William Hill the high street bookmaker and company behind William Hill Bingo has confirmed that takeover talks for the Lady Lucks brand have failed to reach agreement.

Gibraltar-based Probability, which owns the brand claims to have about one million UK customers for its bingo, poker and casino games.

While a major player in the land based bookmaker industry, the company is looking to increase its online presence in poker, bingo and casino games in order to better compete with the bigger brands such as 888 Holdings which owns a number of high profile brands such as Wink Bingo.

William Hill has not confirmed the reason to why talks broke down and it will come as some surprise as Playtech already owns a 29% stake in the William Hill Online (WHO) operations.

It seems that the city analysts are supporting the William Hill decision as share rose as the news was made public.

Analyst at Peel Hunt, Nick Batram, commented: "The deal with Probability was interesting but it was never going to be a game changer for William Hill. William Hill already has a good mobile phone offering, particularly on sports betting and its got the resources to drive forward its own mobile presence."