William Hill puts online boss on gardening leave after glitch-hit app launch

William Hill boss James Henderson has admitted the bookmaker had been hit by “disappointing” technical glitches as the firm confirmed the removal of its online boss.

Hills — for so long the trailblazer in the online betting world — has placed the managing director of its online business, Andrew Lee, on gardening leave after the difficult debut of its new betting app under the bookie’s Project Trafalgar roll-out.

Hills has developed its own online platform to end its reliance on providers such as Playtech, but the October launch was blighted with problems such as the app logging itself out and difficulties cashing out.

Henderson said: “When you have a rating of one-and-a-half stars that is disappointing, there’s no getting away from that.

“I think you’d love to launch a technology project without any problems whatsoever but the reality is different. It is never 100% right when it launches.”

Hills clawed back the ground which it had lost over Christmas, and has improved the rating of its app.

The firm is set to meet City expectations of £290 million for the full year, although these were lowered after a profit warning in October.