Title : William Hill might leave Australia over tighter gambling regulations
link : William Hill might leave Australia over tighter gambling regulations
William Hill might leave Australia over tighter gambling regulations
Global gambling company William Hill has announced it is reviewing its Australian operations because of changes to betting laws that take effect next month.
The company, which has 284,000 customers, claims tighter regulation would cut its profits.
Federal and state governments agreed last year to ban online betting companies from extending lines of credit to customers.
In a statement, William Hill said: "Given the credit betting ban in Australia and the likely introduction of a point of consumption tax in a number of states, it is clear that profitability will increasingly come under pressure."
Longtime anti-gambling advocate and former South Australian senator Nick Xenophon has been pushing for a credit betting ban for years.
"I don't have a violin small enough for William Hill," Senator Xenophon said.
"The fact that they are thinking of moving out of Australia because of this very reasonable and well overdue ban on credit betting indicates how greedy and desperate they are."
The credit betting ban, due to come in effect nationally next month, will stop gambling companies offering "free" bets to customers when they run out of money.
"There's a clear understanding from gambling experts, those at the frontline of treating gambling addiction, that credit betting actually fuels the addiction," Senator Xenophon said.
"Clearly a significant proportion of William Hill's profits are coming off the backs of people who were desperate enough in some cases to get credit to continue their losing streak.
"That's why this ban will make a big difference and the fact that it will hit their profitability is a good thing.
"If William Hill wants to get out of the country, good riddance to them."
Online betting remains profitable, analyst says
Point of consumption tax was introduced in South Australia last year, forcing betting companies to pay the state 15 per cent of the net revenue they earn from bets.
Western Australia, Queensland and Victoria are following suit with similar measures.
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But industry analyst Tommy Wu from market research firm IBISWorld said there is still lots of money to be made from gambling in Australia.
"At the moment the Australian sports betting industry [is] actually quite profitable," Mr Wu said.
"[Betting companies have] the ability to scale their operations without significantly increasing costs.
"But there has been strong marketing promotional activity obviously in the industry and that has slightly curbed profitability growth for the players."
Mr Wu said the Australian operations of the UK-headquartered William Hill netted just 3.4 million pounds ($4.7m) in 2016, and in the two years before that it lost nearly 80 million pounds ($110m).
He said the main reason for those huge losses was a large internal restructure.
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