The Football Pools launches new Sportsbook

The Football Pools has launched an online sportsbook, building on 95 years of providing their popular football pools service.

Founded in 1923, The Football Pools was a household name and provided customers with the chance of winning large sums of money for relatively small bets. Traditionally, entries were made through the post or by a door-to-door collection agent who would distribute and collect pools slips containing the customers picks on which football matches they thought would end in a score-draw. Players were awarded points for correctly predicting score-draws, no-score draws and the winner of matches and those with the most points would win the top prize or a portion of ‘the pool’ should there be more than one winner.

After the introduction of the National Lottery and the rise of online betting, popularity of the pools declined. In 2007, organisers of the pools, Littlewoods, Vernons and Zetters joined forces to offer ‘The New Football Pools’ where players could bet on the traditional and most popular ‘Treble Chance’ game as well as other variations online.

In 2017, OpCapita acquired The New Football Pools for £83m and at the beginning of October 2018, launched a brand new full Sportsbook service in an attempt to move with the times and target a new generation of customers.

The new Sportsbook ‘ThePools.com’ was launched in conjunction with leading platform provider FSB (UK) Ltd to offer customers betting opportunities on a wide range of sports markets online and via mobile devices. The classic pools game can still be played on the new website along with their ‘Footie5’ game where players can win a top prize of £25,000 for predicting 5 scores correctly. Footie5 is free to play on a weekly basis and a great incentive to drive new customers and bring existing customers to the site. As well as the classic pools and Footie5, customers can now take advantage of a full sportsbook, online casino and live casino on ThePools.com. The range of available games in ThePools casino isn’t as extensive as other online casinos but they cover the majority of the most popular games and offer Roulette, Blackjack, Baccarat and Casino Hold’em in their Live Casino.

Richard Thorp, FSB’s Business Development Director, said:

“We’re thrilled to take the field with The Football Pools, one of the most trusted and respected names in football betting. Our platform is now setting the tone for online sports betting, driving the sector forward via innovative features across online, mobile and retail.”

Derek Lloyd, CEO at The Football Pools:

“FSB enjoys a stellar track record for delivering flexible-yet-reliable performance with effortless speed on all sporting events. So their appeal for this new venture was immediate. However, we were particularly drawn to their unrivalled in-play football betting, which allows our customers the chance to harness the best product on the UK’s sophisticated igaming landscape. Players can find our new site at thepools.com.”

“With this new sportsbook, we aim to capitalise on the escalating need for a mobile-first solution, focussing above all on in-play betting via mobile. We’re delighted to make FSB our latest signing.”

ThePools.com are looking to hit the ground running with their new sportsbook service and are offering some attractive free bets and promotions for new and existing customers. New customers can claim a £10 free bet when they register and place their first bet of £10 or more. Existing customers can also claim a £5 free bet every week when placing 5 x £5 bets throughout the week, Monday – Sunday. The new customer is offer is worth around £7.50 profit when matched betting and full instructions of how to complete the offer are available o MatchedBets.com members.