Football Pools

Football Pools, form of gambling where a small stake is placed on football matches with the intention of forecasting the matches that will result in draws. In a traditional stake a sequence of numbers is selected from a coupon of 1 to 49, each number corresponding to one of 49 football matches as shown in the weekly fixture list published during the English and Scottish football season. The purpose is to score points, with three points for a score draw (1-1, 2-2, etc.), two points for a no-score draw (0-0) or a void match, and one point for a home or away win. The points from the best eight selections are totalled, and a score of 24 points equals a jackpot payout. Further big payouts are often made for 23 and 22 points, although they are much smaller than the jackpot.

Other prizes are usually awarded each week for the highest point scores. All winning payouts depend on the number of winners on the same points score and are taken from the “pooling” of the stakes of the participants. During the English and Scottish close season in the summer, fixtures from Australian Rules Football are used instead. The coupons, issued at retail outlets, are collected every week through a network of thousands of self-employed, commission-based, door-to-door collectors, who then pass them on to the main collectors who transfer them to the various football pools companies to be processed. Online football pools have been available since the mid-1990s.

Traditionally there were three football pools companies in Britain: Littlewoods (founded in 1923, and based in Liverpool), Vernons (founded in 1925, and based in Liverpool), and Zetters (founded in 1933, and based in Clerkenwell, London). Littlewoods had by far the largest share of the market and was established as a part-time venture by John Moores and two fellow telegraphists with a total capital investment of £150. Copies of the first-ever coupon were printed and distributed outside Old Trafford stadium, Manchester, and out of 4,000 issued only 35 were returned. The first payout was £2. However, the three men had incurred losses amounting to £600 after the end of the first season and two decided not to continue, leaving Moores alone to popularize the new game.

Prior to the introduction of the National Lottery in 1994 about 10 million football pools coupons were collected each week. After its introduction the number of players dropped dramatically. A significant amount of money earned by the football pools companies has regularly been given back to football at the grassroots level since the 1960s through the Football Trust. Since 1991 the Foundation for Sports and The Arts has also benefited greatly.

The football pools is not the only form of pools betting in British sport as the totalizator system or “tote” exists for horse and dog racing.