by Anton Johan
As the New Year has rolled around, William Hill will start the two month deliberation process over which 20 of its Ireland betting shops it will close.
2011 will be a significant year for William Hill, beginning with the difficult decision making regarding the closures.
Spokespeople for William Hill have revealed that the Irish cities that will be affected include Cork, Dublin, Limerick, Tralee and Wexford.
William Hill has stated that they plan to attempt to place all affected workers in other suitable positions of employment within the company. Up to 85 workers could be affected by these plans.
While the announcement of the closures was made in mid-December 2010, the actual decision-making process is only set to begin now that the New Year has rolled around.
In 2009, William Hill saw operating profits drop by 17% while gross wins dropped 8%. This prompted the company to withdraw from Italy after only 18 months and after loosing £1 million.
This came shortly after a software programme that William Hill was working on in-house had to be abandoned after seeing an estimated £26 million loss.
William Hill employs more than 16,000 people and owns 2,300 licensed betting offices in the UK. These offices process around one million betting slips on any given day.
William Hill released an official statement regarding the closures: "The shops selected for closure have not been trading profitably for some time, in spite of efforts made by William Hill to return these shops to profitability. There are no implications for the wider William Hill estate in Ireland or Britain, although the profitability of individual shops is kept under constant review."
