SOME of the biggest names in football pools betting are to disappear after owner Sportech announced an overhaul of its historic brands today.
The firm, which owns the Littlewoods, Vernons and Zetters pools businesses, will start renaming the betting coupons under the umbrella name of The New Football Pools from this summer.
Littlewoods Pools started up 1923, Vernons in 1925 and Zetters
in 1933.
At its peak in 1994 around one in three of the adult population – around ten million people – played the pools.
But with more football fixtures being played during the week and the rise of the National Lottery, the number of weekly players has dwindled to around 700,000 with average jackpots often less than half that of the main weekly lottery.
Liverpool-based Sportech sprang from the takeover of Littlewoods' gaming business by Edinburgh tech group Rodime in 2000. It then bought Zetters in 2002 and added the Vernons business late last year.
The group said the Vernons deal enabled the group to merge the three independent football pools into one enlarged pool.
"The acquisition also provides a timely opportunity to relaunch the business as The New Football Pools, strengthening the marketing message of one business in a very competitive betting and gaming landscape," it added.
Chief executive Ian Penrose said the relaunch will start before the upcoming new season in August.
He said: "There will be a gradual transfer of brand values between the existing traditional brands and the new company name.
"This is part of a rejuvenation of our core business. There's a massive awareness of the pools and we want to bring the game to a new audience."
The name The New Football Pools is already being used by Sportech's on-line customers.
Sportech announced the off-line relaunch today as it unveiled annual pre-tax profits for 2007 of £11.6m, up 27 per cent from the year before.
The stakes placed last year totalled £356.3m, marginally up on 2006's £352.7m.
In recent years, the group has launched a series of new products to try and reverse the shrinking market and attract younger players.
Games such as Premier 10 – where punters guess the results for 10 matches instead across 49 UK-wide fixtures under the traditional game – were introduced last year and now attract 25,000 regular players.
