The Australian division of online bookmaker William Hill believes it has found a way to circumvent the country’s ban on online in-play betting.
Australian-licensed operators have long complained about the country’s ban on live betting, a sector that has come to dominate online sports betting in markets where the practice is allowed. But Australia does allow live telephone betting and William Hill Australia believes it has come up with an ingenious in-play workaround that appears to remain within the bounds of the law – and also fits nicely with the company’s existing marketing tag “It’s your call.”
The new “click to call” option, which launched last week on WilliamHill.com.au and TomWaterhouse.com.au, allows punters to survey in-play betting markets on their desktop or mobile device. Once bettors have identified a bet they wish to place, they click a “Call to Place Live Bet” button. Assuming they’ve authorized their browser to use the device’s microphone, punters are then prompted to make one of three choices: confirm the bet, cancel the bet, or hear an audio replay of the selected bet’s options and odds.
The ‘click to call’ option is currently available for the following devices: Windows/MacOs Chrome, Windows/MacOS Firefox 22+, Windows Internet Explorer 10+, Android/Chrome, Samsung Galaxy S3 Phone/Chrome and MacOs Safari. At present, Apple mobile device users will be redirected to live phone betting operators to confirm their wagers but the company says native iOS and Android apps are in the pipeline and will arrive later this year.
William Hill Australia has produced a short video tutorial to educate punters on the new in-play option, including instructions on how to enable the microphones on various browsers.
