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Can I win the Football Pools?

Can you win the Football Pools? 

Do you think that it is as pie-in-the-sky as winning the National Lottery (the odds against picking the winning 6 numbers are 14 million to 1)? Well, it is possible to win the football pools on a fairly regular basis.

The National Lottery is just that – a lottery, completely random (provided the ball-pick machinery works as it should).

The outcome of the pools is not totally random - the odds can be worked favourably. But, winning on a fairly regular basis requires that you invest time and money. Most importantly, you must be persistent. 

There have been various large scale legal commercial schemes for winning. Basically, just divide up all the possible outcomes of the weekend’s matches. Group members have a specified set of match selections. With enough punters, someone is very likely to have a good set of selections. 

You might have tried the horses, you might have tried online poker, you might even have tried the equities, futures and options markets. You know the pitfalls:

• a horse is held back until a race when they suddenly have a miraculous win – strange that it’s the one occasion you didn’t back the horse! Some people do make a good income, but they are usually the ones with the inside knowledge and the stable connections. 
• online poker requires a high degree of skill, a good memory and steady nerves.  Sometimes you are actually playing against users who are using computers to watch the cards and calculate the odds. If you have the brain for it, this is probably the best option for making money through ‘gambling’!
• the equities, fx, futures markets – well, there’s a fortune to be made if you have the patience and can spot a bargain, and the ‘margin’ requirements are increasing following the recent financial disaster. Even there, inside knowledge is important (insider trading still happens whatever regulatory regime governments set up). You are betting against a large number of computers and the arguably best brains in the world. And even they get it wrong in a big way from time to time!

Remember, every investment is a gamble and has a degree of risk – even buying a house. Look at how sub-prime mortgages caught everyone out – the risks had not been properly recognised and managed. Remember, Risk is just another way of quoting odds.

Finally, you know that there are people who can make a steady income from betting on horses, from playing poker (but not roulette), bridge, and the stock market. It’s about the detail and the odds, and in the case of poker and bridge, a high degree of skill.

So, how can you win the football pools?

No big secret, it’s obvious really. Special plans and perms are all very well, and detailed football knowledge can be useful. OK, if you are a football fan, that’s good, but not necessary. The important thing is to stand back and look at the numbers. Emotional involvement clouds the issue. You have to be a detached observer.

With 49 matches on a pools coupon, the number of lines (a line is 8 selections) required to cover all 49 matches – ‘a full perm 8 from 49’ - would require an entry of 451 million lines. At a cost of 1p per line, this would come to a stake of £4½ million pounds – and there might not even be 8 draws that week, or there might be 15 draws with prize pool shared out across thousands of winners! So, this is prohibitive and does not make economic sense, even if the pools companies allowed it.

So, I come back to the words of that old number and paraphrase:

“Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative

You're left with the likely draws

And don’t mess with mister in between”

Apologies to Arlen and Mercer who wrote the original.

So, just find a way of identifying those matches which are least likely to be draws, and you are left with the likely draw games. 

Then, you need to have a betting strategy to cover those likely draws. It's not rocket science. That’s the subject of a later article…

Call in and find out more at => www.footballpoolswizard.co.uk

© Phil Marks 2009

 

About the Author

Facts, stories, tales and opinions from an experienced professional. Extensive and varied international career from being a chef to IT, yacht charter and other enterprises, with an interest in gambling sensibly and mathematically. Independent consulting project manager in information systems available for assignments.

Drop in and find out more at=>

www.footballpoolswizard.co.uk

Visit my homepage for more info.

Phil Marks
BSc, MSc, MBA, CITP

NFL Full-Zip Polyfill Jacket with Detachable Hood

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