Born in Birmingham, Hill left school at the age of twelve to work on his uncle's farm.
[1] While working in a factory in Birmingham he started collecting illegal bets from local people on his motorcycle.
[2] After the hopeless failure of his first foray into bookmaking, he moved to London in 1929 where he started taking bets on greyhounds before opening an illicit gambling den in Jermyn Street in 1934.
[1] In 1954 he reversed his business into Holder's Investment Trust, a shell company, thereby securing a listing on the London Stock Exchange.
[1] Although he had called legal betting offices "a cancer on society", he opened his first in 1966,[5] after his competitors had stolen a march on him.