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How SITA made William Hill the face of Next Pope betting
Account Executive Paddy Crossan examines how the B2C team launched client William Hill to the centre of speculation on the Next Pope.
08/07/2025
Quick Off The Mark
We distributed our first “Next Pope” odds press release on Tuesday 22nd April, including a list of odds for all the candidates, with Pietro Parolin leading the race. The initial release also included odds on the Papal name of the next Pope (Leo was 7/1!).
This meant William Hill were the first major British bookmaker to have their “Next Pope” odds circulated and as such became the go-to when odds were included in articles.
For example:
A New Phenomenon
Being first out with odds on the Next Pope is not the same as being first out with odds on the next Prime Minister or the Epsom Derby. Monopolising the betting for a regular event is almost impossible.
When the 2013 Conclave was taking place, online betting was nowhere near as big as it is now and betting on the next pope would not really have been a conversation. Now, the landscape is different, with online betting growing to encompass everything from the next pope to the Strictly Come Dancing line-up.
We recognised this and found that journalists, now aware of the growth of online gambling, were receptive to including odds to support the narrative of their articles and provide updates on the Conclave outside of official reports.
Subsequently, we issued a press release including quotes from William Hill’s spokesperson Lee Phelps, commenting on the rise of Next Pope betting.
Aside from updates on who would be the next pope, conversations started to spring up around the new phenomenon that was betting on new pontiff. When these articles arose, it was William Hill’s name at the forefront of the conversation.
For example:
Hitting The Screens
Not only did we consistently send out regular odds changes to get William Hill’s name to the front and centre of every update on the Conclave’s progress, we also facilitated getting spokesperson Lee Phelps onto one of Europe’s biggest news channels.
We helped get RSI journalist Lorenzo Amuso together with Lee Phelps at William Hill’s flagship shop in Leeds, for a story which aired on their primetime news programme.
The Numbers
When push comes to shove, digital PR is a numbers game. Across our next Pope betting campaign – spanning from Tuesday 22nd April to Friday 9th May – we landed 842 pieces of coverage for William Hill, with 35.3 million estimated views, reaching a global audience of over two billion people! We gained coverage across the globe, with mentions in British national publications such as The Telegraph, The Guardian and Daily Mail, while also breaking into the US market with coverage in NBC and CBS News. As well as that we gained coverage in leading European and South American news outlets such as Reuters, France24, Le Parisien and Exame.
The numbers don’t lie and we can confidently say that William Hill were the face of the Next Pope betting scene this time around, with a big thanks to the traders, PR team and of course, Lee Phelps.
Quick Off The Mark
We distributed our first “Next Pope” odds press release on Tuesday 22nd April, including a list of odds for all the candidates, with Pietro Parolin leading the race. The initial release also included odds on the Papal name of the next Pope (Leo was 7/1!).
This meant William Hill were the first major British bookmaker to have their “Next Pope” odds circulated and as such became the go-to when odds were included in articles.
For example:
A New Phenomenon
Being first out with odds on the Next Pope is not the same as being first out with odds on the next Prime Minister or the Epsom Derby. Monopolising the betting for a regular event is almost impossible.
When the 2013 Conclave was taking place, online betting was nowhere near as big as it is now and betting on the next pope would not really have been a conversation. Now, the landscape is different, with online betting growing to encompass everything from the next pope to the Strictly Come Dancing line-up.
We recognised this and found that journalists, now aware of the growth of online gambling, were receptive to including odds to support the narrative of their articles and provide updates on the Conclave outside of official reports.
Subsequently, we issued a press release including quotes from William Hill’s spokesperson Lee Phelps, commenting on the rise of Next Pope betting.
Aside from updates on who would be the next pope, conversations started to spring up around the new phenomenon that was betting on new pontiff. When these articles arose, it was William Hill’s name at the forefront of the conversation.
For example:
Hitting The Screens
Not only did we consistently send out regular odds changes to get William Hill’s name to the front and centre of every update on the Conclave’s progress, we also facilitated getting spokesperson Lee Phelps onto one of Europe’s biggest news channels.
We helped get RSI journalist Lorenzo Amuso together with Lee Phelps at William Hill’s flagship shop in Leeds, for a story which aired on their primetime news programme.
The Numbers
When push comes to shove, digital PR is a numbers game. Across our next Pope betting campaign – spanning from Tuesday 22nd April to Friday 9th May – we landed 842 pieces of coverage for William Hill, with 35.3 million estimated views, reaching a global audience of over two billion people! We gained coverage across the globe, with mentions in British national publications such as The Telegraph, The Guardian and Daily Mail, while also breaking into the US market with coverage in NBC and CBS News. As well as that we gained coverage in leading European and South American news outlets such as Reuters, France24, Le Parisien and Exame.
The numbers don’t lie and we can confidently say that William Hill were the face of the Next Pope betting scene this time around, with a big thanks to the traders, PR team and of course, Lee Phelps.
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