Claims have been made that William Hill’s bid to acquire mobile gaming company Probability was scuppered by its partner Playtech.
If true, this marks a further low point in the worsening relationship between the two gambling industry giants. They entered into a joint venture in 2008 whereby Playtech provided the software in return for a 29 per cent share of William Hill Online.
All went well for two years and WHO became one of the biggest online gambling operations in Europe. However, in February William Hill took out an injunction to prevent Playtech from selling its share in WHO. The situation was exacerbated by a walk-out of WHO staff in Israel amid allegations that William Hill planned to relocate WHO to Gibraltar.
William Hill has an option to buy Playtech’s share in WHO in 2013 and 2015, but the company claims that it does not know exactly what it would be buying because of a lack of information coming from Playtech. It feels there is no guarantee that WHO staff in Israel would remain with the company.
An industry analyst has stated that the joint venture between William Hill and Playtech was “badly constructed” and appears to “give Playtech the veto over the enterprise’s strategy direction.” He added: “If it is true that Playtech vetoed the Probability deal, then it is clear that William Hill doesn’t have complete control over William Hill Online.”
