Some affiliates may be pleased to hear about “William Hill” acquiring “Playtech” for £424 million. Naturally, this represents a lot of money for Playtech as the two brands have never had the best relationship working together yet this appears to be profitable. WilliamHill’s online prestige took a beating when their head of marketing left the job in October 2011 with all of his support staff. Surely, this negatively affected WilliamHill regarding loyalty problems with their players as many of them were unsatisfied with customer support being unavailable.
The fallout from the marketing and support walk off has left William Hill trying to clean up this PR catastrophe and show their online games & marketing partners that business was running as it should be.
It is unknown and unpredictable if the affiliate program for “WHO Brands” will still remain with Affiliates United. Many affiliates have openly complained about payment problems, terrible communication and problematic reporting.
What they stated :
Mor Weizer, CEO of Playtech :
“William Hill Online has been an overwhelming success and has delivered a cash return to Playtech greater than 3.5 times its original investment, excluding software royalties in the four years since inception.”
Ralph Topping, CEO of WilliamHill:
“Having been advised of the valuation of Playtech’s 29% interest, the Board has concluded that it is in the best interests of our shareholders to exercise our call option to assume full ownership of this attractive, high growth, high performing business.”