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Littlewoods

Playing Poker with Littlewoods

Littlewoods has a dedicated site for internet poker on at www.littlewoodspoker.com. Littlewoods Poker offers you the chance to play online poker for free, for cash prizes or in tournaments. You can play 7-card stud poker and variations of Texas Hold'em Poker or Omaha. You can choose to play at over 70 tables with a wide range of stake levels.

If you would like to learn more about how to play the various types of poker available on www.littlewoodspoker.com visit our Poker pages.

Playing Casino Games with Littlewoods

Littlewoods’ online casino at www.littlewoodscasino.com offers you the chance to play a wide range of casino games either for free or for money. Littlewoods Casino offers a wide choice of the games including:

• Baccarat
• Craps
• Bingo
• Blackjack
• Multi-hand blackjack
• European roulette
• Caribbean (Casino) Stud Poker
• Three Card Poker
• Keno
• Video slots
• Video poker.

If you would like to learn how to play casino games or get some hints and tips about how to increase your chances of winning casino games, visit our Casino pages.

About Littlewoods

Littlewoods Gaming offer a wide range of gambling services including football pools and football games, betting, casino and poker and entertainment games. These are branded Littlewoods Football Pools, Littlewoods Casino and Poker, Littlewoods Bet Direct and Littlewoods Game On.

History of Littlewoods

Littlewoods gambling roots started through the football gambling which begun in the 1800s as an informal betting on the terraces of the football grounds. Later, along with the set up of regular match fixtures grew also pre-match betting and in the 1880s newspapers in England began to present fixed prices, the so-called fixed-odds, for match forecasts that were spot on.

It was in this environment Littlewoods Football Pools was founded in 1923 by the late Sir John Moores (1896-1993). John Moores was originally a post office messenger and from a small office in Liverpool city centre, he started the Littlewoods football pool by printing coupons distributed by hand after matches in Liverpool. The venture was named after one of John Moores' partners - Mr Littlewood.

With only a total capital of £150, Littlewoods Football Pools was the first football scores prediction game company in the UK.

John Moores' endeavour didn't go too well in the beginning and his partners left the business. Little did they know that the small venture would grow and make John Moores a billionaire. By the end of the 1926-27 football season, the Littlewoods Football Pools business came to flourish and the pools became an established game, and Littlewoods as a household name, throughout the UK.

People filled in coupons each week, making their predictions on the outcome of major soccer matches, which were then posted to the Littlewoods building to be checked. Coupons could arrive in Walton Hall Avenue and Birkenhead until 3pm on Saturdays and every piece of mail had to be stamped with a secret code that was changed weekly, in order to avoid fraud.

John Moores continued to open up other ventures such as a media company and the legendary Littlewoods mail order business, making Littlewoods grow as a group of companies.

In 1932, John's brother Cecil Moores took over the pools and ran the operation as chairman until 1979.

Since its start over 80 years ago, Littlewoods Football Pools has grown considerably and offers much more than football pools. Formerly changed name to Littlewoods Leisure and now called Littlewoods Gaming; the company consists of Littlewoods Football Pools, Littlewoods Casino and Poker, Littlewoods Bet Direct, Littlewoods Game On and games like lotteries and scratch cards.

The method of how to use Littlewoods’ games has also developed by a long way. Besides the Littlewoods nationwide team of pools collectors, the games are available from interactive television, internet, telephone and retail outlets, and is therefore reaching a lot more customers.

In September 2000, the Littlewoods Gaming business was sold off from the Littlewoods group to the Wavertree-based Sportech PLC for £161 million.

Since then, the company has expanded on the market by purchasing a smaller betting company in 2002 and by reaching out to more customers through interactive channels.

Today, the Littlewoods Gaming organisation is the largest and longest running football pools competition in the UK and is currently working on developing ways of providing more games reaching more players in the home.

Littlewoods Gaming has, at the moment, a regular playing customer base of over 1.7 million people.

And staying true to its roots, the Littlewoods Gaming company still has its headquarter in Liverpool. Over the years Littlewoods has created more than 100 millionaires and prizes have been paid out to over 60 million winners. Celebrities like Bob Hope, Joan Collins, Dixie Dean and Catherine Zeta Jones have presented winners with cheques.

To see what other users think about www.littlewoodspoker.com and www.littlewoodscasino.com, visit our Reviews page.

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