POOL

method of gambling in which all money bet on the result of a particular event by a number of people is awarded to one or more winners according to conditions established in advance (taxes, operating expenses, and other charges may be deducted from the total pool before prizes are awarded). Pools on football and other professional sports are popular in various forms throughout the world, including areas where they are illegal. In Great Britain and several other countries, football pools are in effect a national lottery, with the government taking more than 30 percent of total receipts. Prizes have been as high as 100,000 on a shilling bet, and gambling winnings by citizens are not taxed. Usually the bettor's task is to select the winning teams or tie games or to predict the correct score in several specified games. An American baseball pool called "13" has players taking 1 of 26 teams, the pool going to the holder of the first team that scores 13 runs in one game. In some pools, the selection of winners is made more difficult by handicapping: inferior teams are allotted a certain number of points (point spread), which the other team's winning margin must surpass in order to score a win in the pool. Payoffs range from 3 to 1 when the actual odds are 15 or 16 to 1 and up to 100 to 1 when the actual odds are 300 to 1. The largest payoffs are made when the odds are as much as 250,000,000 to 1 against the bettor. Such winnings have occurred in Great Britain only as often as might mathematically be expected, considering that about 150,000,000 such bets are made each year.