William Hill to Close 700 Betting Shops, Cutting 4,500 Jobs

(Bloomberg) -- British bookmaker William Hill Plc plans to close 700 shops as it feels the impact of a law limiting bets on roulette and poker machines.

The move will lead to about 4,500 job losses, William Hill said in a statement on Thursday. It said the closings, which affect close to one-third of the company's 2,300 outlets, are likely before the end of the year.

The cuts will add to the growing number of empty storefronts on the U.K.'s shopping streets as merchants hit by the shift to online shopping and consumer uncertainty over Brexit close their doors.

Retailers ranging from Marks & Spencer Group Plc to billionaire Philip Green's Arcadia Group Ltd. are scaling back, while the likes of department-store chain BHS have already disappeared. Over the past year, employment in the sector fell by 2.4%, or 74,000 jobs, according to the British Retail Consortium.

Betting firms are reeling from new U.K. limits on so-called fixed-odds betting terminals, which the government announced in May last year, as it sought to curb problem gambling. British lawmakers cut the maximum bet on the devices to 2 pounds ($2.52) from 100 pounds, a change that took effect in April.

Betting Limits

The gambling industry has been warning of store closures and job losses as a result. In March, William Hill said up to 900 shops could be at risk of closing. Remaining outlets will continue to take bets on everything from soccer games to elections.

William Hill, founded in 1934, began opening and acquiring betting shops in the U.K. after they were legalized in the 1960s. Even before the limits on betting machines, declines were fueled in recent years by the advent of online gambling.

The shares were little changed in late morning trading in London.

--With assistance from Ellen Milligan, Paul Jarvis and Joe Mayes.

To contact the reporter on this story: Rebecca Penty in London at rpenty@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Kenneth Wong at kwong11@bloomberg.net, Rebecca Penty, Eric Pfanner

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