I have to admit there was a time when William Hill were my favourite bookmaker. Some of their odds were incredible. In fact that’s probably the wrong word. The prices were ridiculous. How they could markets so wrong beggared belief.

Some of you who may remember the Betting Kingdom glory days, tipsters like Tennis Pilot, myself (BK Tennis) and even Ardeal (remember him). We all took advantage of William Hills ignorance.

What were we better on? Tie breaks. Karlovic and Isner tie breaks to be precise. This was an event which happened around 45% of the time. That would make the odds 6/5 or 2.2 in today’s preferred decimal format.

It’s not like it was a hidden secret. Karlovic and Isner were two top 50 players, where serve dominated every time they stepped on the court. So why did bookmakers like William Hill keep offering us odds of 7/2?

That suggests the chances of a set going to a tie break were just 22%. How were they getting it so wrong? Every single time. We must have one hundreds if not thousands of pounds betting on this market, yet they continued to offer the same odds.

In fact I reckon this opportunity last in the region of 18-24 months before they finally cottoned on. It was insane. I think it probably just highlights their incompetence in truth. But us punters were not complaining.

It eventually came back to bite us I guess. As with most bookmakers William Hill started analysing customers accounts much more closely and limited (or banning) accounts that were not profitable enough.

So I guess the minute they checked my history and saw the betting patterns and the profit, my days as a William Hill customer were numbered. What these bookmakers should be doing though is getting their odds right in the first place. If they did that, invested a bit more time and trust in their compilers, then they wouldn’t have made such school boy errors.

It’s a problem across the industry and bookmakers offer hundreds of markets, that when we gambled on the high street simply weren’t available. So whilst it makes it much easier to make a profit betting online, it inevitably means those of us that are profitable, will soon find our accounts closed.

If you’re a punter who likes to bet for fun, then William Hill bookmaker is probably a decent firm to sign up. They offer a generous welcome bonus and some decent on going promotions. But if like me, the fun is finding the value and making a profit, I don’t think you’re likely to be betting with them for long.