# Surviving the National Lottery - Football Pools Strike Back

The thought of the football pools dates back once again to Liverpool, 1923 when the late Sir John Moores printed off and distributed football coupons by hand after football matches. Fixed-odds betting on football matches had actually been available considering that the 1880s when newspapers in England began to provide fixed prices on football matches. However, the concept of a basketball pool was radically different to that presented by the newspaper and has stayed relatively unchanged since.

Essentially, whereas the newspaper carried odds on teams to win or a match to result in a draw, the football pools allowed players to predict the outcome of multiple matches, making use of their entry 'stake' being pooled together. Winners would then be provided with a share of the 'pool' depending on the sum of money in the pool and how many winners.

The essential premise of the coupon was to amass 24 points from the list of games played on a Saturday. To be able to try this, players selected matches that they thought would result in a 'draw' and mark their coupon with an 'X' ;.How many selections a person might make depended on the 'perm' (permutation) they wanted to play, as well as the price of the bet. As an example, an 8-from-10 perm allowed players to pick 10 matches in the hope 8 of them would create a draw. Players would hand their completed coupons and stakes [먹튀검증사이트](https://totogangster.com/) to a collector or agent, who'd send them on to the operator's office for checking.

Once all the matches have been played, the pools operator would check each coupon and allocate a score to each selection, based on consequence of the match. Commonly, draws were awarded 3 points, with away-team wins being awarded a point-and-a-half and home-team wins being awarded 1 point. Coupon scores would be calculated on the greatest scoring combination, depending on the perm played and a dividend announced based on the total amount of the pool and how many winning players - the more players who scored 24 points, the low the winning payout was likely to be. Meanwhile, pools players would huddle round the TV or radio - coupon in hand - and await the football results being announced.

Football pools co-existed with high-street bookmakers, who provided much more specific betting opportunities on football matches and horse-racing. As the growth of the football pools had no adverse impact on bookmaker turnover, the easier access to gambling supplied by bookmakers didn't affect the football pools business either. In fact, many gamblers combined the two elements, contributing to the success and growth of both industries.

However, with the introduction of the National Lottery in 1994, the numbers of individuals who played football pools started to decline and threatened the pools operators' long-term future. In fact, immediately ahead of the launch of the National Lottery, there was an estimated 10 million football pools players nevertheless the introduction of the National Lottery has seen the loss of around 90 percent of football pools customers - lured away by the potential huge lottery jackpot. This is despite football pools still holding a possible payout in excess of £1 million!

To be able to survive, football pools operators were forced to consolidate and regroup, which saw a number of the major operators amalgamate into a single, larger entity. Furthermore, with the introduction of the web and online gambling, football pools operators also cast their nets wider in an endeavor to entice a greater array of customer.