From a Liverpool office in 1923 to the pool papers sold every week across Nigeria: how the pools really work, what pool guides contain, and the simple maths that explains why no “sequence” can promise you eight draws.
Long before betting apps and in-play odds, millions of football fans tried their luck in a different way. Every week they filled in a coupon, marked the matches they expected to end in draws, and waited for the Saturday results. This was the football pools, one of the oldest forms of football betting in the world.
The pools are much smaller in Britain today, but they remain a weekly habit for many fans, especially in Nigeria, where printed and online pools guides are still widely read. This article explains how the pools work, where they came from, what a football pools guide actually contains, and how to read one with realistic expectations.
What Are the Football Pools?
The football pools are a form of pool betting. Players do not bet against a bookmaker at fixed odds. Instead, all the stakes go into one prize fund, the operator takes its share, and the rest is divided between the winners. The more people who win in a week, the smaller each person’s prize.
The most famous pools game is the Treble Chance. Players choose matches from a weekly list of fixtures, called the coupon, and earn points according to how each match ends. Score draws, such as 1-1 or 2-2, earn the most points, so the game is really about predicting draws.
A Short History of the Pools
The modern pools began in Liverpool on 1 February 1923, when John Moores and two partners launched the Littlewoods Football Pool. According to the Football Heritage website, the first 4,000 coupons were handed out outside Old Trafford. The first season lost money, but the idea quickly grew. Vernons followed in 1925 and Zetters in 1933.
By the second half of the 20th century, the pools were part of everyday British life. “Coupon men” collected entries door to door, and estimates of the peak number of regular players range from about 10 million to 15 million. In 1961, Viv Nicholson’s Littlewoods win of £152,319 made national headlines when she promised to “spend, spend, spend”.
The launch of the UK National Lottery in 1994 changed everything. Its bigger jackpots and simpler format drew players away, and participation fell to around 700,000 by 2007. Today the brands are combined under The Football Pools, which was bought by investment firm OpCapita in 2017 for £83 million.
The record UK pools win came in 2010, when Michael Elliott from Brechin in Scotland won £3,001,511. His winning line was made up of eight 2-2 draws.
How the Treble Chance Works
In the classic Treble Chance, a player chooses eight matches from the coupon. Each match earns points based on its result, and the highest-scoring lines share the prize fund. Under the current Classic Pools scoring system, the points are:
| Result | Example | Points |
| Score draw | 1-1, 2-2, 3-3 | 3 |
| No-score draw | 0-0 | 2 |
| Home or away win | 2-1, 0-3 | 1 |
The maximum possible score is 24 points, which means eight score draws. Because score draws are worth three times as much as a win, everything in the Treble Chance comes down to finding draws. That is why pools players often talk about “draws” rather than winners, and why pools guides focus almost entirely on draw predictions.
The Pools Panel
In January 1963, a severe winter in Britain, known as the Big Freeze, caused many matches to be postponed. To stop the pools from being cancelled week after week, the Pools Panel was created. This panel of football experts decides the result of postponed matches for pools purposes only, so every coupon can still be settled.
UK and Australian seasons
The pools run all year. During the European season, the coupon uses English and Scottish league matches. In the northern summer, when those leagues stop, coupons switch to Australian fixtures. Each week of the season is numbered, so pools fans refer to “Week 16” or “Week 47” rather than to dates.
The Pools in Nigeria
The pools travelled far beyond Britain. In Nigeria, pool betting arrived as a cultural import from Britain and became a popular weekly pastime, especially among older men, retired workers and the unemployed. According to a 2018 report in the Nigerian newspaper Blueprint, local promoters operated under government licences, and Nigerian pool agents linked them with players, who are often called stakers.
Players marked their selections on coupon sheets and followed the results on transistor radios. The pools were part of popular culture too. In the NTA sitcom The New Masquerade, the character Jegede Shokoya was the owner of a pool house, a detail many Nigerian viewers still remember.
Modern sports betting has taken much of the market, but the pools have not disappeared. Weekly pools papers and websites still publish guides for each week of the UK and Australian seasons, which brings us to the heart of this article.
What Is a Football Pools Guide?
A football pools guide, often called a pool paper, is a weekly publication that helps players choose their draws. Well-known titles include the Weekly Telegraph, Pools Telegraph and the so-called “RSK papers”, such as Bob Morton and Capital. Many are now shared as scanned pages online, while “late news” papers update the picks closer to kick-off.
The person who prepares the forecasts is called a compiler. A typical guide contains some or all of the following:
- Draw ratings: a list of fixtures ranked by how likely the compiler thinks a draw is.
- Past results: the history of previous weeks and of past meetings between the teams.
- Sequences: number patterns that compilers claim repeat across weeks, sometimes shown as “matrix” charts.
- Bankers and pairs: the compiler’s strongest single picks and suggested combinations.
- HT/FT tables: half-time and full-time result breakdowns.
- Late news: updated advice based on team news, weather or postponements.
How to Read a Pools Guide Sensibly
Some parts of a pools guide are genuinely useful, because they rely on football information. Others are based on patterns that have no link to what happens on the pitch. The table below separates the two:
| Guide feature | Useful for | Limitation |
| Team form and news | Spotting evenly matched games | Can change before kick-off |
| Head-to-head records | Context on past meetings | Old results may not matter |
| Draw ratings | A starting shortlist | Only an opinion, not a fact |
| Number sequences | Nothing reliable | Results don’t follow coupon numbers |
| “Fixed” or “sure” draws | Nothing | No one can guarantee a result |
The most important point is about sequences. A fixture’s number on the coupon is simply its position on a list. The players on the pitch do not know or care that their match is number 23 this week, so a pattern in past coupon numbers cannot tell you anything about the next result.
The Maths Behind Picking Eight Draws
Draws are common in football, but not common enough to make the pools easy. In the 2024/25 Premier League, around one in four matches ended level, according to season data. That sounds encouraging until you try to pick eight draws at once.
If every match you chose had a 25% chance of being a draw, the chance of all eight drawing would be about 1 in 65,536. Even if a skilled compiler could find matches with a 30% draw chance every time, the odds would still be roughly 1 in 15,000. This is why big pools wins are rare, and why guides cannot promise success.
Pools vs Fixed-Odds Betting
| Feature | Football pools | Fixed-odds betting |
| Who you play against | Other players | The bookmaker |
| How prizes are set | Shared from the prize fund | Fixed when you bet |
| Main skill | Predicting draws | Any market you choose |
| Cost per entry | Usually small stakes | You choose the stake |
| Size of prize | Can be huge, but rare | Known in advance |
Final Thoughts
Football pools guides are part of a long tradition that links 1920s Liverpool with weekend pool houses in Lagos, Ibadan and beyond. Used well, they offer a useful shortlist of evenly matched games. Used badly, they encourage players to trust number patterns and “sure” draws that do not exist.
If you play the pools, treat the guide as one opinion, check team news yourself, and keep your stake small. Play only with licensed operators, avoid anyone selling “fixed” draws, and remember that betting is for adults only. If it stops being fun, take a break and talk to someone you trust.
