888 Holdings price target revised; William Hill knuckles rapped by ASA

888 Holdings

888 Holdings888 Holdings has seen its rating cut by market analysts Goldman Sachs. The online gaming industry firm’s price target has dropped from 50p to 46p as the market continues to show its insecurities about the gaming firm. The projection comes the day after a House Subcommitee debated the future of Internet gaming and this might have something to do with the price dropping.

If you cast your mind back five years, 888 were one of the public companies that chose to hot tail it out of the USA following UIGEA in 2006. Recently, they’ve started to work their way back and Nevada regulators even approved a deal with land-based group Caesars. Their success in the USA could be reliant on a general amnesty being enacted for all gaming industry firms that took bets pre-UIGEA.

We asked back in April whether 888 could be the white knight to rise from the ashes of Black Friday with an X in the win column. It still remains to be seen whether this is the case. They’re still the one company that saw its partnership survive Black Friday and in light of that, they are still in a strong position to capitalize on anything that takes place in the coming months.

William Hill has had its ass cheeks tanned by the Advertising Standards Agency. A complaint lodged in relation to their casino product was upheld after it offered a “£150 bonus for all new players”. The ASA deemed this to be unclear as the actual deal was that deposits between £35 and £150 would be matched up to £150. Hills pleaded their case that they’d made it clear in the terms and conditions. This was before you found out that “before being able to claim any winnings, players would have to wager 20 times their deposit and bonus amount or more.” They don’t make it easy for themselves. From the Hills side of the fence you’d expect people taking advantage to assume that those taking the offer would realize that they’d not be matching £35 with £150 though.