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Football Pools to be sold for nearly £100m
Football Pools to be sold for nearly £100m
The Football Pools is being sold for £97.25m by current owners Sportech to a group of gambling industry investors. The pools business is worth almost the same as Paul Pogba, who signed for Manchester United for a world-record £89m
Sportech wants to sell the betting firm, which began 93 years ago and was once the main way to gamble on football, to focus on its US business.
It will be bought by Burlywood Capital, an investment fund run by the founder of online betting site Sportingbet.
The pools are now played by about 300,000 people, although at their height 10 million players took part.
Last year the business had sales of £33.8m and profits of £15.2m.
Sportech combined the pools brands by buying Littlewoods Gaming in 2000, Zetters in 2002 and Vernons in 2007.
Players pick up to 12 football matches that they predict will finish in a draw.
Famous winners include West Yorkshire factory worker Viv Nicholson who, along with her husband, scooped £152,319 in 1961, the equivalent of £3.1m today.
Burlywood Capital plans to list the Football Pools on London's Alternative Investment Market.The pools deal depends on approval from Sportech shareholders and also on Burlywood Capital raising the financing.
SB