Elbegdorj biography of william hill

Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikidata item. English founder of William Hill the bookmakers. Birmingham , England. Newmarket , England. Family [ edit ]. You can unsubscribe at any time. In the s and s when Hill began his betting activities, off-course bookmakers were not regulated and were illegal but operated quite openly.

But those were the times and bookmaking was a tough business to be in. Clearly to survive and thrive in bookmaking took no small amount of character, determination and luck. Born in Birmingham , Hill left school at the age of twelve to work on his uncle's farm. While working in a factory in Birmingham he started collecting illegal bets from local people on his motorcycle.

After the hopeless failure of his first foray into bookmaking, he moved to London in where he started taking bets on greyhounds before opening an illicit gambling den in Jermyn Street in He exploited a loophole which allowed credit or postal betting but not cash. In he produced the first fixed-odds football coupon. In he reversed his business into Holder's Investment Trust , a shell company , thereby securing a listing on the London Stock Exchange.

Although he had called legal betting offices "a cancer on society", he opened his first in , after his competitors had stolen a march on him. Hill was dispatched a few miles out the country to guard one of those big houses, owned by the gentry. Foley felt he was too young for that assignment and feared that somebody might take a potshot at him. Foley appealed direct to the British Commanding officer to let Hill stay in town and the request was granted.

Returning from duty he tried bookmaking for real at the races but took on bigger punters than he could cope with and went bust pretty quickly. He re-started the business with smaller action and eventually got together the finance to move to London. In London William started with pony racing at Northolt Park, Britains only track for trotting opened in , occupied during the war and never re-opened but later switched to concentrate on dog racing and did well enough to rent an office in Jermyn Street.

There he exploited a loophole which allowed credit or postal betting but not cash. Success came and he moved to much larger premises in Park Lane. More so he was also interested in breeding horses and in bought a stud at Whitsbury in Hampshire.

Elbegdorj biography of william hill

In Hill produced the first fixed-odds football coupon, and set up a separate football company. Nimbus was foaled at Whitsbury stud in , and, having been sold for guineas at the yearling sales, won the Two Thousand Guineas and Derby. He won his first and only Classic when Cantelo triumphed in the St. In , Ladbrokes went into the football business, and Hill sued them for infringement of the copyright in his coupon.

William Hill missed out on the betting shops.