William Hill Online said it plans to acquire its online business for 424 million pounds, indicating a speedup of the expansion of the biggest bookmaker in the UK.

William Hill has reached an agreement under which it will pay 460 million punds for the operations of the online gambling firm Sportingbet in Australia and Spain, a deal expected to be closed on March 19.

Generating 90% of its revenue from the UK, the company has been in a move to expand overseas to achieve strong growth in online sector wherein it sees increasing number of customers.

Last year, William Hill had already acquired three businesses in the state of Nevada. According to company's chief executive Ralph Topping, they became much more encouraged to know that online gambling has been legalized in the state of New Jersey, but noted that despite the growing online sector, writing off tradition land-based betting is such a wrong move.

William Hill had decided to purchase the 29% stake held by software firm Playtech, which has been the second major deal of the company in the past three months.