Correspondence to William Hill

Request

Can you send me all your correspondence to William Hill and others from March 2026 onwards related to the glitches to William Hill sites that led to many people being falsely awarded winnings.

Response

Thank you for your request which has been processed under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).

In your email you have requested “all your correspondence to William Hill and others from March 2026 onwards related to the glitches to William Hill sites that led to many people being falsely awarded winnings.”

In order to fulfil your request, we have performed a search across all Gambling Commission email accounts for emails containing “William Hill”, within the date range you have specified. As you have not provided a definitive list of recipients of the correspondence you are requesting, this search has returned over 7000 records potentially in scope of your request. Each of these records would need to be reviewed manually in order to confirm if specific information answering your request is held by the Commission.

Section 12(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) makes provision for public authorities to refuse to confirm whether we hold the requested information, where the cost of dealing with them would exceed the appropriate limit. For public authorities, such as the Commission, this is set at £450. This represents the estimated cost of one person spending 18 hours in determining whether the department holds the information, locating, retrieving and extracting the information.

We have estimated it would take in excess of 18 hours to determine appropriate material and locate, retrieve and extract any relevant information in reference to your request.

If you are able to refine your request, for example specifying the “others” you have referred to in your request, we may be able to narrow the number of records that we need to search. Until we are able to process the search of the information you have requested, we are unable to ascertain if other exemptions will apply to any material identified which would also prevent disclosure.

Please note, any refined request would be processed as a new request and the 20 working day statutory time limit would apply.

Review of the decision

If you are unhappy with the service you have received in relation to your Freedom of Information request you are entitled to an internal review of our decision. You should write to FOI Team, Gambling Commission, 4th floor, Victoria Square House, Victoria Square, Birmingham, B2 4BP or by reply to this email. 

Please note, internal review requests should be made within 40 working days of the initial response. Requests made outside this timeframe will not be processed.

If you are not content with the outcome of our review, you may then apply directly to the Information Commissioner (ICO) for a decision. Generally, the ICO cannot make a decision unless you have already exhausted the review procedure provided by the Gambling Commission. 

It should be noted that if you wish to raise a complaint with the ICO about the Commission’s handling of your request for information, then you are required to do so within six weeks of receiving your final response or last substantive contact with us.

The ICO can be contacted at: The Information Commissioner’s Office (opens in a new tab), Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.

Information Management Team
Gambling Commission