Football Pools at Vernons

Since the early 20th century the football pools have been an integral part of the beautiful game. Littlewoods started it all off in 1923, Vernons got on board a couple of years later in 1925, and two other significant players Zetters and Brittens got in on the act in 1933 and 1946 respectively. Before the introduction of the National Lottery in 1994 the Treble Chance version of the football pools was the only way of scooping a jackpot of over one million pounds in the UK in a non-casino game. During their heydays of the 1960s to 1980s checking the football pools became a national pastime with the dividend forecast being read out directly after the Saturday football results on national TV and radio stations.

Unlike the totally random chance of winning on the National Lottery, football pools are considered a competition of skill, rather than chance, and therefore not subject to gambling legislation. Apart from paying 37.5% of turnover as tax the pools companies also pay out a sum equivalent to 2.5% of total entry fees to the football trust, which distributes that cash throughout the UK to fund football initiatives, such as stadium redevelopment.

Visitors to the excellent National Football Museum at Preston North End can peruse the Littlewoods Football Pools collection display entitled ‘Footballs and Fortunes’. In amongst the display is featured the story of one of the most famous or infamous, depending upon your point of view, pools winners - peroxide blonde Viv Nicholson. Her famous quote of “spend, spend, spend!” when asked what she was going to do with her winnings has passed into folklore. That statement was made when she and her husband Keith scooped a jackpot of just over £152,000 in 1961, equivalent to a sum over £3million today! Her life story was even made into a West End musical predictably entitled “Spend, spend, spend”! Since Viv’s win there has been a host of big winners that have grabbed the public’s attention, but many have also marked ‘x’ for no publicity and live in happy anonymity with their millions! Littlewoods boast that they have made over 100 people millionaires and paid out over £1billion in prizes since 1923.

Football pools revenues have declined following the introduction of the National Lottery but, despite all the dire warnings, the Lottery hasn’t entirely finished them off. Many progressive companies, such as Littlewoods and Vernons have responded to the challenge and now offer football pools online, making it a much more convenient way to play for those who are too busy to wait at home for a local coupon collector.

You can play several versions of the football pools at Vernons.co.uk and scoop a top-prize jackpot of £2million in the process! Check out the pools options and see which one appeals most. You can choose traditional, prize booster or expert plans all offering different percentages of winning chances, and you can stake any amount from £1 upwards. To bag the top prize you need to correctly predict eight score-draws from a selection of 11 upwards. The size of the top football pools prize depends upon the total amount of score draws in that week’s results, and you can check your coupon online.