Football pools

In the United Kingdom, the football pools, often referred to as "the pools", is a betting pool based on predicting the outcome of top-level association football matches taking place in the coming week. The pools are typically cheap to enter, with the potential to win a very large sum of money. Entries were traditionally submitted through the post or via collector agents, although you can now play online. Agents would have a specific area in which they collected entries; traditionally, they were paid a set share of every ticket they sold. The traditional and most famous game entered was the 'Treble Chance', now branded the "Classic Pools" game. Players pick 10, 11 or 12 football games from the weekend's fixtures to finish as a draw in which each team scores at least two goals to win the whole or a share of the £3 million Top Prize - a player's best 8 selection count towards their points total. Players can win large cash prizes in a variety of other ways, based on a points-based scoring system.

Littlewoods, Vernons and Zetters were the most famous pools companies. Littlewoods was the first company to provide pools, selling them outside Manchester United’s Old Trafford ground in 1923. In 1986, a syndicate of players became the first winners of a prize over £1 million. Littlewoods, Vernons and Zetters were brought together in 2007 by Sportech under the brand ‘The New Football Pools’, now known as ‘The Football Pools’. They offer other small stake, high prize games such as Premier 10 and Jackpot 12. The Football Pools companies have traditionally been charitable, donating over £1.1 billion to sports-related causes.

Several different companies—including Littlewoods, Vernons, Zetters and Brittens—have in the past organised similar games, the most famous of which was historically known as Treble Chance. Players were given a list of football matches set to take place over the coming week and attempted to pick a line of eight of them, whose results would be worth the most points by the scoring scheme; traditionally by crossing specific boxes on a printed coupon. A proportion of the players' combined entry fees was distributed as prizes among those whose entries were worth the highest scores.

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