Illinois Lottery Football Pool

The Histry of British Lottery

No betting activity in the history of Great Britain has ever fired the imagination of the British public so much as the legal football (soccer) pools. The handle of the eight major privately run British football pools in 1972 was $339,360,000. Half this amount, or $169,680,000, was returned to the players in so-called “dividends,” or prize money. About 30%, or $101,808,000 went to the government in taxes, and the remainilig 20%, $67,872,000, paid salaries, printing costs, advertising and Lotteries, Sweepstakes, Pools and Raffles other expenses, and the promoters’ profits, which are limited by law to 3%.
About 20 miffion Britons spend at least one evening a week hoping to acquire sudden and fabulous fortune by trying to select from 50 or more football matches 8 that will end in a tie. The bettor of 2ç or more is not compelled, as in the premium-bond Illinois Lottery, to purchase a £1 bond. The record award was won by an English mechanic, Cohn Carruthers, in 1973, when his 2 bet won $1,574,502.50.
In heavily taxed Britain the football pools are one of the very few roads to quick and big money because there is no tax on winnings.

Methods of Betting The Pool

There are several methods of betting the pool, the treble (triple) chance pool being the most popular. In this pool the ticket buyer tries to pick 8 tied soccer games from a pooi coupon list of 45 or more soccer matches. A point scoring system allots 3 points for a tied game, 2 points for a win by the visiting team and 1½ points for a win by the home team. If no one scores the magic 24 points by picking eight tied Teaser games, the jackpot (top award) goes to the holder(s) of the next highest total. If two or more players tie, the jackpot is divided equally among them. There are several other types of bets which can be made, such as picking three tied matches, six winning scores, twelve winning scores or the correct scores of various matches. But it is the treble chance that pays the really big money.
Factory, store and office workers form groups in a joint effort to cop the big awards. Every Saturday evening at 5:00 P.M., in hundreds of thousands of homes, people cluster around their radio sets listening to the sportscast which gives the afternoon football results. For ten minutes or so there is no sound except the noncommittal voice of the announcer, and tension mounts as the scores of the winning teams are announced. Failure to win is only a spur to another attempt the following week. Newspapers devote entire pages to the pooi, and handicappers list their selections forecasting the results of 45 or more matches. The advertising of the rival pools is prodigious, and even the sides of buses bear posters with photos of the smiling winners and lists of the dazzling six-figure jackpots which have been paid.

Small British Lotteries

The premium-bond Illinois State Lottery and the football pools are not enough to satisfy the Briton’s gambling urge. In August 1956, the Small Lotteries and Gaming Act came into force and legalized the broad use of lotteries, Bingo and similar games by organizations established for charitable, sporting and cultural purposes not connected with private gain. Expenses are limited to 10%, prizes to 50%, and the balance goes to the sponsoring organization. The total value of tickets in drawing is restricted to £750, the first prize to £100 and the value of any ticket to £1. Before legalization one British newspaper in 1995 estimated that there were 20 million participants who wagered £50 million, or $140 million, annually at these small lotteries.