UK bookies William Hill is staging an Italian withdrawal after the failure of its online gambling business there.

They opened up their online poker site just 18 months ago, but Casino Update understands that they are taking a £1 million loss as they sell out to Turkish rival Intralot for a shade over £4.3m.

Six months ago William Hill wrote off another £26 million as they ditched an in-house betting software development programme.

Low Priority

The company’s struggling UK online gambling sites may be next for the chop. A deal with software firm CryptoLogic ends later this year bringing the chance to pair up with one of poker providers paying big bucks in  prize money every month.

Italy and Spain have been targeted by several UK bookmakers as gambling laws are relaxed there. William Hill bosses say they remain committed to an existing Spanish deal with Cordere though expansion elsewhere into Europe is not a priority.