William Hill shares dive 11% on revenue alert

(Close): William Hill shares shut down more than 11% after the yohaig code bookie warned on profits.

It stated online trading had actually been hit by harder guideline and "the worst Cheltenham leads to current history".

It now expects full-year operating earnings to be in between ₤ 260m and ₤ 280m, down from ₤ 291.4 m in 2015. As an outcome, the FTSE 250 business saw its shares drop nearly 40p to 331p.

However, the benchmark FTSE 100 ended flat, up 6.4 points at 6199.1.

Top riser on the FTSE 100 was B&Q owner Kingfisher. Its shares completed up 6% despite reporting a 20% drop in full-year profits to ₤ 512m.

However, when reorganizing costs were removed out, underlying revenues were a better-than-expected ₤ 686m.

William Hill stated there were 2 main aspects behind the yohaig code weaker-than-expected performance from its online organization.

It stated it had seen "a velocity in the number of time-outs and automated self-exclusions over recent weeks", procedures which permit punters to halt gambling with a bookie.

William Hill stated that while the pattern was "still progressing, we approximate that, must these patterns continue around existing levels, the consequent lower revenues will lower online's profits by ₤ 20-25m in 2016".

Secondly, its profit margins were lower than anticipated due to the fact that of European football outcomes and last week's Cheltenham horseracing celebration, where bookies were hit by large a number of favourites winning races.

William Hill said that despite its online problems, the more comprehensive group continued "to trade well" and remained in line with expectations.

The business likewise said it remained in "sophisticated discussions" to purchase Openbet, a gaming software application company.

Sterling weak

Elsewhere on the London market, shares in Sports Direct were having another bad day, down an even more 5.6% after dropping about 10% on Tuesday.

Earlier the retailer had released a statement saying that it anticipated full-year underlying incomes to be "at or around the bottom" of a formerly approximated range. The statement was released following comments that founder Mike Ashley made to the Times paper on Tuesday.

On the currency markets, the pound stayed weak after having fallen dramatically on Tuesday in the wake of the fear attacks in Brussels, which were seen as increasing the likelihood of the UK voting to leave the EU.

On Wednesday, sterling fell almost 1% against the dollar to $1.4087. Against the euro, it lost 0.4% to EUR1.2623.