back over £36 million. This sum made a very nice difference to their bottom line in the year it was paid.

William Hill wants to challenge the Tax on "online" gambling profits – they are moaning about 15% – but we think they should count themselves lucky, this is what land operators have to pay out, and land bingo operators are required to pay out even more. 15% is the proposed tax level for online gambling businesses, and quite honestly, as they have had to pay no tax at all for more than ten years in the biz, what the heck is their problem?

We’ll tell you what their problem is – In the 2012 half year report, William Hill profits reached a whopping £68.9 million just for their online business. Who wants to pay out 15% of money like that, when they have previously needed to pay nothing at all? Taxation for this industry in the UK is only planned to fall due from the end of 2014, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer wants to raise approximately £200 million from online betting. We would assume that this amount also includes revenues from other forms of Internet gambling enterprises.

Virtually all of the large bookmaking and other gambling firms in the UK, which offer online services have moved operations to offshore sites such as Malta, Gibraltar, Alderney and Isle of Mann, in order to escape UK taxes. But if we think about it logically, while they are offering services to a UK audience and earning profits from this, surely they should be subject to some sort of taxation. We have to remember that there are only two sure things in life – one is death, the other is taxes, and there is no escaping the facts.

The company has already briefed their lawyers to build a case against the proposed taxation, which will be a "point of consumption tax". Lawyers that specialize in gambling law have warned that under European Law it is illegal to restrict free movement of goods or services for tax purposes, but this has not stopped countries such as Belgium and other European countries from jealously guarding their online gambling borders. Whether William Hill will be successful or not, based on these precedents and what has become tacit, remains to be seen. But whatever happens in the end, it seems that William Hill is taking no chances, and just like Baden Powell taught the Scouts – we should always be prepared.

William Hill might be one of the biggest bookmaking brands in the UK, but when they heard that the USA might be making online gambling legal in the near future, they were madly keen to get into this market. First off, gambling online will start intrastate, and this means individual states will be responsible for making their own laws in this regard.

One of the first at the starting gate for state-legislation was Nevada, and William Hill took a very big gamble by investing $53.25 million in three Nevada gambling concerns. These acquisitions are; Brandywine Bookmaking, American Wagering Inc and Club Cal Neva Satellite Race and Sportsbook.

It appears as though this gamble has paid off and will continue to pay off big time, as the need to supplement state coffers through additional tax revenue schemes, spreads like wild-fire throughout the USA. Nevada state administration has ensured that they are now legal to offer online gambling licenses, and William Hill is one of the first to be granted a license from the Nevada Gaming Commission.

William Hill has a wealth of experience in the online gambling business; this brand is not only about High Street retail betting shops. They have been offering super services online for a good deal of time in the UK. The UK as we know has a well-developed infrastructure for the Internet gambling industry. They offer online sports betting, online bingo, a casino, virtual gaming such as Rugby Union, snooker and more; poker, financials, skill, mobile, Arcade and Vegas-type games. UK customers have developed an eclectic and sophisticated taste for these types of games, so, William Hill is well placed in Nevada to offer a superior online service.

It made good sense for this brand to get into the US at the very beginning, as getting a foothold in the US market while legislation is under review, is the way to make sure they get in on the ground-floor with a chance to win. Online gambling was extant in the USA prior to 2006; however, the promulgation of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Act (UIGEA) changed all of this. So, essentially the USA is six years behind the UK in relationship to this virtual industry – we all know just how fast technology advances, so, they are way behind.

This is a significant step by William Hill as the ban is expected to be relaxed in the future state-by-state. To date we have no idea if UIGEA will change Federally, but according to Federal Government. It is up to each state to decide whether they wish online gambling to be made legal.

The acquisitions of the three Nevada-based gambling concerns were dependent on the outcome of the William Hill license applications being granted. Now that this has taken place, we can expect it to be all systems go. Obviously the sooner they get websites up and running, the sooner they can expect a return on their investment.

Gaming software developer, Playtech, has just announced its acquisition of Ash Gaming. Playtech is already providing software solutions to a massive part of the online gaming industry and is one of the top suppliers of online gaming software. They have acquired Ash Gaming for a total of £23 million with the first £15.5 million being paid straight away and a further £7.5 million being paid over the next three years. The online gaming giant has been making acquisitions of online gaming companies throughout the industry and their latest deal takes the total to 11 acquisitions including 4 in 2011.

Playtech said that the acquisition "Enhances Playtech’s wholly-owned content library and value chain economics; complements Playtech’s technology leadership with additional premier content capability." The Playtech CEO Mor Weizer added that, "We see this as complementing our strategic actions by ensuring class leading content alongside our leadership in technology. Together this makes a powerful combination and by owning significant games content we will maximize both revenue and earnings across the value chain. In newly regulated markets both in Europe and other territories such as Canada, Ash Gaming’s content is set to gain considerable traction."

With Ash Gaming now a part of the Playtech empire it is expected that the online gaming firm will be able to increase the quality of the online gaming options that they provide to front end online casinos. Playtech is already well known for providing superior products to the online casino industry. Ash Gaming was founded in 2002 and specialises in innovation within the online gaming sphere.

This is good news for players at William Hill, which is powered by Playtech, as this means that their games are going to soon be seeing the innovations that Ash Gaming has become famous for. Players can expect to find that their favourite games are going to be even more fun to play in the near future.