The Football Pools, an iconic Liverpool business, first started selling its coupons outside Old Trafford, home of fierce rivals Manchester United

On average we have a winner every 3 minutes

The Football Pools is the UK’s favourite football gaming brand

Pools, or tote betting, is the most popular legal form of sports-based betting outside of the UK

The global pools market in football and horseracing is worth $80 billion

We donated £600 million to help fund major improvements in stadium safety across many clubs in the UK

The global gaming market is worth $350 billion and growing +5% year on year

Sportech is one of the leading suppliers and operators of pools/tote betting in the world

Sportech has launched a Joint Venture in India

The biggest ever Football Pools top prize was £4 million won in March 2010

The Football Pools is the world’s oldest football gaming company

Across North America, Sportech Racing has a 50% market share in horseracing pools

We have a presence in over 30 countries

We have paid out over £10 billion in prize money to our customers

We are the exclusive operator of pools/tote betting on horseracing in the Netherlands

We are the leading provider of horseracing wagering solutions in North America with over 25,000 terminals

We process over $13 billion in bets every year

The Football Pools has over 500,000 players every week

Over the years we have donated over £1.1 billion to good causes

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Our Board

Meet the Board of Sportech PLC

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Sportech PLC has a strong Board with significant business experience in the sports, gaming and leisure sectors.

	Roger Withers, Chairman, age 69 Roger was appointed Chairman in February 2011. Roger has over 30 years’ experience in the leisure and gaming industries across senior management and board positions in market leading companies including Ladbrokes (Hilton), Bass, BMLS and Coral Racing. Roger held the position of Executive Chairman of Bass Leisure South Africa before retiring from Bass in 1998. Since then Roger has held a number of other Non-executive Directorships, including Chairman of Arena Leisure PLC, Senior Non-executive Director of Sportech PLC, as well as Directorships with a number of substantial privately held companies in the property, technology, publishing and exhibitions sectors. Roger is also currently Chairman of leading gaming software provider, Playtech Limited.
	Ian Penrose, Chief Executive Officer, age 45 Ian was appointed Chief Executive in October 2005 and has led the five-year turnaround of Sportech from a declining and UK centric business with very high levels of debt, into one of the world’s leading pools and tote gaming companies. He was previously Chief Executive of Arena Leisure PLC, whom he joined in 1998, shortly after the formation of the company and left in September 2005 having built the UK’s largest horseracing and media group. Ian is also a Trustee of the National Football Museum.
	Steve Cunliffe, Finance Director, age 42 Steve was appointed Finance Director and Company Secretary in May 2006. Steve has over 20 years’ experience across the finance, leisure and manufacturing sectors. Steve joined the Company from his position as Finance Executive of Hemway Limited. Prior to this he was Finance Director of Herald Inns and Bars. Steve spent three years at the textile and wallcoverings group CWV Group, latterly as Group Finance Director, following a two-year period as Financial Controller for the Manchester Division of Barratt Homes. Steve qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Coopers & Lybrand in 1992.
	Ian Hogg, Chief Operating Officer UK and Online, age 47 Ian was appointed to the Board in October 2010. From 2005 to 2009, Ian was a founding shareholder and Managing Director of Better, the UK betting shop business, which he built up to an estate of 44 shops and then merged with the Jennings betting shop chain. From 1998 to 2004, he was the Director of Online and Gaming at Arena Leisure PLC and was seconded for 18 months as Managing Director of At The Races. Ian is also the Chairman of Fox Poker Club. Previously Ian has been a consultant to BSkyB and Tote Tasmania.
	Brooks Pierce, President, Sportech Racing, age 49 Brooks was appointed to the Board in October 2010. Brooks has been the President of Scientific Games Racing (“SGR”, and now “Sportech Racing”) from 1997 to date, apart from a two-year period when Brooks was Senior Vice President of Marketing for Scientific Games Corporation, the then parent company. Prior to becoming President, Brooks was Vice President of Sales, where he was responsible for directing sales across North America.
	Lorne Weil, Non-executive Director, age 64 Lorne was appointed Non-executive Director in October 2010 and brings more than 20 yearsof wide-ranging gaming industry experience to the Board. Lorne is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (“CEO”) of Scientific Games Corporation, roles he has performed since 1991, apart from January 2009 to November 2010 when he had originally stepped down as CEO, prior to being asked to resume this role again. During his tenure, Lorne built a global leader in providing customised, end to end gaming solutions to lottery and gaming organisations worldwide. He is also a member of the Board of Overseers of Columbia Business School, where he is also Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Entrepreneurship Center.
	Michael John Barnes (familiar name John), Independent Non-executive Director, age 61 †* John was appointed Non-executive Director in November 2005. John has over 39 years of consumer brand and leisure industry experience across senior marketing and general management positions in the USA and Europe with large international corporations such as Procter & Gamble and PepsiCo. John was named AIM Non-executive Director of the Year in the Sunday Times/KBC Peel Hunt Non-executive Director Awards 2006 and is currently a Non-executive Director of Interior Services Group PLC and Chairman of Novus Leisure Ltd.
	Peter Williams, Senior Independent Non-executive Director, age 57 †*‡ Peter was appointed Senior Independent Non-Executive Director in February 2011. Peter has over 20 years’ experience in a variety of Executive positions in the retail industry and is currently the Senior Independent Director at ASOS PLC. For 13 years up to 2004, Peter worked for Selfridges, initially as Chief Financial Officer and then as Chief Executive. In the last two years Peter was an Executive Director at both JJB Sports plc and the EMI Group, responsible for the turnaround strategy. Peter is a Non-executive Director at Cineworld Group PLC, Silverstone Holdings and is a member of the Design Council.
	Mor Weizer, Non-executive Director, age 36 Mor was appointed to the Board as Non-executive Director as a representative of Playtech Limited in March 2011. Mor is Group CEO of Playtech Limited, a role he has performed since May 2007. Prior to this he was the CEO of one of the Group’s subsidiaries, Techplay Marketing Ltd. Prior to joining the Playtech Group, Mor worked for Oracle for over four years, initially as a Development Consultant and then as a Product Manager. Before this, he worked in a variety of roles, including as an auditor and financial consultant for PricewaterhouseCoopers and a system analyst for Tadiran Electronic Systems Limited, an Israeli Company that designs electronic warfare systems.