22 JANUARY 1965, Page 8

William Hill

I have no idea if William Hill (the bookmakers) employ a public relations officer, but if they do he does an excellent job. It has almost be- come a weekly routine now for there to be a news story, even television interviews, telling us how vast a pay-out the poor bookmaker has made to the public. If there are a large number of draws on the fixed-odds coupon, if a favourite— or sometimes even an outsider—wins a major race, we are solemnly told that several hundreds of thousands of pounds have been dished out by the charitable bookmakers. I wish news- papers would stop printing this sort of stuff. Its only effect is to draw more suckers into the net. I would be more impressed if the fraternity would publish weekly the net amount they win from us: they aren't in the business for fun.