Will Hill Pays Big For Abandoning Private Gaming Software

Online gaming company, William Hill Plc, has faced a heavy loss for its recent attempt to develop its own online gaming software, "NextGen". The project was abandoned last year after an independent review, leaving the company with the familiar option of outsourcing online gaming software.

Will Hill has reported a loss of 22 million GBP, the budget for development of its own privately developed software. In addition, restructuring fees have cost the major online gaming company approximately 4 million GBP.

Working in Will Hill's favor is the strong overall performance of the company. Estimated revenues for the year ending January 1st reveal a gross profit, before tax and interest, to be about 285 million GBP ($558 million USD).

The new outsourced software is believed to be licensed from Orbis Openbet, but confirmation has yet to be announced. Will Hill previously licenses outsourced software for its online poker, casino and bingo operations from CryptoLogic and Virtue Fusion.

Executive Chairman Charles Scott spoke on behalf of the company, as they do not currently employ a CEO - a position William Hill Plc has been seeking to fill for the past 7 months. "A couple of years back, we believed we could get an advantage over our competitors by developing our own system, but in truth we are not software developers."

Scott relayed that the integration of NextGen Technology would have in fact set the company 'back a year" when compared to other online gaming companies of its kind. He also revealed that the integration of its new outsourced gaming software would not take place until the last quarter of 2008. Scott did not comment as to the identity of the outsourced software developer.