William Hill joins Ladbrokes and other major bookmakers on social media sports betting site Betfect
William Hill has become the latest major bookmaker to join Betfect, a social network for sports betting.
The London-based tech startup allows users to compare, make and share sports bets from the UK's leading bookmakers, and the site went live last year with Ladbrokes.
Betfect has said it aims to bring the "social element" back into betting by using newly-available technologies to offer a one-stop destination for the betting community to share and test their betting tips.
Punters can use their online betting accounts as a hub to place, share and copy bets all in one place, while users can manage their betting accounts with multiple bookmakers directly from Betfect.
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"Creating a social network for the sports betting community, allowing users to stay connected while using our services is a great idea," Alex Rutherford, head of product innovation at William Hill, said.
"We are delighted to boost innovation by helping and supporting startups like Betfect to increase the level of engagement amongst our customers and to bring new ideas to market."
Giacomo Alpago, Betfect's founder, said: "We are delighted to be the first social sports betting application to seamlessly integrate with both Ladbrokes and William Hill's APIs to provide an enhanced betting experience for our users.
"We aim to socialise the digital betting experience and do for the betting industry what eToro is doing for financial trading markets. It is a major coup for Betfect that major operators like William Hill and Ladbrokes are keen to work with us to drive innovation in this sector in order to give punters the best betting experience possible."
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The company has also said it is in the process of integrating additional bookmakers to the site, as well as additional sports data providers, and is working towards the release of iOS and Android applications.
Many gambling operators have invested in their online offerings in recent months.
William Hill recently appointed Crispin Nieboer as the company's permanent head of online, who has set three goals for the firm's online business: improving the product offering, focusing on customer acquisition and improving player yields, and growing the online business internationally.