If you are of a certain vintage and you feel as though you’ve heard of The Pools you don’t need to worry, you are absolutely correct. The Football Pools was a company that originally launched in the 1920s in the United Kingdom, going on to become one of the biggest gambling companies in the country before declining in the wake of the launch of the National Lottery. The current company bears little in common with the one that launched more than 100 years ago, yet there is a direct line between the two ventures.
The fact that it has been able to rebrand itself and become a company for the modern age of betting is testament to the people that work for The Pools, to say nothing of the enduring spirit of British companies in general. There has been a move towards modernising the company in the more recent years, which is why you can bet on so much more than just the football through the company nowadays. In fact, if there’s something that you’re hoping to bet on then there is a very real chance that The Pools will have you covered.
Existing Customer Offers from The Pools
Sports Betting at The Pools
The Site
The Pools’ website is fresh looking, largely thanks to the use of black and mint-green colours on a white background. It makes things really to see and understand, with the occasional splash of yellow drawing your attention elsewhere. The site isn’t the quickest to load up, which might be even slower if you haven’t got particularly good internet; mine’s lightning quick and yet I still had to wait a short time for certain pages to load. That isn’t exactly the sort of thing that will stop you from using their services altogether but it is at least worth flagging up.
There are plenty of other websites out there that are also slow to load but that offer nowhere near the clean look or ease of use promises by The Pools, which is something worth bearing in mind. The overall layout is different from a lot of the cookie-cutter websites that you can find elsewhere online, so it definitely gets a big tick on that front. I’m not going to go so far as to say it’s ‘idiot proof’, but I am quite idiotic sometimes and yet was able to find exactly what I was looking for with ease every time I clicked on a new page.
Features
If you’re after a sports betting website that is full to the brim with different features then it’s fair to say that The Pools might not be for you. That isn’t to say that it doesn’t have anything worthy of the name, but it is certainly true that you will get more bells and whistles elsewhere. Having said that, you will still get many of the things that we’ve all come to expect from betting sites nowadays. If you want to bet in-play then you’ll be able to do just that, but if you’re the sort of person that likes to live stream whilst betting then you might find your options limited.
What to Bet On
The Pools has a long and illustrious history with football betting, so there is no question that that is going to be one of the best sports on offer here. You will find the coverage has decent depth and an impressive amount of options, even away from the Premier League. The fact that the quick-link tab at the top of the Sports homepage puts football first, followed by racing and then tennis probably tells its own story. I briefly thought that there wasn’t any horse or greyhound racing offered, but it comes under the generic tab of ‘Racing’.
Other Products
If you want to look away from Sports to other things on offer from The Pools then you’ll find you have plenty of options. There is the old-fashioned Classic Pools option, for example, as well as an ability to sign up for the likes of a Sports Membership or a Lotto Membership if you want to try to win a jackpot on a regular basis. If you’re more of a slots fan then the Games page will offer you the likes of slots and table games, as well as instant wins. If you want to look for something such as Slingo then you’ll be pleased to know that that’s there too.
Banking & Limits
Since the April of 2020, online betting sites have been unable to accept payments from credit cards and The Pools are no exception. What the company does offer, though, is the chance to make payments to your accounts with both debit cards and a PayPal account. The minimum amount that you’ll have to deposit is £5, whilst the minimum withdrawal amount sits at £10. You can use both Visa and Mastercard debit cards to make payments, but the likes of Revolut are not available to use at the time of writing and options such as Neteller aren’t offered either.
Who Are The Pools?
Life for The Pools began in Liverpool in 1923 as Littlewoods Football Pools, with three friends each investing £50 before two of them pulled out and only John Moores was left. At its peak, around 14 million people played The Football Pools every week, with Moores becoming a very rich man as a result. The introduction of technology wasn’t enough to see The Football Pools off, with the company adapting to the challenges presented with aplomb. The National Lottery eventually caused the company trouble, eventually relaunching as The Pools in 2018.