They say the bookmaker always wins, but William Hill’s trading update yesterday proved that even when sporting events go the way of the men in trilbies, they can have too much of a good thing. The longer the run of results favouring the bookmaker, the lower the winnings punters have to recycle into fresh bets — a phenomenon evident in the 8 per cent decline in online sports bets reported in the first 17 weeks of the year.
Not that one should feel too sorry for the company. The “unprecedented run of bookmaker-friendly sporting results” it experienced in football and horse racing meant stronger margins in both online and retail, although the group said it expected the unsual betting trends to “normalise over time”.