Michael owen joins pools panel- does anyone still play the pools (or ever used to?)

https://www.fourfourtwo.com/news/mic...ll-pools-panel

So Michael owen will be predicting the score draws and home wins.

If I wanted to play the pools not sure how i would do apart from Google "how to play the pools". Anyone play?

Or did anyone ever used to? Used to be a thing didn't it?

Me and my old man used to do it when I was a kid, never won mind!
Also used to have a go at spot the ball, does that still exist?

I used to do them.
Won just over £200 once.
I was also in a syndicate at work- we go 8 draws once, trouble was there were something like 18 draws that week, so we only got a couple of hundred quid to share.
My local when I lived on London also had a syndicate - they didn't bother sharing their win, instead displaying their winning cheque on the wall - it was for £2:00 :hehe:
Pools went into decline when punters switched to the lottery, which is actually harder to win (big).

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Originally Posted by GL1Blue

Me and my old man used to do it when I was a kid, never won mind!
Also used to have a go at spot the ball, does that still exist?

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Spot the Ball was a scam. According to the rules, you didn't win even if you had the same picture with the ball in, and used that as reference to where the ball was.
There was a panel who decided the winner was the person who, by their judgement, had used the best skill or intuition to determine where the ball was.

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Originally Posted by bobh

Spot the Ball was a scam. According to the rules, you didn't win even if you had the same picture with the ball in, and used that as reference to where the ball was.
There was a panel who decided the winner was the person who, by their judgement, had used the best skill or intuition to determine where the ball was.

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Really, that's interesting, I never knew that? I used to do Spot-the-Ball in my early 20's. I would, naturally, try to follow where the players' eyes were focused - the following week they'd publish the actual picture, of course, the ball was nowhere near where you'd think it would be!

I had an uncle who worked for Littlewoods pools in Cardiff, so I had to use Vernon's Spot-the-Ball instead. I always remember they had a much lower cash first prize than Littlewoods, but what used to catch my eye was you could opt for the prize of a Marcos 2-seater sports car instead of the cash. Each time I sent it off I really had a belief that I was going to win that car, ridiculous, eh! :hehe:

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Originally Posted by Father Dougal

https://www.fourfourtwo.com/news/mic...ll-pools-panel

So Michael owen will be predicting the score draws and home wins.

If I wanted to play the pools not sure how i would do apart from Google "how to play the pools". Anyone play?

Or did anyone ever used to? Used to be a thing didn't it?

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Anyone here remember Horace Batchelor and his infra draw system advertised on Radio Luxembourg?

His advert was wellnown at the time for making Keynsham near Bristol famous

The advert would say not to send money just your name and address to


Horace Batchelor Department 1 Keynsham spelt K-E-Y-N-S-H-A-M , Keynsham Bristol'

He was actually included towards the end on the Bonzo Doo Dah Band song The Intro and the Outro, which I haven't heard for years but of course it is on Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCtkJxyYsrc

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Originally Posted by bobh

Spot the Ball was a scam. According to the rules, you didn't win even if you had the same picture with the ball in, and used that as reference to where the ball was.
There was a panel who decided the winner was the person who, by their judgement, had used the best skill or intuition to determine where the ball was.

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Decades ago I had two second prize wins of £500 each in the same month. Not a sausage before or afterwards though. I had a rubber stamp with 100+ crosses on it. The majority of weeks I was miles away from where the ball was adjudged to be.

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Originally Posted by Organ Morgan.

Decades ago I had two second prize wins of £500 each in the same month. Not a sausage before or afterwards though. I had a rubber stamp with 100+ crosses on it. The majority of weeks I was miles away from where the ball was adjudged to be.

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I wonder what the criteria was for where the cross had to be situated on the ball. Dead centre I presume?

Yes. Though I think they selected the winners purely at random. There was a first prize of £5k iirc and 20 2nd prizes of £500 apiece. It was a big concern back then as they'd publish the winners' names and an image with where the ball was in several daily newspapers every week.

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Originally Posted by Organ Morgan.

Decades ago I had two second prize wins of £500 each in the same month. Not a sausage before or afterwards though. I had a rubber stamp with 100+ crosses on it. The majority of weeks I was miles away from where the ball was adjudged to be.

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I don't remember if it was Littlewoods, Vernon's or Zetters that wouldn't allow the use of stamps?

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Originally Posted by Tuerto

I wonder what the criteria was for where the cross had to be situated on the ball. Dead centre I presume?

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Yes,m I'm sure the rules stated that the cross had to be dead centre of the ball - but see my previous post.

Always do an ACCA on a betting app - does that count?

Was let down by the jacks today.

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Originally Posted by 19bluebirds27

Always do an ACCA on a betting app - does that count?

Was let down by the jacks today.

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It's quite similar, however for your selections you chose draw, home win or away win. If I recall when you were correct you got a certain amount of points and you had to have so many to win?

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Originally Posted by GL1Blue

It's quite similar, however for your selections you chose draw, home win or away win. If I recall when you were correct you got a certain amount of points and you had to have so many to win?

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The main pools comp was to simply select a number of games (usually 10 on Littlewoods, 11 on Vernons, which is why Vernons were cheaper)
When the results came in , you got 3 points per score draw, 2 for 0-0, and 1 for any win (There was 1 and a half for an away win at one stage, but that was dropped.)
You then "permed" the 8 games scoring most points, so if you had 8 score draws, you got 24 points.
If there were only 8 score draws that week - you hit the jackpot!
Obviously, the more games that ended in score-draws, the more winners there'd be, so the payout dropped.

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Originally Posted by bobh

The main pools comp was to simply select a number of games (usually 10 on Littlewoods, 11 on Vernons, which is why Vernons were cheaper)
When the results came in , you got 3 points per score draw, 2 for 0-0, and 1 for any win (There was 1 and a half for an away win at one stage, but that was dropped.)
You then "permed" the 8 games scoring most points, so if you had 8 score draws, you got 24 points.
If there were only 8 score draws that week - you hit the jackpot!
Obviously, the more games that ended in score-draws, the more winners there'd be, so the payout dropped.

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My dad used to do 8 draws from 16 selections on Littlewoods