Shareholders and lenders of Liverpool-based The Football Pools keep faith in the business despite three years of pre-tax losses totalling £48m. Tony McDonough reports

Directors of The Football Pools remain upbeat about the prospects of the business despite revealing another year of heavy losses.

Liverpool-based The Football Pools has brought the traditional football pools model, played by 14m people in the UK every week at its 1950s peak, into the digital age and it continues to see around 300,000 play every week.

In August 2025 it rebranded as simply ‘The Pools’ and launched a TV and video-on-demand advertising campaign called True Originals. It looked to draw on its legacy as a major British institution with the 30-second advert.

Latest annual accounts filed on Companies House for the 12 months to December 29, 2024, reveal The Football Pools to still be a long way from returning to profitably.

They show revenues of £18.7m, down from £21m in 2023. Pre-tax losses came in at £15m, identical to the previous year. It takes total pre-tax losses over the last three years to £48m.

In September 2024, LBN revealed how lenders had taken control of the Walton-based firm which employs more than 130 people. Directors concluded the business needed further capital injection and this prompted discussions between its shareholders OpCapita Funds and lender HOF.

As a result of these discussions it was decided that HOF, an investment fund run by Hoplon Investment Partners, would take a majority stake in the business and put in a further £4m of capital.

And the firm continues to enjoy the support of its backers. Writing in the annual report director Carl Lynn said: “Since the balance sheet date, the group has successfully renegotiated its forward looking covenants with Hoplon and extended the existing senior facilities agreement by two years to July 2027.

“During the year Hoplon has also made £5.2m of loans available to the group.”

The Pools was founded in Liverpool in 1923 by tycoon Sir John Moores. Then called Littlewoods Pools it was regarded as the best way of getting rich quickly by generations of Brits.

Players would use skill and luck to forecast the weekend’s football results. At its height the Pools employed an army of doorstep coupon collectors and hundreds of people checking the coupons back at its Liverpool headquarters.

Despite the launch of the National Lottery in 1994, The Football Pools managed to retain a loyal customer base that wanted to carry on playing.

Carl added that the focus of the business, which also offers online casinos and sports betting, was the “continued stabilisation and growth of the classic pools subscriber base, building on the progress made since June 2017”.

He said there would also be continued investment into its Digital Wallet platform, a full tactical upgrade of the consumer database, expansion of the distribution channels available to the company and continued to evaluate new initiatives.

“Due to the nature of the company’s subscriber model and the resilience and liquidity in its operations, the core business has historically had strong underlying cash flow,” said Carl.

“The company also has supportive lenders and shareholders who have made additional funding available when needed.”