ABSTRACT
The pools became a popular working-class leisure activity during the inter-war years because they were cheap and provided a distant prospect of legally winning a life-changing amount of money. Their popularity was engendered by the pool companies who used their journals, radio, television and newspapers to stimulate demand. There were periods when pools betting declined due to peculiar circumstances, but the working class continued to display a strong interest in the pools, although it was distinctly a male, rather than female, pastime activity, though usually operating in a family environment. However, from the 1970s, the once burgeoning interest in the pools diminished amongst younger groups as alternative forms of gambling and leisure activities emerged. The extension of economic and social citizenship to the working classes by the legislation of the 1960s facilitated this move. This challenges any assumption that the pools were an integral part of working-class life, for the link was clearly a tenuous one. Working-class interest in gambling was driven by cheapness, large prizes, the sense that some skill and judgement is being used, and even a sense of legality and acceptability. The football pools proved attractive until The National Lottery proved more attractive in most of these respects.
