Sports Betting with William Hill Reviewed in Full

Sports Markets and Betting Types

Football is of course a hugely popular market and William Hill are no slouch in this area. There are over 120 leagues provided from around the world, while domestic coverage goes down to regional divisions and youth leagues. The navigation for the football section is made easy through a nice design, as the user can search via in-play, highlights, daily fixtures, all competitions, A-Z team listings and specials. The bookie is also particularly strong when it comes to horse racing, with a market selection that rivals any other operator. There’s comprehensive all-round market coverage here and you’ll almost certainly find what you’re looking for, though the total number of markets is slightly less than some operators.

The number of betting options is also impressive, though the bookie is inconsistent in this area. For example, there are generally fewer betting options for tennis matches, whether major or minor fixtures. On the whole though, the betting options are extremely large. Football for example is well served, where even smaller more obscure fixtures often have loads of betting options. Premier League games have around 250 betting options, which is the strongest showing among all the operators reviewed. The bookie achieves this by offering all kinds of variations and customisations of betting types. Match result betting, for example, can be combined with the number of goals scored in the match. Along with the variations of bets, there’s all the usual you’d expect from a leading online bookie. Betting options in football for example are grouped by goals, specials, corners and scorers, goal time, cards, 5 minutes and other markets. The 5 minute markets are something you don’t find everywhere, especially in such abundance. There are also 5 minute markets for corners, goals, penalties and cards, which is a nice touch. Another interesting bet type offered by the bookie is the performance market, where a team is given points for aspects of their performance and a punter can bet on over/under the number of points received.

Things become a little more restricted in-play. The betting options are certainly good, but lack a little compared to the coverage from some other operators, especially when it comes to more obscure fixtures. I’d also like to see more specialised betting options, such as alternative betting and more options for handicap betting, that punters in the know regularly employ. Again though, the overall range and amount of options is considerable. There’s also a mix of the traditional betting options mixed with the newer online, in-play types of bets, though there are definitely less in-play only bets available here. It improves for the bigger fixtures, but for many events, quick-fire in play betting can only be won by next goal scorer or match markets betting within a time frame.

I really admire the effort the bookie has gone to, to cater for as many betting options as possible. Though as I previously mentioned, the coverage is a little inconsistent across sports, such as cricket, in relation to betting types and for in-play action. On the whole, the betting options are excellent, but with more consistency across the board, full points could definitely be earned here. Also, with so many variations of bets available, the platform could do with tidying up a little. A drop box here or there wouldn’t go a miss, or a sliding scale for bets such as correct score, rather than listing all the potential outcomes in a list that takes up half a page. A score of 9 is well earned and fair.

In-play Betting & Live Streaming

As I touched on above, there’s excellent in-play coverage of the major betting markets. In-play betting is a huge feature of all online bookies and we’ll give it due care and attention in a separate review on the live betting section. Ultimately, there are a good number of live-streams that can be streamed just through having a positive account balance and the in-play arena is particularly strong here.

Multiple Betting Options

System and multiple betting fans will find all their wishes granted here. William Hill sees itself as a bit of a horse racing specialist and the system betting options available for horses and greyhounds really backs up this claim. All possible variations of forecasts and tri-casts are available, such as straight forecast doubles, reversed forecasts, trebles and combination tri-casts. Accumulators go up to a maximum of 25 selections, which is especially high, while pretty much all other system betting options are available. Trixie, patent and heinz are all here, along with loads of others, including goliath and super heinz, for those that like their odds long. These options allow up to 8 individual selections to be combined in system betting, which is a decent amount.

But that’s not all. It’s possible to combine more than 8 selections in system bets, as William Hill will allow you to continue adding selections and betting as accumulators or system doubles, once 10 or more selections are chosen. This is fantastic coverage and will satisfy even the most serious system bettors. The multiple betting process is smooth and clear here and I like that potential returns from all bet types are displayed. The bet slip is clear and unobstructed by banners or ads, which makes keeping track of your bets easy. The bookie is a real winner in this area.

Bet & Win Limits

Another area where the bookie is a high flyer is with the thresholds for bets and winnings. Maximum winnings are determined by the sport which is being bet on. Football, horse racing and tennis have the highest maxes, at C$2,000,000, C$1,000,000 and C$250,000 within a 24hour period respectively. These are among the highest levels of all our reviewed bookies. At just 3p for single bets and 1p for multiples, William Hill easily beats the competition and offers the lowest minimum stakes for both singles and multiples around. With such low minimums and high maximums, William Hill is especially accommodating for both high rollers and casual gamblers alike.

Competitive Odds Levels9

As you can see from the table below, William Hill offers competitive odds across most sports betting markets. I think it’s fair to say that the bookie sits comfortably in the middle when it comes to the quality of their odds. No markets are granted especially generous odds, but then neither are any given vastly inferior odds either. This middleman status is matched by the small range of the differences between high and low odds on any market’s fixtures. While some bookies have a pretty big range between the highest and lowest odds within a market, that range here is pretty small, as William Hill keep things pretty tight, meaning while you know you’re not going to get the best odds here, you can rest assured that you certainly won’t be getting the worst either.

William loses points however due to having slightly lower odds where it really counts, in the most popular sports betting markets. Although tennis fans can find competitive odds, football and horse racing fans are perhaps better off looking elsewhere to get the maximum value from bets on these sports. Though the odds for these sports are by no means low, it’s not hard to find higher elsewhere on the market. Football fans can instead find the best football odds at BetVictor.

How is the Online Platform? 9

So, we’ve looked at some of its features, but how does the online platform look and feel? In a word, nice. Like most things with William Hill, the platform is done well and is effective, but it’s nothing out of the ordinary. The blue and white colour scheme is classic and despite the mass of information on the front page and the fact that the platform only utilises the centre of the screen, things don’t appear too condensed. The platform makes good use of symbols for its features such as cash out, touchline stats and live-stream. This means that you’ll always know whether a selection is valid with these features. The touchline stats feature gives helpful info and previous results relevant to selections, which is a nice feature and can help when making those tricky decisions.

In line with this, everything is laid out logically, clearly and how you’d expect, so navigating between areas is a breeze. The front page has quick links to the in-play arena, the upcoming schedule, live-streaming and all the sports markets available with the bookie. Account information is displayed at the top, while the bet slip is ever present on the right hand side of the screen, acting as a drop down menu as selections are added. I particularly like that a section of current in-play fixtures are displayed on the front page, so you can make an in-play bet even quicker if needed. Once you’ve clicked on the sports market of your choice, any in-play markets are shown if available, followed by upcoming highlights, all the promotions and specials for the market and the complete list of leagues and tournaments. This layout is effective in that everything relevant to the market is displayed together and you’ll be aware of in-play fixtures and any offers available for the sport, but I would like to see the leagues list higher on the page. There are also handy quick link tabs for other areas of interest, such as A-Z listings, specials, future events and coupons.

Things are similarly organised at the in-play area. All the current in-play fixtures are arranged by sport and displayed on the main page, where they can be viewed by scrolling down. Or you can select the sport market of choice from a drop down menu at the top to just display the events from this particular market. Once on the page for a specific event things get a little messier however. All the betting options available are listed in descending order, which is of course fine. However, when it comes to bets such as correct score or goal scorers, where the betting options are huge, all the different options are listed on the page. This makes things cluttered and there are definitely better ways of arranging these options. This can be overcome by using the tabs at the top of the page, which split bets into their type, such as goal or corner markets. But for those browsing and scrolling through the selections, the layout here is a bit of a headache. Again, this is a small criticism and since the betting options are arranged in tabs, these tabs can simply be minimised if they are not relevant. However, a sliding scale or two would definitely not go amiss.

How to Place a Bet

Like with most bookies, placing a bet is made simple thanks to the use of the bet slip and it is really a three step process. Once you’ve located your selection, it’s just a case of clicking the odds of the bet type you want to add. This will add the selection to the bet slip which will expand on the right side of the screen. Once the selection is made, the next step is to enter the bet stake into the box next to the selection in the bet slip. When you enter a stake, you’ll be able to see the potential winnings from the bet underneath. If that’s all to your liking and you’re ready to confirm, simply hit place bet. The bet will be confirmed and can now be viewed in the open bets tab in the bet slip. Once the selection is in-play, you can view it in this tab to keep an eye on the cash out value.

• [1] Make Your Selection(s)Select your market and then bets from the available fixtures. Simply click the odds of a bet to add them to the bet slip.
• [2] Enter in the StakeEnter the amount that you want to bet in the bet slip. Multiple betting options will appear below the selections.
• [3] Confirm your Selection(s)Once all selections have been added and the bet stake entered, you can confirm your selection(s) by hitting place bet.

Multiple betting here is just as simple. After the first selection has been made just continue adding further selections and they will be automatically added to the bet slip. When you’re done adding the selections, head to the bet slip where all the possible multiple betting options from the selections will be displayed. Enter your stake into the box next to the bet type of your choice and hit place bet. The potential returns are also shown for multiple bets, which should be the norm, but is surprisingly missing even from some leading online bookies.

Other Important Stuff

With all the important information regarding the bookie’s platform and placing bets, it’s time to get into the other crucial issues. Licensing and regulation, good customer service and security might not appear all too important when you’re thinking of raking in the profits from the welcome bonuses available with all these operators, but it definitely pays to be aware of these qualities from the start.

The Background of the Business

Having been around since 1934, William Hill know all there is to know about the world of sports betting. They were also the first major operator to go online in 1998, so they should be among the forerunners of expertise in online sports betting. The company employs over 16,000 people across 9 countries, while last year there were over 3 million players registered with the online sportsbook. The bookie is pretty prominent in sponsorship, sponsoring a large number of horse races, along with being the official sportsbook of the England football team since 2012.

Customer Service 7

The help section is among the more helpful of all the operators reviewed here. Should you need to ask a specific question to a customer service representative, then you can do so via live chat, phone or email, which are manned 24 hours a day, or even via the official customer service twitter handle. This is a good customer service offering, but this amount of coverage is standard across the market leaders, and I would expect this level of service at the least.

The bookmaker hasn’t scored too highly when it comes to customer service and I do feel a little bad about this, since I’ve put each operator through some intensive tests when reviewing customer services and the representatives at the live chat desk here were usually helpful and polite. However, the waiting times here are amongst the longest I’ve ever experienced, even at what would seem like off peak hours. There is a large customer base, but I don’t think that is enough to justify the waits, since other operators have more customers but much shorter waits for a response from the customer service team. I also experienced a few occasions where the agent was not at all helpful and did not appear to have any desire to be helpful, which is of course not good. This experience is made even more painful by having to enter your name and email each time you want to enter live chat. The response times for email are a little quicker, but still slightly below average.

Licensing & Security 8

Having moved its operation offshore to Gibraltar in 2009, William Hill is licensed by the Government of Gibraltar and the Gambling Commission for players. Responsible gambling is of course treated very seriously here; deposit limits can be adjusted at daily, weekly and monthly intervals, individual betting limits can be set and there is a self-exclusion option. In line with this, there are a whole host of partner organisations the bookie can direct those with problems in this area towards, including Gam Care, Gamblers Anonymous and the Responsible Gambling Trust.

William Hill’s operation is regulated by the Gambling Commission. In terms of the performance of its systems and fairness of betting processes, the bookie is a member of the European Sports & Security Association (ESSA) and is audited by the Independent Betting Adjudication Service (IBAS). Both organisations work to ensure integrity for both the bookie’s services and the sports betting market as a whole, providing a better and fairer service, as well as a platform for resolving disputes to punters.

One of the few disadvantages of betting online compared to in a betting shop is the potential of a user’s personal or financial data being stolen. The security and encryption capabilities of a bookie should be among the top concerns of online gamblers therefore. As a leading sportsbook, you’d expect William Hill to have strong security features in place and it passes this test with flying colours. The online platform is protected by 128bit encryption from Thawte, which serves to encrypt all personal data sent to and from the site, protecting your data from falling into the wrong hands.

Lots of Bonus Points7

Time to spice things up a little as William Hill heads into our bonus points round. Unfortunately, the bookie gets off on the wrong foot when its live streams are put to the test. While there’s great horse racing coverage, there are only a handful of live-streams available for other sports each day. When it comes to sponsorship it does better. As we touched on earlier, there are plenty of sponsored horse-races, along with the bookie being one of the England football team’s many sponsors. In the past William Hill have been the official shirt sponsors of Spanish football team Malaga CF too.

• Live Streams.1/3
• Sponsorship.2/3
• Awards.2/2
• Extra Markets.1/1
• Bonuses.1/1
• Bonus Points.7

Things improve however in the awards round. The bookie has experienced a steady stream of success with its online platform, culminating in being awarded the coveted title of sports operator of the year at this year’s International Gaming Awards. It’s another good performance in the extra markets round too. William Hill offers a large amount of bets on things such as popular culture and award ceremonies, along with more high-brow betting options, such as politics and financial markets.

The final round is the bonus round – that is, evaluating the bonuses available with the bookie. Firstly, on the plus side, there are two different welcome bonuses here, along with a host of specials and promotions from accumulator insurance to money back specials. I’ve given the bookie full marks here (well, it is only one), but in truth, its welcome bonuses are not the strongest, but it definitely picks up points for the variety of offers.

Conclusion – A Great All-Rounder

All in all, William Hill has come through this test unscathed with a solid performance. The operator clearly put a lot of thought and effort into providing a great online platform and they have been successful in doing so. It scores highly in all the important areas for an online bookie. There is excellent market coverage, competitive odds and with its range of payment methods and lowest minimum stakes, William Hill leads the pack. However, delve just a little bit deeper and it becomes apparent that despite all the features and options being available, some aspects lack real depth. From the classic blue and white interface to the range of offers available – everything here is nice, but it lacks that special spark.

And that’s the thing with this bookie. There are no real huge weaknesses, but then there are no real huge strengths either. Everything is done well, but there’s nothing to truly excite a customer. The odds levels are competitive but not the best, the market coverage is strong but not the biggest and the offers are generous but… you get the picture! The welcome bonus offer is of low value and despite there being two to choose from, the bookie does lose points here. On the whole though, William Hill is a solid all-round bookie that will surely serve your needs, whatever they are.

Q&A/FAQ

We have discussed throughout this article the key indications of quality bookmaking at William Hill, if you have any further questions, send us an email at info@bestbettingsites.com.

How can I send my documents to verify my identity?

As part of its Know Your Customer (KYC) verification process, William Hill will sometimes ask for documents confirming your age and identity. These can be uploaded via live chat, emailed or sent via SMS text.