Sportech lands £97m Pools win as former bosses take a punt

The oldest football betting game in the world — the Football Pools — finally changed hands on Tuesday as owner Sportech sold the business to a team led by its former management for £97.3 million.

At its peak, millions of punters were putting crosses on their pools coupons to bag a fortune in a game which began in 1923, but the business has been in decline for years and had just 221,000 subscription customers last year.

Sportech created the current business out of three operators, Littlewoods, Zetters and Vernons, but put the business up for sale last year.

Ian Hogg, Sportech’s former chief operating officer and current Pools managing director Conleth Byrne will take the company onto AIM, raising money from institutional investors and backed by investor Burlywood Capital. Burlywood is led by Mark Blandford, the online gaming pioneer who founded Sportingbet.

Sportech’s shares jumped 11% or 7.75p to 78.9p.

Shore Capital’s Greg Johnson said: “We would expect a significant proportion of any proceeds to be returned to shareholders with the balance to fund its investment in the market place.”