How football pools work: a plain guide to the coupon

Football pools are one of the oldest ways to play on football results, and in Nigeria and Ghana the weekly UK coupon is still followed closely by many players. This guide covers the coupon itself, the marks printed beside matches, the difference between score draws and no-score draws, and what happens when matches are postponed. It describes the general shape of the game; prizes, stakes and exact rules belong to whichever company runs the pool you enter, so check those with them.

The coupon: 49 numbered matches

Every pools week has one coupon of 49 matches, numbered 1 to 49. In a normal week the list is drawn from English and Scottish football: the Premier League, the EFL divisions, the National League and the Scottish leagues. When those leagues are thin, other fixtures fill the gaps. A weekend with an FA Cup round can bring non-league clubs onto the coupon; an international break can put national teams on it.

The numbers matter more than the team names. Players, agents and the weekly papers talk about matches by their number: "number 7 looks like a draw", "the code is 3, 11, 26". When you mark a coupon, you mark numbers.

During the British summer the English and Scottish seasons stop, and the coupon is built from Australian matches instead. DrawMeter covers the UK coupon for now; the summer coupon will be added once its fixtures are available.

Week numbers

Each coupon carries a week number, and the pools year does not follow the calendar: the count starts around the middle of the year and runs up into the fifties, so a week number on its own tells you where you are in the pools season, not the month. A coupon is best identified by its week number together with the date of its Saturday.

Coupons are published in advance, usually several weeks at a time. That is why you can find advance pool fixtures for weeks that are still some way off. The coupon for the week about to be played is on our home page, with a draw chance for each match.

The marks beside each match

Most coupon matches kick off at the traditional Saturday afternoon time in Britain. Matches that do not are marked:

• EKO, early kick-off: the match starts before the main Saturday slot, often around lunchtime in Britain.
• LKO, late kick-off: the match starts after it, usually in the early evening.
• Sunday, or another day: the match is played away from Saturday altogether, and its result arrives later.

The main British Saturday kick-off, 3pm, is 4pm in Lagos and 3pm in Accra during the British winter, and one hour earlier in both cities while Britain is on summer time. On DrawMeter every kick-off is shown in WAT and switches to your phone's own time when the page loads.

Results that count: score draw, no-score draw, win

For the classic pools game every result falls into one of four groups:

1. Score draw: level with goals, 1-1, 2-2 and so on.
2. No-score draw: 0-0.
3. Home win.
4. Away win.

In the classic points game, a score draw earns the most, a no-score draw a little less, and a home or away win the least. Players therefore hunt score draws first. The exact points and how lines are scored differ between companies, so read the rules for the coupon you actually play. If score draws are your target, the score draw predictions page ranks matches by their chance of 1-1, the most common of them.

Postponed matches, void matches and the Pools Panel

Matches get called off: frozen pitches, waterlogged grounds, cup replays, international call-ups. A coupon cannot just skip them, because a player's line may depend on them. Two things can happen.

The first is a Pools Panel verdict. The panel was set up in Britain for exactly this purpose, and when coupon matches are postponed it can decide how each one would most likely have ended. Its verdict, a home win, an away win or a draw, then counts as the result for the pools, as if the match had been played.

The second is a void match. A match that is neither played nor given a panel verdict is void. Some coupons score a void match the same way as a particular result; others treat it differently. This is the clearest case of a rule that belongs to the pools company, so check theirs.

On our pool results page, a Pools Panel verdict is shown in place of the missing score and counts towards the week's draws, just as it does for the pools.

What a pool code is

A pool code is a list of coupon numbers expected to draw. Codes are swapped between friends, read out by agents and printed in weekly papers. Some are labelled as sure or as coming from people with inside knowledge. There is no such thing. Football results are not known in advance, and a code that promises draws is a guess presented with confidence.

Our own version is plain: the eight matches with the highest draw chances on the coupon, printed in bold. They are published before the first kick-off, frozen from then on, and checked against the results afterwards on the track record page. Even so, these are the likeliest draws, not certain ones. Most weeks several of the eight will finish with a winner.

Perms: playing more than eight

Many players mark more than eight matches and play every combination of eight from their selection, known as a perm. The number of lines grows fast:

• 9 matches give 9 lines of eight.
• 10 matches give 45 lines.
• 11 matches give 165 lines.
• 12 matches give 495 lines.

Every extra match multiplies the cost of the coupon, while each match still has the same draw chance it had before. A perm spreads your money over more lines; it does not make any single draw more likely. Decide the total you are willing to spend first and fit the perm to it, not the other way round.

How DrawMeter fits in

DrawMeter is an independent site. It is not a pools company, it does not sell coupons or codes, and it has no link with the Pools Panel or any coupon publisher. What it adds is a number: the model's chance of a draw for every coupon match it can price, the matches ranked from likeliest to least likely draw, and an honest count of how the top eight did. How we predict draws explains where those numbers come from.

Pools are a game of chance for adults 18+. Any line can lose, and the odds against a full line of draws are long. Keep your stake to money you can spare, and see responsible gambling if it ever stops being fun.