Ladbrokes

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Ladbrokes PLC

Type	Public
Founded	1886
Headquarters	Imperial House, Imperial Drive, Rayners Lane, Harrow, Middlesex HA2 7JW
Industry	Gambling
Products	Sports betting, Financial betting, Poker, Casino, Games, Bingo and backgammon.
Website	www.ladbrokes.com

Ladbrokes Shop Logo

Ladbrokes plc (LSE: LAD) is a British based gambling company. It is based in Rayners Lane in Harrow, London. It is a member of the FTSE 250 Index, having been relegated from the elite FTSE 100 Index in June 2006.^[1] Until 23 February 2006, Ladbrokes owned a major hotel business, including the Hilton hotel brand outside the United States. From 14 May 1999 to 23 February 2006 it was known as Hilton Group plc. Ladbrokes are known as the 'Magic Sign' within the industry.

Overall the largest betting company in the UK and largest retail bookmaker in the world, Ladbrokes owns over 2,200 retail betting shops divided between the UK, Ireland and Belgium. It also operates several online gambling websites offering sportsbook, poker, casino, games, bingo and backgammon. Ladbrokes uses the OpenBet system from Orbis Technology.

Ladbrokes formerly owned Vernons. Founded in 1925, until the intervention of the National Lottery, Vernons concentrated on Football pools. The company also owned and operated two greyhound stadia at Crayford and Monmore.

Ladbrokes has recently gone into partnership with the Chinese government to offer the first betting shops in China betting on the state lottery.

Hilton Group's turnover for the year ended 31 December 2005, including that for the hotel businesses which have been sold, was £13,354.4 million. Profit for the year was £351.8 million and net profit from continuing operations (that is excluding the hotels) was £190.7 million.

[edit] History

Ladbrokes floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1967, when it had an initial market capitalisation of just under £1 million.

Hilton's international business was spun off to shareholders in 1964 and had a number of different owners before being acquired by Ladbroke Group plc in 1987. Ladbroke changed its name to Hilton Group plc on 14 May 1999. During the years it owned the Hilton business it was one of the largest hotel operators in the world. The main founders of Ladbrokes PLC were Cyril Stein and his uncle Max Parker. In May 1961 the Government legalised betting shops under the Betting and Gaming Act. For the next eight years 35 betting shops a week opened in Britain until over 14,000 were established. Stein bought Ladbrokes’ first shop a year later. Whilst draconian restrictions applied to the shops, he used profits from the traditional areas of the business to rapidly expand the retail chain. To encourage non-horseracing punters, he introduced fixed odds football betting and a price war quickly broke out.

On the last Saturday of 1963 football results cost the company over £1 million. In the same year Ladbrokes became the first bookmaker to offer odds on a political election (the Conservative Party leadership) and made a profit of £1400. Three years later they took £1.6 million on the General Election – more than on that year’s Derby. In 1967 Cyril Stein became chairman of Ladbrokes and floated the company on the London Stock Exchange. It had five credit offices, 109 shops and a market capitalisation of just under £1 million. Two years later it opened its 400th betting shop and boasted 300 credit office telephones. The race was on to become the world’s biggest bookie.

When it owned the hotel businesses it had a joint marketing arrangement with the U.S.-based Hilton Hotels Corporation, which operates the Hiltons in the United States. The two companies jointly operated the Conrad luxury hotel brand, which is named after Conrad Hilton. The sale also included the mid-market hotel chain Scandic and the LivingWell Health Clubs business.

In 1995 Ladbrokes sold its Texas Homecare subsidiary to J Sainsbury plc. Sainsbury's merged the DIY chain with its own Homebase group.

On December 29, 2005 Hilton Group plc announced that it would sell the hotel operations to Hilton Hotels Corporation for £3.3bn ($5.7bn).^[2] It will retain its gambling businesses in the short term at least and will readopt the Ladbrokes name. There has been media speculation that the Ladbrokes business might also be sold, or alternatively that the group might use some of the funds from the sale of the hotels business to launch an acquisition drive.

In February 2006 the company announced plans to pay investors £4.2 billion and stated that it intended to expand its gambling business internationally and was looking at markets such as China.

Following the introduction of the Gambling Act 2005 in the United Kingdom that saw the relaxtion of advertising laws for gambling companies in 2007, a subsequent TV campaign by Ladbrokes, that included a host of ex-professional footballers, was the first to receive complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), but the ASA cleared the campaign.^[3] There has been interest in Ladbrokes from some major gaming industry investors such as Joe Lewis, JP McManus and John Magnier who own over 11% of Ladbrokes PLC.