William Hill - Not Recommended

William Hill are absolute giants of UK bookmaking, and along with Entain and Flutter they dominate the British betting landscape.  If you are looking for a reliable bookie who have almost every product and market you could dream up then this is your home.

This is a betting site that does everything; wide scale streaming, huge market range and depth, and high value long term offers to complement them. You could spend all day exploring their website and still not have found everything that they can offer.

This bookie is so accomplished it could serve as your one and only if you wanted it to, but it absolutely has to be in your portfolio if not. The betting experience at William Hill is exceptional.

The William Hill Experience

There is an awful lot that you can do on this website. This is the place to come if you are serious about betting and you want to use the full range of features. Simply put; if you can’t find what you are looking for here then it probably doesn’t exist.

I’ll cover the betting features later, but first we have 64 different sports to talk about. Now they won’t all be available all of the time, canoeing and street hockey don’t frequently make the headlines as far as I’m aware, but it’s good to know that fencing, ten pin bowling, and beach soccer will be available when the big fixtures are happening.

Anything more mainstream will be always available in force, and with plenty of market variety too. Premier League games come with at least 500+ markets pre-event and more once they get underway, and you are looking at around 100+ even for National League fixtures. Football is usually a good barometer for the rest of the sports too, list and this is certainly the case here.

You will get above average market depth in all categories and with odds that often peak out above the rest for big games, but dipping back down again for everything else. Still, the prices you get will never be dreadful, and there are plenty of promotions to get stuck into.

Here are a few that have been live in the past:

• Best Odds on UK and Irish horses and greyhounds
• Extra places on selected races each week
• Bet Boosts you can use on bets of your choice
• Money back as cash or free bet deals
• % of losing in-play bets back as free bet
• Daily enhanced odds
• Flash odds
• Bet Boosts on qualifying acca’s.

So lots of reasons to come here in the first place and also to check in regularly. This makes William Hill a good candidate for bettors who are looking for a steady stream of regular customer offers over big flash in the pan deals.

Lastly, I’ll mention the website itself. It flows beautifully for such a goliath, and the mountain of content contained within is very neatly packed away but always ready and waiting when you want it. It’s seriously impressive both visually and from a functional perspective.

Each sports category has its own mini menu which I found particularly helpful once I figured out it was there, and customers are kept well informed at every stage of navigation; be it with icons indicating cash out, live streaming, and stats, or the number of markets available in each event.

Betting on horse racing is a great strength here as you might expect from an old school bookie like William Hill, and not just because of the worldwide coverage they provide, either. The horse racing interface (and greyhound racing for that matter)  is so clear and informative that I would be tempted to bet here even if horse racing was all I ever bet on.

Betting Features

This is where William Hill really prove their worth and make their presence known.

Every betting feature you have ever come across will be available here, and one or two you might struggle to find at many other bookies too.

Live betting and the mobile app are two major strengths, but they both deserve sections of their own, so first off, have a little look through this lot:

• WH Radio – This is a lovely companion to the betting markets it is available on, such as horse racing. It also helps to retain that traditional feel that William Hill is known for.
• WH TV – Going one better, this grants free access to live coverage of many races throughout the day with excellent quality streams and good commentary.
• Gaming & Casino – The range of gaming products is dizzying. Casino, live casino, scratch cards, bingo, poker… and each category is packed with the very best the industry has to offer.
• Virtual World – Wager on virtual horse and dog races (jumps and flats), football, or cycling with events starting every 4 minutes. Probably one of the best products on the market graphically, and with a decent number of betting markets per event too.
• Results Service – Available on all sports and dating back to 12 months prior. An excellent tool to use in conjunction with the stats.
• Stats – Also known as WH Touch Line, this is seriously impressive. Detailed team and player information is available even from countries like Cyprus, Qatar, and Estonia so you can really get stuck in to some stats based betting.
• Cash Out – It’s widely available and you can also choose to cash out just a portion of your bet as opposed to the whole stake if you would like.
• #YourOdds – Can’t see the bet you want to make? Give them a shout and ask for it and you will have odds tailor made for you, it might even get listed on their website for other people to choose.
• News/Blog – Again, probably one of the best there is. This could run as a website in its own right. It’s absolutely jam packed with articles and opinion pieces etc.

I have probably missed a couple too, it’s a seriously busy site that always has something new and interesting to offer just around the corner.

Live Betting

There is brilliant live betting availability at William Hill, with events filtered by sport, league/competition, and then division. They provide live coverage of all levels of football both home and abroad, full tennis and other popular sports, as well as niche sports like handball.

It’s the way everything fits together that makes betting live so enjoyable here though. Apart from the fact there is cash out and live streaming available, the interface creates an exciting place to bet regardless and easily keeps pace with the event in question.

There is plenty of match info and stats available for each event, and betting lines are categorised to save you from a scrolling marathon. Plus, the infographic is designed so that you can easily follow the progress of the match at the same time as analysing the statistical info.

App Capability

William Hill have so many products that they have also developed several different apps, so make sure you download the right one. The benefit of this is that no app is overloaded with unnecessary data needed for another, so they are all super quick to respond to commands.

It’s a snappy product that more than delivers on what it promises with nothing lost in terms of features or betting options, and the main menu – which is your key to most areas of the site – is an impressive piece of web design which makes navigation very speedy indeed.

There are some quick links available as well which smoothly pop you over to where you want to be. Smooth is a good word to describe the app all over actually, it seems to know what you want to do almost before you do.

Live betting is just as satisfying on the app as it is on the main website, while any instances where the number of sub-menu options would cause excess scrolling has been solved by using horizontal scroll bars.

In my opinion, it’s one of the most useable and powerful apps out there, and it feels instinctive from one step to the next.

About William Hill

Everyone in Britain has seen a William Hill shop, they have a presence on every UK high street and are as synonymous with betting as fish is with chips.

Mr William Hill, born in Birmingham, started out as an illegal bookmaker in Ireland where he was stationed with the Royal Irish Constabulary Reserve Force. He went on to lose all of his money though, where upon he moved back to London in 1934 and set up an illicit gambling den, taking advantage of a system loophole that allowed off-course bets by postal order rather than cash.

William Hill went from strength to strength until high street gambling was made legal in the 60’s. Mr Hill was not a fan but eventually and reluctantly set up his first betting shop in 1966. After his death in 1970 the company was sold on several times eventually becoming owned by Cinven and CVC equity firms. In 2008 the group merged with Orbis and Playtech boosting their online betting site operation.

You will have seen William Hill advertising about, they have a big budget and claim to be “the home of betting”. Hill’s can boast a great mobile app, excellent streaming and fantastic market depth and odds. A traditional and trusted old bookmaker who have properly embraced the online betting revolution.

It’s a real story of humble (and illegal) beginnings, of a man who started trying to make some extra money on the side and turned it into a profitable business that outlived him (William Hill died in 1971) and grew to become a private limited company with a net income of over £716 million in 2018.

It did eventually lose its independence though, when Caesars Entertainment bought the brand in 2021, then sold off the European assets to 888, who now own the brand and will be running it going forward.

Payment & In-Store Betting

Being such a long standing and well established company, William Hill have good relations with a large number of payment providers, and of course as a physical bookie as well as an online one you also have the option to visit one of their 1,400+ stores and place your bet in person.

This can be preferable if you are planning a bit of a session on the horses, for instance, because they will show all of the races and have all of the information you need on hand right there in the shop. There is also the social aspect to consider – rarely will you be the only person in a William Hill store.

If you are betting online, you can use the following payment methods and there are no fees attached:

Of course, cash is also an option if you can be bothered to leave the house.

William Hill Plus

There is no limit to how little you bet if using cash in store, but the other benefit here is that you can join William Hill Plus.

This card allows punters with online accounts full flexibility with their money because they can cash in shop bets on their mobile, or collect winnings from online bets in cash in store. This gives you more options but crucially allows you to get your hands on some cash much sooner if you want to.

You can also deposit to your online account using cash if you like, or use the card on the in store gaming terminals. You might even get the odd exclusive Plus Card promotion too. It’s free to join so if you are planning to be a William Hill customer you may as well join.

Main Strengths

It has to be the market availability. They accept bets on everything and double down on that with fantastic market depth from one sport to another.

Combined with the selection of offers and promotions and a fantastic website packed with features it makes William Hill arguably the best all purpose bookie that exists today.

There is no chink in the armour here, it is a solid, well rounded, well maintained, and interesting online betting destination that is easy to navigate and fun to use.

It works as part of a portfolio too, but if you can’t be doing with all of that and just want to settle in at one bookie and use them for everything then you must consider William Hill.