William Hill owner says UK arm impacted by tighter gambling restrictions

The gambling group behind William Hill and 888 has revealed stronger revenues for the latest quarter despite weaker-than-expected trading in the UK and Ireland.

Evoke, which also owns the Mr Green brand, revealed that group revenues rose by 1% to £437 million for the three months to March 31, compared with the same period a year earlier.

Its UK and Ireland online business saw revenues fall by 1% for the quarter.

This was largely caused by lower sports revenues as both its gaming and sports betting operations were impacted by the introduction of additional safer gambling measures.

Last year, the Government announced a number of new rules for gambling operators including tighter age and identity verification, which have been introduced in recent months.

Evoke said it saw a 21% drop in active players this quarter as it was impacted by reduced promotional activity.

Nevertheless, the company said it still saw 3% growth in its gaming business in the region.

Evoke said growth across the company has also improved in April, with revenues from the start of the year to April 22 up 4%.

Meanwhile, international revenues for the first quarter grew by 11% as it benefited from growth in Romania.

Evoke’s retail business of betting shops saw sales drop 6% year on year.

Per Widerstrom, chief executive of Evoke, said: “We are building momentum in the right areas of the business with particularly strong growth across our international core markets.

“Whilst the UK&I online and retail performance was behind where we wanted to be in Q1, we have moved swiftly to improve some of the underlying drivers of the performance and have been seeing stronger trends in April.

“With improved customer lifecycle management, a clear customer value proposition, new retail gaming cabinets and an exciting product pipeline, we remain highly confident in our market position and the growth profile of the business.”