Strong Fourth Quarter Results for William Hill

The last quarter of last year saw a rise in bets placed over the counter and money taken by gambling machines for William Hill. They reported an 11% growth in the number of bets placed in their shops compared to the same period in 2010 as well as a 7% rise in gross wins from their gambling machines.

Ralph Topping, the Chief Executive, said that William Hill’s performance in 2011 was “very positive” considering the current economic conditions. He went on to say that the overall “performance shows we’ve seen the benefit of a predominantly low-ticket leisure activity.”

At present punters at William Hill are enjoying great odds on the 2011 Costa Book Awards. The favourite to win is poet and debut biographer Matthew Hollis with his biography of poet Edward Thomas “Now All Road Lead to France: The Last Years of Edward Thomas” at 2 – 1.

In joint second place is Carol Ann Duffy’s for “The Bees” and novelist Andrew Miller for his novel “Pure” with odds of 3 – 1. Finally, in joint third place are Christie Watson’s novel “Tiny Sunbirds Far Away” and Moira Young’s book “Blood Red Road” with odds of 5 – 1.

The aim of the Costa Book Awards is to recognise the best books by writers based in the UK and Ireland from the past year. There will be five winners of the award, each of which will be awarded £5,000 having been chosen from almost 600 entries. The overall winner will receive a prize of £30,000.

William Hill spokesman, Graham Sharpe, said that this year’s list “boasts great quality and depth” and it will be extremely difficult for the judges to pick a winner. The winner will be announced at an awards ceremony at Quaglino’s in London on Tuesday 24th January.