Cryptologic celebrates William Hill casino deal

William Hill has revamped its online casinos with CryptoLogic named as preferred supplier for its UK-sterling and US-dollar download casinos, with Boss Media offered only to its Euro download players.

The firm had been running both Boss Media and CrytpoLogc casinos on its website since early 2003, but has made the switch as part of a new annual review process.

Lewis Rose, chief executive of CryptoLogic, told investors in a conference call he was "thrilled and delighted" at the firm's decision.

William Hill made a decision based on the quality and depth of the games and the larger jackpots...our software is superior," Rose said.

But Peter Nolan, head of William Hill's interactive division, said it should not be interpreted as his firm "dropping" Boss.

"We are looking to preference from a marketing point of view the strongest product which in the case of Sterling and Dollar download casino is Cryptologic," Nolan said.

"What this means is that the Cryptologic casino has preference on our homepage and in our marketing for our sterling and dollar download casinos.

The converse of this approach is that we will preference Boss where they have a stronger product than Cryptologic (or other suppliers).

So for instance we use Boss for sterling instant and mobile, and Euro instant and download casinos (all languages)."

Both CryptoLogic and Boss released positive results last week with CryptoLogic recording record earnings of US$4.8m for Q1 2005.

Total revenues at CryptoLogic for the period were up 33% to US$20.3m, thanks in part to 200% growth in its poker division.

Financially it was a mixed period for Boss as operating profit fell by 16% to US$1.46m compared with the same period in 2004, despite royalty revenues jumping 73% to US$5.85m.

But this was put down to the one-off revenues gained last year from the sale of its in-house casino, Gold Club Casino, for US$1.45m.

The firm also said it suffered from changes in exchange rates over the course of the period, which it claimed wiped an additional US$0.55m off its quarterly profits.