[jambutty]

Originally Posted by steeljack

bit of a slight wander ......back in the days of the football pools , does anyone know if Vernons or Littlewoods had to payout a set amount of the take or how the pot was divided up for number of draws you had , i.e. was there any Govt. oversight , lets face it that was one good cash business

Like any business, the football pools industry paid tax.

For “Fixed Odds Pools” you won whatever the odds decreed.

For the normal type of football pool all the monies staked in one particular pool, say the Treble Chance, had tax and company overheads deducted and whatever was left was divided up amongst any winners. I can’t remember exactly what the divi was but it were something like 60% for the first prize divided up amongst the first prize winners, 20% for the second, 10% for the third, 6% for the fourth and 4% for the fifth prize.

What the punter had to do were select 8 matches out of the full list of English matches and some Scottish matches that would end in a draw. You got 3 points for a match ending in a draw, 2 for an away win and 1 for a home win. This was later changed to 3 points for a score draw, 2 points for a no score draw, 1½ points for an away win and 1 point for a home win. You added up the points that your 8 selections gained and if you had 24 points you got the first prize or a share of the first prize if there was more than one winner. 23 points for second prize, 22 for 3rd, 21 for 4th and 20 for 5th. At one time there was a maximum of £75,000 for the top prize. Each line of selections cost 1 penny and you could have as many lines as you wanted or the space allowed. Obviously the space was limited so that’s when perms and plans were introduced. With a perm (short for permutation) you would select more than 8 matches and perm any 8 from those selected. The number of lines for a perm of any 8 from 12 was:
12z11x10x9x8x7x6x5 all divided by 8x7x6x5x4x3x2x1 (19,958,400/40,320) = 495 lines.

With 55 matches to choose from you could perm any 8 from 55. That is 55x54x53x52x51x50x49x48 all divided by 8x7x6x5x4x3x2x1 (49,092,275,232,000/40,320) = 9,917,633,600 lines. At 1 penny a line, that would cost £41,323,473 – 6 shillings and 8 pence.

There was a fixed formula to calculate a perm. Any 3 from 10 would be 10x9x8 divided by 3x2x1. Any 5 from 10 would be 10x9x8x7x6 divided by 5x4x3x2x1.

Other pools companies like Zetters and Shermans would charge fractions of a penny per line. One was as little as one twenty fifth of a penny per line.

There was a 3 Draws pool, the 4 Aways pool and 10 Results pool. There was also an ‘Easy Six’ pool where six matches were listed and you had to forecast the result and one for 12 matches in terms of home win, away win or draw and not the actual score.

The total minimum stake on the whole coupon was one shilling. There was no maximum.