Hills losing 3,000 customers a week to self-exclusions

William Hill says the number of customers opting to self-exclude or entering into a cooling-off period has risen to as many as 3,000 a week with the firm estimating the full-year financial impact could be as much as ?25m.

The operator, which partly attributed yesterday’s profit warning to the potential impact the number of excluders could have on its digital business, said the reduction in actives had so far set the company back ?2m in 2016.

But it would appear William Hill has been disproportionately affected by the introduction of the self-exclusion and cool-off tools, with a number of its rivals telling eGaming Review they were “surprised” at numbers reported by the operator.

“While we are expecting some impact from the self-exclusions, we were surprised to see the scale of the impact Hills is already predicting,” said one major operator.

Chief executive James Henderson (pictured) told analysts that, when using the value of customers who had excluded so far, the total annual cost could reach between ?20m and ?25m.

And according to Henderson, customers who had either excluded or had chosen to enter into a cooling period off were four times the value of the average punter, with 60% of those primarily gaming clients.

“We have seen a marked acceleration of accounts affected in recent weeks, in particular time outs have increased by about 50% from the start of the year,” Henderson said.

“Currently around 3,000 accounts a week are affected which means the effect on today’s numbers is small at approximately ?2m for the year to date, but the accumulative effect will be more significant according to the extensive modelling we have carried out,” he added.

Henderson said the firm had yet to see any real trends in self-exclusions and time outs with the lowest numbers coming in weeks six and seven but then seeing their highest spike in week 10.

The firm had previously cited the potential impact of the self-exclusion and time out facilities – made available in October – could have on the business and Henderson yesterday hinted there could be more pain to come with ‘reality check’ customer pop-up warnings, similar to those seen on FOBTs, set to be implemented at the end of April.

William Hill also attributed what it described as the “worst Cheltenham results in recent history” for its profit alert.

While UK football results have been more than favourable, Hills said a cocktail of punter-friendly European football results and the costly Cheltenham Festival had seen its gross win margin tumble to 6.2%, 1.9pp behind expectations.

It’s estimated the industry as a whole lost ?60m over the four-day festival, with Hills potentially bearing the brunt through offers such as best industry price until 1pm and money back as a free bet if second.

The Cheltenham Festival was, as ever, awash with special offers and inducements to lure punters in, however, many have questioned whether some firms were aggressive in their attempts to attract business and ultimately paid a heavy price.

William Hill’s share price, which yesterday opened up at 371.30p, this morning sat at 328.60p, down 12%.