Ladbrokes or William Hill?
In the days before internet betting, punters really didn’t have much of a choice where they did their betting. Most high streets might have had one or maybe two bookies, and you’d generally stick with the one which had the better odds, nicer layout, better selection of TVs and maybe nicer counter staff.
William Hill Ladbrokes
Now however, all of the major bookies are available to you at the click of a mouse or tap on your phone, and deciding where to put your hard earned is a lot more difficult. Two names that UK and Ireland bettors will be familiar with are Ladbrokes and William Hill.
Both have had brick and mortar shops for years and have made the transition to the online world, but you might be wondering when it comes to betting with a bit of your hard earned, which is the better choice, Ladbrokes or William Hill? In this article I’m going to do my best to help you decide.
Website Overviews
Both of thes sites have well designed websites that are easy to find your away around. As well as offering sports betting, they have Poker, Casino, Bingo and Financials betting, each of which we’ll look at later in the article.
William Hill’s site is a little bit easier on the eye and things are a little neater than Ladbrokes. It’s also a little bit easier to get to the market you’re looking for in the sports betting sections, and Hills have the live betting markets a bit tidier. Overall, both are pretty good, though.
Verdict: William Hill
Sports Betting, Odds and Promotions
Both William Hill and Ladbrokes started out as sports betting sites, and this is their speciality. As you’d expect, they both cover every sporting event you can think of and have a wide range of markets for each.
Ladbrokes used to have better coverage of the less popular betting sports like Formula 1 and American sports. In terms of the odds on offer, it’s difficult to make a good comparison because there are so many markets to look at, but as a very general rule, William Hill tend to have similar prices on favourites, but are better priced when it comes to the outsiders.
Hills also have better promotions in my opinion, and they do a better job of letting you know about them. They also do great video previews of the weekend’s football action and other events, which can be useful for putting you in the know.
Verdict: William Hill
Poker
Both Hills and Ladbrokes both use poker networks for their customers. What this means is that if you play on one of them, you’ll be entered into a pool of players from a variety of sites.
For instance, William Hill players will be playing in games that have players from Paddy Power Poker and Boyle Poker, on the iPoker network.
Ladbrokes, on the other hand, uses the Microgaming network. Neither network has the best software out there but both are pretty good. iPoker occasionally suffer from technical difficulties which they can be slow to fix, while Microgaming is generally more reliable, but it is a smaller network meaning a narrower selection of games.
William Hill also seems to be more ‘into’ poker, and they sponsor their own live events around the UK and Ireland. I think they’re a very slight favourite for poker.
Verdict: William Hill
Casino
If you feel like having a bit of a gamble, both sites have casinos. They both stick with their poker software providers for their casinos.
William Hill have the Playtech software, while Ladbrokes are on Microgaming. Both have all of the games you’d expect like Blackjack, Roulette, and Slots but Hill have a better variety of games. They also offer better bonuses.
Both of these brands have live dealer games which can be a lot of fun, and the William Hill payouts for a lot of the games are slightly better.
Verdict: William Hill
Bingo
For Bingo, William Hill use the Virtue Fusion software, while Ladbrokes have opted for Microgaming again. Both software packages have good standard bingo games as well as the ever popular Deal or No Deal bingo as well as Bingo slots.
Ladbrokes have a better free money introductory offer and a better reward scheme. Both have friendly chat rooms attached to the bingo software.
Verdict: William Hill
Trustworthiness
Unfortunately, there have been many reports about the trustworthiness of Ladbrokes who have moved significant parts of their operations out of the UK in recent times.
I feel very strongly that it’s very important to be able to trust a website that you’ll be depositing your money with and Ladbrokes have started to get themselves a bit of a reputation in this regard.
From resricting accounts for players who win more than they lose to long payout times, they’ve also been known to suspend cash-out on football bets for very long periods of time.
It seems that the customer service at Ladbrokes is also not the best quality. I’ve known people to grow very frustrated waiting on the phone for lengthy times and then ending up speaking with people in foreign lands on dodgy phone lines that are prone to being cut off just at the crucial moment in the conversation!
Having experienced similar issues, this is something that really needs to be sorted because Ladbrokes once had a good reputation. Perhaps they can improve.
Overall
Both websites are high quality on the surface of things. Ladbrokes tries hard but it really does fall short of Hill’s better Poker, Casino and Bingo products and their site is (I find) easier to navigate.
So it’s pretty close over which one you should choose. As a poker fan, I’m going to side with William Hill for their better poker product for sure, but the trust factor will probably tip most people in favour of Hills.
