THE FOOTBALL POOL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23332, 26 October 1937, Page 3

THE FOOTBALL POOL

ENGLAND’S BIGGEST GAMBLE One day last April Reuben Levy, an East End Londoner, invested sixpence. His reward was £80,780 —the biggest dividend ever paid in a football pool- . . , What is the history of this industry, the fastest-growing in Britain to-day; an industry which, in 15 years has reached a turnover of £750,000 a week— £3o,ooo,ooo in one single football season? Let us go back to 1922. In that year, Mr J. J. Barnard, of Birmingham, had a brainwave. Why not, he asked himself, pool all the money staked, deduct a percentage for profit and expenses, and divide, the balance between those people who had forecast correct combinations of matches? He and others set to work and started the penny pool. Last season one firm paid out over 4,000,000 winners, and another paid out in their penny pool alone dividends amounting to more than £350,000. Entries came from England, Scotland and Wales, but not from the Irish Free State, where the pools are prohibited by law. At first a few clerks and ex-postal officials were engaged. The business grew rapidly. From a single snowflake it became a blizzard in one season, until to-day 30,000 people are regularly employed on the staffs of the football pools. In Liverpool alone 10,000 girls are regularly employed by the pool promoters. Although the football season lasts for only 38 weeks out of the 52, these girls are not “ stood off.” There is plenty to do during the off season apart from work! Each girl is given a holiday. If she likes, she can go to the holiday camp which the promoters have provided. There the accommodation is good and the charges are low. There are dramatic societies and sports clubs. There are all sorts of other diversions. Such was the outcry against football pools at one time that various promoters banded themselves together and formed the Football Pool Promoters’ Association. The association laid down rigid rules. They agreed among themselves that 5 per cent, of the total was the maximum which they would deduct for profit. They agreed that 15 per cent, was to be deducted for the expenses of running their particular pool. Each week of the football season 16,000,000 envelopes leave the headquarters of the pool firms all over the country, and it is estimated that upwards of 12,000,000 replies are returned. That is, 12,000,000 investments are made each week. Imagine what that means in cold cash. Each of those letters, both outwards and inwards, bears a Hd stamp That means £175,000 every week in postage. Inside each of those 12,000,000 envelopes there is a postal order, which, statistics prove, averages 2s 6d. The poundage on those postal orders is another £70,000 a week. Therefore, pools mean that nearly a quarter of a million pounds extra finds its way into the hands of the Post Office every week. And think of the indirect labour. One day last season one of the biggest pools needed 120,000 five shilling postal orders. The Liverpool Post Office simply had not got that number, and an urgent S.O.S. was despatched to London. Since football pools began, the sales of postal orders have risen enormously. In 1925 the sales of sixpenny orders amounted to less . than £4,000,000. Ten years later the figure had jumped to £22,932,525. It was the same with shilling orders. They had risen from £8,170,580 to C? 5 959,850 and even Is 6d postal orders, which were £4,227,110 in K'2s. had become £14,314,000 10 years later.