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An attack from the inside, based on a partnership between the bettor and some checker, is presumably prevented by unexpected swoops, searches that are constantly made of checkers' clothing and handbags, as well as those of people working on the machines and in the canteens. Nobody is allowed into a Littlewoods building on Saturday after kickoff time.
Nobody inside can go out and then return. No telephone calls are accepted. No one indoors can sneak out to his car in the parking lot to listen to scores on the radio. As for outside methods, it seems unlikely that the most determined crook could suborn a large number of football teams and bribe them to throw the games all in one Saturday afternoon. Less ambitious attempts, such as sending in coupons with false postmarks they've got to come by mail , are made every week, but they aren't successful.
Somebody did nearly manage once to do something like that; he disguised himself as a postman and slipped an envelope, falsely postmarked, in through the crack of a window, but it didn't work, and now there simply aren't any cracks at Littlewoods where a man could push an envelope in. The unofficial openings are wired.
All in all, it seems simpler just to fill in your coupon, the legal way, and take your chances and get your kicks like everybody else—within the law. When you take everything into account, these kicks are considerable, anyway. It's no use talking to a confirmed pools addict about the numerical chances against him. I find it interesting, but not discouraging, that there are 1,,, ways to select eight matches from So what?
It just might be Mr. Harvell and me next time, mightn't it? It's got to be somebody. Every week somebody wins, that's the point. When he does, a number of interesting things happen. The firm takes a genuine avuncular interest in the people who get smashing wins. Littlewoods shows them the best way to invest their money. It does this immediately, as soon as the money is paid over and before the winners can begin the old nightclub-and-champagne routine, and it must be admitted that in so doing they are wise as well as kindly, since such spectacular winnings, followed by spectacular dissipation, might well strengthen the hands of the highly vocal minority opposed to the whole fabric of the pools.
This is how it happens. The pools firm makes sure first, of course, that the winner is a genuine winner—no monkey business on his part and no mistake in the office. Part of the investigation calls for a written statement from the winner, with a brief biography and description of whatever prizes he has won in the past, if any.
When the firm is satisfied that it's all aboveboard, the money is paid over. Almost before the shouting has died down, there is Littlewoods at the door again, with bank managers and investment advisers and all the rest, ready and anxious to help you handle the bonanza. The first time I paid genuine attention to this side of pools winning was in , when, along with Mr. I forget the details. My memory tells me, falteringly, that it was the first time she had ever tried her luck. It also tells me without absolute assurance that this was the biggest win in pools history up to that date.
But there is no doubt at all in my recollection that we were all—the entire pools public of Great Britain—pleased and happy at Mrs. Nellie McGrail's luck. Indeed, there was so much enthusiasm over it that it percolated into the financial page of my particular evening paper, and brought a personal note into the hitherto desiccated style of the syndicated column on investment for the ordinary man. Now if I were in Mrs. McGrail's shoes, this is what I would do with the money. And, actually, it was really like that, more or less, for Mrs. At the very moment I was reading about the imaginary disposition of her fortune, a number of equally total strangers were arranging it in truth.
They had been marshaled by benevolent Little-woods for the protection of the new-rich widow. As soon as the win was confirmed we set up an advisory committee to look after her interests.
It consists of the head of the trustee department of her local bank, a firm of solicitors, and a firm of stockbrokers who got together with the bank manager and decided on the best investments to be made in her behalf. They meet regularly every quarter to see how things are going. At the beginning this was done: In fact, she did not live at that rate, and here is an interesting general truth about big prizewinners. With the exception of that occasional human rocket who gets into the headlines and the bankruptcy court, if not worse, the lucky punters are a thrifty, sober lot.
Recently, aware that it has been two years since Mrs. McGrail got her money, Littlewoods sent out word that they were ready to take stock and ask questions of the advisory committee as to how things were going. Reporters gathered to ask other questions of the lady herself at the same time. Her financial state stands up nicely under inspection. McGrail has consistently stuck to her original decision to stay with her old friends.
She bought a bigger house, quite in the proper tradition, but it's on the same road as the old one. Her daughters are in the same schools they used to attend. True, she no longer goes out to work, but to date she still gets one of the daughters to give her a home permanent when she needs one. Perhaps, however, on the first day after the winning she made an exception to that rule.
I am told that it is almost instinctive among lucky ladies to go straight to a hairdresser downtown and order the works. The Littlewoods man who looks upon Mrs. McGrail as his special charge reports that he thinks she is beginning to realize at last that she isn't poor. After having bought a refrigerator and washing machine, a new sewing machine, a television set and a second-hand car, after having found a cleaning woman to help out with the housework twice a week though Mrs.
McGrail still does all her own cooking , after getting the older girl set in a training course as a shorthand typist, which is her ambition, Mrs. McGrail wants to travel abroad. She is studying Italian with this in mind. For some time Mrs. McGrail has been the pride and joy of the pools, but one of the stimulating things about this great gambling game is that you never know when another spectacular will turn up.
Her coup has already been outdone by other winnings, but the public didn't get quite so much of a boot out of them because they were not single prizes. Or, in other words, one single person didn't scoop the pool. A lot of bettors are like Mr.
Or the Lit-Plan, covering 16 selections, for 5 shillings? They study what your system has been; whether you have suddenly changed it; whether you have altered your investment; whether you have suddenly started posting your coupon late in the week. The backs of the coupons are decorated with forms, on which one may try the fancier methods of betting, with Dickensian names such as The Easier Six. From time to time the Labor Party agitates to nationalize the pools, but such action has not been taken. He had put in his little bit merely to be matey.
Harvell and me; they place their bets in partnership. Often they are even more economical than we are. Compared with most of these syndicates, Mr. Harvell and I are dizzy plungers, madly extravagant; the ordinary method is to split up the weekly wager into five or six or 10 parts. Last year several coupons owned by syndicates came in first.
Each partner got quite enough as his share to make Mr. Harvell and me misty-eyed with envy, and yet it isn't quite the same. For one thing, as you might expect, this business of splitting the ticket, widespread as the habit is, sometimes leads to trouble. There have been bitter quarrels among winners or would-be winners when one punter accuses another of keeping the whole lot though he wagered only half the bet. However, the British are on the whole very nice people, and such quarrels are exceptional.
A happy trust and unanimity obviously prevailed in the case of the 19 policemen who shared out a plummy prize not long ago and, as you might expect, the reporters had a field day. But it was in the first week of October that even the syndicate stories of pools winnings got a new twist. On that day the nation was gratified, if inevitably a little envious, to hear of a group win that outbids all such winnings to date. Even the group of policemen had to take a back seat afterward, because no less than 24 young men were included in this one. But hardly had Littlewoods' avuncular financial experts brought out their charts and bankbooks when they ran into the sort of snag they do not often encounter.
One of the youngest of the flyers, an year-old named Kenneth Hooton, showed a strangely glum face among all the smiles. Young Hooton's trouble was quite otherwise: He is a strict Methodist who doesn't approve of gambling: Kenneth never would have entered the syndicate if he'd had the slightest idea that it might win. He had put in his little bit merely to be matey. Kenneth knew his father was on his way to see him about this, on the heels of the advisory committee. His heart quailed. Father arrived, and retired with his erring son to talk the matter over.
It did not take long. The two soon emerged to give their decision to the waiting public. Kenneth's money, every penny of it, was to be given away to charity. I am sure I am not the only person in Britain whose reaction to this news was disappointment mingled with impatience. I was unregenerately pleased, therefore, when Kenneth and his father suffered a change of mind. A few days later another announcement came from the Hooton family: Kenneth's money is to be divided. One-third of it will go to charity; the rest is to be invested and used later when the boy is out of service and ready to make a start in life.
I heaved a sigh of relief. You may be sure that the investment part of it will be lovingly and carefully taken care of by Littlewoods. They take their self-imposed task in this respect very seriously and personally. Recently a winning client wanted to purchase a public house, and it was our pleasant task to discover whether the alcohol and the people who consumed it were in keeping with the price demanded.
Through a haze I can report that the public house showed every satisfaction and today is doing a vigorous and rewarding trade in Princes Risborough. Kenneth Hooton, of course, won't be investing in a pub. Nor will he ever put any of his money back into pools coupons, but Littlewoods and the other firms aren't worrying, since few regulars let moral scruples or anything else distract them from their weekly fling.
Consider, for example, the story of the man who was had up, some years ago, for having allegedly kidnaped a girl, beat her, assaulted her and kept her forcibly under restraint for several days. It was a gaudy case altogether—he pleaded guilty, as I recall, and was eventually imprisoned—but what stands out in my mind is the significant detail that he paused in what must have been, to say the very least, a complicated procedure, with the girl tied up and struggling and all, in order to fill in his pools coupon.
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You may unsubscribe from email communication at anytime. Thank you for signing up! Please check your inbox to confirm your email address and start receiving newsletters. November 30, By Emily Hahn. More Less. When he is satisfied he puts the coupon into the addressed envelope that came with it, automatically reading and mentally replying to the boldly printed words over which he will ultimately seal the flap: November 30, Buy the Cover Browse the Magazine. Jimmy Jemail's Hotbox. For years green firs and black bears grew up together in the vast forests of the Northwest.
Then something happened that radically altered their peaceful coexistence. From oft-derided Ivy League football come a few excellent players and a number of interesting young men. The Baltimore Colts, defending world champions, finally came to life against San Francisco in a game they had to win.
The result was a savage victory. The annual Canada Cup matches were held in Melbourne and, to the delight of the 50, Australians who watched, popular Peter Thomson led his two-man team to an easy win. Those ever-powerful Montreal Canadiens start a seven-game spin through the National Hockey League which, if successful, could end the season just two short months after it began. The Gift Of Giving. Half a million dollars deep, it entices some 17 million Englishmen each week to try their luck in predicting the fortunes of football—and gaining a fortune of their own.
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Manage Profile Log Out close. Basic Info First Name. Current Password Enter your current password. Good Luck!!! Week 16 Free Pool Games: October 27, — Free Banker: Oct 20, — — Pool Pair of the week: Add the position of Sheffield Wed together, take the family number of its result in League Two to form a pair with its position. Week 5: Oct 13, Every Blue coupon, locate Mr Crewe. Count itself and its opponent together. The result and Crewe becomes your banker pair for the week.
Week 6: Second Setting: Week Cheltenham vs Crewe Third Setting: Oct 6, — Pair: Sept 29, Then scroll down to see the pair — Free Nap from Mr Smart: Sept 22, Sept 15, Week 9 Bob Morton Pairs: September 1, August 25, So kindly check back, thanks. Week 52, Week 04,