1903: William Hill (right) born (July 16th) in Birmingham - Father a coach-painter a trade with which the young William Hill had a brief flirtation.

1920: William Hill began taking bets from pubs in the Midlands which he visited on a bicycle.

1923: William Hill married Ivy.

1925: William Hill set up as a course bookmaker in the Midlands but as an inexperienced, novice operator, he soon lost his initial capital.

1926: Organised greyhound racing began.

1929: William Hill moved to London, betting at greyhound tracks before extending activities to Northholt Park racecourse where he soon became an owner.

1934: William Hill opened a London office for his credit clients, in Jermyn Street, West End.

1939: Business was good enough to warrant expansion to Park Lane - in the stately former residence of Lord Inchape. In the spring of this year his business became a company, WILLIAM HILL (PARK LANE) LTD.

1939: William Hill began to offer ante-post odds on events like the Grand National and Derby, and launched his first Fixed Odds Football coupons, taking £6 18/6d in the first week.

1942: William Hill established WILLIAM HILL (GLASGOW) LTD.

1944: The booming Fixed Odds business outgrew the Park Lane office and WILLIAM HILL (FOOTBALL LTD) had become a separate company, installed in offices in Ludgate Circus, London.

1945: WILLIAM HILL GLASGOW moved from Gordon Street to Jamaica Street.

1947: WILLIAM HILL moved to offices at Picadilly Circus.

1949: Nimbus, bred by William Hill won the Derby.

1952: WILLIAM HILL (FOOTBALL) LTD moved to larger premises just off the City Road.

1953: William Hill boasted that he had over 400,000 clients.

1961: Betting shops became legal on May 1st, William Hill initially declined to enter this market.

1962: William Hill moved to Hill House, Blackfriars Road,SE1., custom built at a cost of £800,000.

1964: A 25% tax was levied on Fixed Odds betting. This severely hampered growth of the business.

1966: William Hill finally bought into betting shops. In the same year betting duty was imposed for the first time at a rate of 2.5%, later raised to 5% in 1968 and to 6% in 1970.

1969: William Hill paid out £10,000 to David Threlfall who had bet £10 at 1000/1 that Man would walk on the moon before 1970.

1970: William Hill retired.

1971: William Hill died on October 16th. The William Hill Organization became part of the Sears Holdings Group.

1973: The number of betting office licences in force in Great Britain peaked at 14,750. Boxing promoter and bookmaker Sam Burns became M.D. of William Hill.

1974: William Hill became the first (and only) bookmakers to ever be represented at Wimbledon Tennis Championships.

1976: William Hill became the biggest sponsors of horse racing. William Hill's own horse, Sporting Yankee, won the William Hill Futurity at Doncaster.

1977: Sporting Yankee, owned by William Hill Ltd finished unplaced in the Derby.

1979: Former William Hill Chairman, Sir Charles Clore, died on July 29th.

1980: William Hill attracted worldwide headlines by opening a book on 'Who Shot J.R.' in TV programme Dallas.

1981: Len Cowburn succeeds Sam Burns as William Hill M.D. William Hill sponsored a race in America, The William Hill Trophy at New York's Belmont Park.

1986: Betting shops allowed to be fitted with T.V. screens. William Hill were so incensed at Maradona's 'Hand Of God' World Cup goal 'scored' against England, that they refunded stakes to all punters who had bet on the match ending in a 1-1 draw, whilst also paying out on the official 2-1 result.

1987: William Hill introduced its own HILLSPORT service, an audio and text communications system to all shops, including improved staff communications. S.I.S. begin broadcasting daily racing action into betting shops. Tom Davis and Phil Korny of Clitheroe, Lancs win a record individual odds pay out of £97,276.99 for £2.20.

1988: Grand Metropolitan, owners of Mecca Bookmakers, acquired William Hill, merging the two companies under the William Hill name. Bob Green becomes Managing Director, but later resigned to be replaced by Mike Smith. Peter Bromage-Smith bet £1000 at 12/1 on a White Christmas in London - he lost! William Hill sponsored a Chris Bonington led Yeti Hunt to Tibet - He returned with some evidence but not enough to land odds of 500/1 by convincing Natural History Museum to authorise payout. William Hill horse racing sponsorship package valued at £376,500.

1989: Brent Walker purchased William Hill. John Brown became Managing Director of the 1800 betting shop company. The company also has the largest Credit Betting operation in the world. In August William Hill were appointed Official Bookmakers to Golf's European PGA Tour and are represented on course at major events.

1990: In April William Hill achieved a breakthrough when they offered Access and Visa Card betting facilities on the Grand National for the first time. The banks later got cold feet and pulled out of the scheme.

1991: William Hill report overall profits of £45 million. William Hill were the first major bookmakers to introduce Switch/Delta Debit Card telephone betting facilities for customers. Peter Martin of the Perth, Scotland branch, became William Hill's first Racing Post Manager Of The Year.

1992: William Hill report turnover of £713,330,000 for first six months of year - 2% up on 1991 figure. William Hill open betting shops at Wembley Stadium and are appointed Official Bookmakers to the Rugby Union World Cup. William Hill launch new telephone betting system designed to appeal to clients in Germany and Italy. They employ German and Italian speaking staff and the move causes controversy in Italy where questions are asked in the Government. Service currently available in several European countries. Princess Royal wears William Hill sweatshirt whilst taking part in charity event at Ascot Racecourse.

1993: William Hill hit the headlines on January 8th, Elvis Presley's birthday, by announcing that fan Ciara Parkes of Hammersmith has staked £250 at 500/1 that Presley, officially deceased since 1977, is still alive. The evening opening of betting shops became legal in April and William Hill were the first and only company to open ALL their branches for evening trade.

1994: William Hill introduced the Accolade scheme - rewarding credit and debit clients for stake money invested. World Cup becomes biggest betting event of all time. William Hill alone turn over £17m - industry as a whole over £60m - more than the Grand National. Birmingham florist Adrian Fitzpatrick won a record £400,000 from Hills on the World Cup. November: It became legal to accept football coupons in betting shops.

1995: From January 1st it became legal to open betting shops on a Sunday. From May betting shop windows no longer had to be obscured and the windows were permitted to display lists of odds and details of bets available within. A wider ranger of refreshments, including sandwiches and snacks were permitted in the shops. There was no longer any limit imposed on the size of TVs displayed in the branches. William Hill Index launched on September 28th, 1995. First major bookmaking company to enter Spread Betting business. November: Lucky Choice betting commenced, a side bet based on the outcome of the Irish Lottery - William Hill initiative.

1996: Betting shop deductions were reduced by 1% from 10% to 9% following a concession in the Budget of the previous November. June 20th: Amusement with Prize Machines were permitted in betting shops, with cash prizes of up to £10 allowed. The shops were also allowed to sell racing related publications - books, newspapers, magazines etc. They were allowed to sell Scratchcards other than National Lottery Scratchcards; and to accept Spot The Ball coupons and to pay out football pools winnings. June 30th: An unidentified William Hill betting shop customer from Folkestone won £201,069 after staking £122 on a 9-event accumulator involving Rugby League, Football and Horse-racing which ended on Germany winning Euro 96. Black Saturday - September 28th: Frankie Dettori rides all seven winners at Ascot's Festival of British Racing. The accumulative odds were 25,095/1 and cost the betting industry a payout of over £70 million, William Hill lost £8 million. Monday, 16th December 1996: William Hill and other major bookmakers began betting on new fixed odds numbers game - '49s'. Daily draws take place in LBOs, offering odds of 11/2 for one correct number - 99,999/1 for five.

1997: It became legal for the location of betting shops to be advertised in newspapers/telephone directories. October 1st: Nomura (Grand Bookmaking Companies) purchased William Hill for £700m.

1998: William Hill launched Magic Numbers. May: William Hill (Isle of Man) opened. Company commenced accepting bets on the Internet from non-UK residents. June: William Hill launched first scratchcard bet 'Cup Fever'. June/July: World Cup produced record turnover of approx £40 million. October: Cash prize on AWPs increased from £10 to £15.

1999: William Hill's proposed stock market float was abandoned when the company was sold to Cinven and CVC Partners for a reported £825 million.

2000: William Hill launch off-shore telephone betting service. A call centre in Athlone , Republic of Ireland takes calls from punters and passes them on for acceptance to the William Hill International bookmaking company in Antigua. Deductions of just 3% are levied.

2000: William Hill became the first major bookmakers to offer a completely tax and deduction free betting service to UK based clients via the Internet. Hill's domestic site, www.williamhill.co.uk charged a 5% rate of deduction; the international site, www.willhill.com, charged no deductions at all. Later, as a special offer, the domestic site also went deduction-free.

2000: Advertising of off-shore betting facilities on Teletext etc was banned.

2000: William Hill sponsored the live internet broadcast of Celtic's UEFA Cup match vs FC Girondins of Bordeaux, and also supplied a live betting facility during the game - the first time live 'in-game' odds had been made available on-line alongside the live feed of a football match.

2000: William Hill had to pay out after a White Christmas in Birmingham, Bristol, Glasgow, Leeds, Manchester. No snow fell in London or Cardiff.

2001: Chancellor Gordon Brown announced in the Budget that betting duty was to be abolished before January 1st, 2002.

2001: Oct 10th, Betting duty was abolished and replaced by Gross Profits Tax on bookmakers.

2002: Feb 25th, History is made as Father Nicholas Wheeler of Saint Michaels, Camden holds first ever Church service in a betting shop at Hill's branch at 5 Camden Road, North London, to mark the 125th anniversary of the Parish Church, founded on this site, on 25th February, 1877.

2002: On April 17th William Hill signed a five year deal with the British Horseracing Board for the commercial use of data in their fifteen hundred betting shops in England, Scotland and Wales, together with their telephone and internet betting operations. "I'm very pleased that a data deal, which I believe to be fair to both industries, which will ensure the continuation of no deductions to punters, has been achieved" said William Hill Chairman, John Brown. "I am confident that the relationship between racing and betting will now flourish." William Hill CEO, David Harding, said, "This deal removes a lot of the uncertainty which has been hanging over both industries, and - most importantly of all - ensures continuity of service and deduction-free betting to our customers." Each bookmaker signing up to the deal will pay an annual charge of 10% of gross profits from horserace betting on horse racing in Great Britain, other than in respect of over the counter bets transacted in betting offices where the charge payable will be calculated by reference to the gross profit in each year from each betting office.

2002: William Hill PLC (“William Hill”), one of the UK’s leading providers of fixed-odds bookmaking services, today announces an offer price of 225 pence per ordinary share in respect of its initial public offering (“Global Offer”), which is in the upper half of the offer price range of 190p - 240p. In total, the offer was in excess of 10 times oversubscribed at the offer price.

At this price, William Hill will have a market capitalisation of approximately £949 million and an enterprise value of approximately £1,459 million.

William Hill, Cinven and CVC have decided that 283.9 million ordinary shares will be available under the Global Offer, comprising 151.1 million new ordinary shares issued by William Hill and 132.8 million existing shares to be sold by Cinven, CVC and other selling shareholders. In addition, there is an over-allotment option of 42.6 million existing shares representing 15% of the Global Offer provided by Cinven and CVC. Following the Global Offer, Cinven and CVC will hold approximately 27% of William Hill ordinary shares, or approximately 18% assuming full exercise of the over-allotment option.

Conditional dealings in William Hill shares commence today, with admission to the Official List of the UK Listing Authority and to trading on the London Stock Exchange and unconditional dealings scheduled to commence on Thursday 20 June 2002. A Supplementary Prospectus is expected to be published today (17/06/02) in respect of the Global Offer.

Applications under the intermediaries offer, up to a maximum amount of £50,000 per applicant, and under the employee offer, which together amounted to approximately £124 million or 55 million shares, have been allocated in full. This represents a full allocation to 99.7% by number of applicants in the intermediaries offer.