The Decline of the Football Pools - 15/10/2007

'Doing the pools' was once an integral part of working class life in Britain. Each week the 'coupons' would be completed around the country in the hope of winning a jackpot that would transform a family's life, although the consequences were not always happy ones. It was also an important source of income for the football league, after they won a court case in the inter-war period which established that they had copyright over them given the skill that was involved in drawing up the fixtures list. 750,000 people still take part each week, yielding operating profits of about £15m. Yet the pools is a dying business in an age of internet gambling. The average age of players is 56. Now effectively just one company is left. The Competition Commission has allowed Sportech, the leisure firm that owns Pontins and Blackpool Tower, to add Vernons to its Littlewoods and Zetters empire. It is spending £3.5m on taking the game online. Players have slumped from 10m in 1994 with the National Lottery having a big impact. A survey by the Competition Commission found that more half of those who take part had been filling in coupons for 30 years. The Commission implied that one reason for loss of interest was simply that prizes were too low.