blonde poker forum

Thanks Tighty for allowing me to start a thread here.

I am involved as part-owner of Stakes&Ladders, an innovative website offering a new way of gambling on sports events.

www.stakesandladders.com

We offer simple and fun pool-based online betting games to play with others users, not against the house. The sum of the players’ entry fees (minus a small admin fee) is paid out in prizes.

The concept of our site is to offer a different type of punting on sports compared to traditional betting with the bookies or Betfair. Betting this way is more interesting and involved, and you get more sweat for your bet.

Please have a look at the site and give it a go. I think you will love it! In the future I will be setting up some private pools available for Blonde members only. Also if anyone has any pools games they would like to play, or perhaps fancies playing a private game just with their friends, then please let me know and we will be happy to set them up and run them on the site.

Any questions, comment or ideas... please post ITT and I will answer them.

Found website clunky and hard to navigate so gave up..........

Sorry - didn't mean to come across so short.

Might just be a personal thing, but if I find a website awkward I give up very quickly and move on to something else!

Jesus - what's with all the scrolling?

I like the look & feel. The vertical scrolling (W8.1/FF26) threw me to begin with but quickly made sense. Clicked "Take me to the pools" and only get this:

(http://i62.tinypic.com/21kcfhy.png)

Well that's a bit embarrassing! It is a bug that that was supposed to be fixed by now, and will be fixed by Monday (I hope). New visitors to the site should be able to click on 'take me to the pools' and get taken to the pools lobby without having to register an account. There are often teething problems like this with new websites, and we have fixed most of them... but a couple of issues like this one still need to be sorted by the technical guys.

Right now you need to register an account, and then you can get in to the pools lobby and see what it is all about.

Really? That's a shame. What part of the website did you not like? Are you meaning the front page, or the pools lobby? Did you just not like it so much that you did not bother registering? Please don't give up! Register and have a look at some of the games and see what you think...


It's the front page - when logged in the site is not like this. I like the front page personally, and am a bit surprised that it is getting unfavourable reviews from you guys :(

at first i was like WTF is this front page. then when i realized what was going on i really liked it will be signing up and passing around seems like a lot of fun for punting on soccer Saturday with a group of mates

Butch Beaton Brown  There is a blast from the past.  Can you please tell him Stuart from VC when he started (and was clueless ;-)) says Hi!!!!!

Not for me.  I think people need to see what you have before registering. 

Didn't even realise there was anything after 1 on the front page. 

Am on an iPhone if it helps.

Found the site easy to use but can see why some would find it quite unfriendly, as it did feel a bit OTT at times.  Am using Chrome.

Not my thing but will pass on to some mates who are more into this kinda thing.

GL.

The link is quite clearly to "login" - that isn't a bug - its doing exactly what was intended.  As doobs said above - show us what you've got!

By 'bug' I meant that the site is currently not doing exactly what we asked the developers to make it do - i.e. we want new traffic to be able to see the site properly without having to register an account. This is not possible right now, but it will be ASAP. In the meantime you need to register an account to see the full site. I am not pleased about this, but nothing can be done until Monday when the developers get back from the weekend!

I really appreciate the feedback pointing out technical glitches like this. It is invaluable to receive these comments so we can get the site working perfectly ASAP. Please feel free to post any other things that need putting right over the next few days. I was told that these sort of issues always occur in the first week of launches, but naively hoped that it would launch in a perfect state. Bizarrely enough, I have never launched a website before!

Please Doobs, doubleup, Longines (everyone else)... leave aside any glitches, have a look at the games and let me know what you think of the concept.

Thanks to those who did look and liked it :)

Homepage not displaying correctly for me on my Android phone. Will have a look tomorrow on my laptop and give some feedback.

Yeah it is not yet fully optimised for phones, but it will be soon...

tbf, the scrolling thing is just terrible. Think you should change it, its not the future of websites

Yeah point taken and thanks. I personally like it, but it seems others disagree. We will definitely look into this in the second stage of our development, and decide whether we should change it or not. Thanks for feedback Glen (and everyone else).

Tbh the front page becomes pretty irrelevant once a user has registered. When you have registered you just login immediately and it takes you straight to the main lobby, so users will basically spend no time at all on the front page. The main pools lobby has a completely different look and feel to the front page.

As I said, though, when you have registered you will pretty much bypass the front page by clicking on the login button on the top right every time and getting straight to the pools lobby.

As already discussed, one issue is that right now a new arrival at the site cannot get into the pools lobby and see what we are all about until s/he has registered an account. This will be changed early next week (once the tech guys are back at work after the weekend).

Please keep giving any problems that you see with the site - and we will get them sorted.

At the same time, however, please also register and actually have a look at the pools lobby, and maybe enter a few of the games - we give you £5 free credit to try them out! - so you can get an idea of what our concept is.

I personally think once users have logged in the site looks really good and it is extremely easy to navigate and to enter games. And I also think (although obv biased lol) that the games are a lot of fun, provide a great sweat, and are an innovative and interesting new way of punting on sports.

I hope you guys will be a little patient whilst we fix a few issues like the ones mentioned, and that you will not let these things put you off registering and having a look at the games we are offering.

For those who have not registered yet, and thus not seen the pools lobby and how the game entry works... I'd like to include a few screenshots to give you a flavour of what the site looks like once you are 'in', and also an idea of the type of games we are offering. But I don't know how to put pictures into posts! If anyone can tell me how to do it then I will put in a few screenshots so you guys can get an idea of what we are offering...

Morning Stu.

Posting photos.

When you press "Reply", a white text box appears.

BENEATH that, press "ADDITIONAL OPTIONS".

There then appear a series of options, one of which is "BROWSE". 

Click that, & it takes you to your library of photos. Click the photo you want, press OPEN" & the photo is then uploaded onto the Post.

Then click "POST "

Ooh, looks way too terse the next day but thanks for taking it in the spirit intended if not communicated.

Sometimes it's hard to determine why we think something is 'terrible'. I guess I've never seen a navigational process like that and I'm minded to think I don't like it because it is actually clunky and hard work rather than just because it's unfamiliar.

Joined up to try things out and if I have any decent feedback to give I'll do that

There needs to be a html only version without all the flash stuff thats a mare on a phone.

Tried to register but have been unable to do so "Andy" is looking into that though. 

The website is horrendous to be brutally honest.  Its clunky, the flashing and scrolling is very off putting doesn't seem to user friendly.  Its like a throwback to when the internet first arrived. 

I'm sure if you work on it though the concept could be good.  Wasn't there something similar to this before picklive or some other name I think it was called?  It was quite fun.  But don't think it lasted long, I think the lolpro punter "dave nevison"  was behind that.

Blimey, I am surprised there's so much hate for the website.

I love it! (but then again, I saw the early versions and this is so much better!)

Think some of the links could be a little clearer or in more obvious places. But on the whole I think the site is really good.

Thanks for that Keith. Glad you like it :)

I am assuming that most of the perceived negative comments are meant in a constructive manner; pointing out glitches/issues that we need to get right. At least that's how I am choosing to take them! And thus I am actually happy to hear feedback, even if critical.

BTW, if anyone has any thoughts/ideas/feedback/criticisms that they do not wish to post publicly than please feel free to PM me. We want this site to be brilliant and for it to give users a lot of enjoyment and interest.

The main issue to arise from this is that the ability of new arrivals to see the pools lobby before registering is absolutely essential. Tbh it has always been the intention for this to be the case. However, there are so many things to get right before launching a new website and it is inevitable that will be a few imperfections like this in the first week or so after a new launch (you gotta launch it first, then fix the issues that arise). It was felt that this was an issue that could sorted after launch. That seems to have been a misjudgment - and it has now been put on the priority list for Monday when the software developers are back at work.

I hope that this will not prevent anyone from registering and having a look at the games though! Maybe even entering a couple of them with the free points we give new users.

Finally, the comments about the main 'front page' of the website have surprised me a little. I really like it personally. Yet I can understand that some may find it a bit strange with all the scrolling and stuff, perhaps it is a personal taste thing. This is something that will be looked at and discussed in the course of time, but it is not going to be a priority right now. The reason it is low priority is because once users have registered they will pretty much bypass the front page anyway... as soon as they login they will taken to the pools lobby.

Please keep in mind that this is a newly launched website, offering something pretty different to what most keen sports fans/punters are used to. The issues mentioned will be fixed within a couple of days (as will plenty of other little things on our list that have not been mentioned). I hope people will give us the benefit of the doubt for a few days and have a go on the site.

For those of you who have not registered and seen the inside of the site yet, I want to give you an idea of what the site is about. So here are two screen shots showing what the pools lobby looks like:

And here are a few screenshots of the game entry screen:

I registered and had a play around with the 500 points that were given. I think it's pretty cool, not to fussed about the first screen, once your inside the lobby it's all pretty straight forward and easy to use. I like websites that are easy to use and found this fairly simple.

Not entirely sure how much I would use it but at the moment I would class it as more a fun way to have a gamble than a serious way of making money through sports betting, that being said I'm sure there is some sort of angle that if I studied I could work out how to make money from it.

I'll keep an open mind and probably pop by again. Good luck with it and well done for trying something different.

Thanks Omm. Really good to hear you like the concept, and also like the layout and usability of the inside of the site too.

You are right, most users (including myself) will see it as primarily a fun activity, a way to enhance enjoyment of watching a sporting event. It's better with a bet on it, or so the expression goes. And I believe that this is a much more fun way of having a bit of interest in a sporting event than simply backing ManU to win with the bookies/Betfair. You get more sweat for your bet compared to most standard forms of betting. One great feature is that you can have your laptop/iPad/iPhone open whilst you watch a football match (or whatever) and sweat the pool in real-time. You will see yourself jump up and down the leaderboard in real-time as events happen in the match. As part of this live sweat you can also compare your answers to other users. So you may work out, for example, that you need another two corners to be given in order to overtake the user above you on the leaderboard and thus get into the money. Now you spend the last few minutes of the match sweating for corners. Hope I have explained that well... it is more something that you need to experience obviously.

I imagine there will be a reasonable amount of shrewdies who will make money long-term from the site, just as there are in any form of gambling. Especially when we bring in higher stakes games. I will not be one of them though! I see it purely as a fun thing to give me a great sweat on whatever sport I am watching on the telly. One the beauties of the way we set the pools up is that there is a really good balance of skill and luck. What I mean by this is that there is skill/judgement in these games, but there is also a great deal of luck. So everyone has a chance of winning any pool they enter.

I got this message when trying to sign up

CloseError message We were unable to locate your information in our database, please check your entries and supply as much information as possible:
We were unable to match your date of birth.
We were unable to match your first name.
We were unable to match your surname.
If your information looks correct please try again.

Didn't like the home page to be fair, and first impressions are very important.  Why launch a website that requires fixes, or is not complete?

Also as discussed, I want to see what the pools looked like but couldn't.  That's the negative stuff out the way, on the upside, I like the idea, and now you have shown me some screenshots, I will certainly take another look and am likely to give it a go.

Good luck....

Firstly good luck with the site

What is the difference between this and the site Nevison launched (bodougi or something similar?) I am pretty sure there are a couple of others out there that are also in the same vein but none of them seem to have caught on?

From that point of view there seems to be a gap in the market to try and be the big player in this field. Personally i struggle to see how big this market can get on a consistent basis but i am sure you will give it a good go.

The number of pools and options to play is fantastic, a few minor bugs etc don't spoil the fun i had yesterday!

Soviet... did you manage to sort this issue? There is currently no-one on the helpdesk - although we will be 24-7 soon - but you can either use the live chat facility tomorrow (popup at bottom of the page), or you can get in touch with me via PM and I will take charge of getting it sorted.

Bit concerning that there seems to be a bug in the registration process. We thought this process had been perfected prior to launch. This is a big learning curve from my point of view, never having done anything like this before - I did not imagine how difficult it would be to get a website to launch, and had no idea that there are always going to be issues immediately after a launch.

That's exactly what I would have thought before I got into this. It turns out it is ridiculously difficult to actually get a website ready for launch, and there are always going to be things that need fixing after launch. At some point you have to decide it is good enough to put out there, knowing that some (mostly unexpected) issues will be crop up after launch - and you then fix them ASAP.


Great! Hope you enjoy the games once you have registered.

Bodugi is pretty much restricted to racing and the dogs. We offer loads of different sports, and loads of different types of pools.

Yeah, my hope is of course that we fill a gap in the market and become the big player... in the same way as Betfair did all those years ago. And hopefully this is a market that can become big - I believe that once people try it they will love the concept and enjoy it more than traditional forms of betting.

Thanks for the kind words Acid. Hope you continue to enjoy the games, and win some money too!

BTW, there are Superbowl pools up at the moment with guaranteed prizepools, and there is likely to be a big overlay on each pool. So there is good value to be snapped up right now!

Still not sorted, tried a few times & get the same message each time. I'm on iPad if that makes a difference?

Please check PMs Soviet.

Some bloke called The Camel leads the Premier League weekend pool with just Citeh v Chelscum to play.

Holdddddddddddddddddd! The baby needs new shoes!

Go on Keith!!! :)

I am currently joint top of the leaderboard in the weekend special pool. It is now down to what happens in the Superbowl. I need there to be as close to 64 points scored as possible, and the longest TD to be close to 49 yds. £300 on the line! Hope we both win our respective pools.

Ooooo just found a cool feature.

If you click on a players name in the active pool leader-board, you can see their selections so you know what to funk against!

I found this earlier -  like you say, pretty cool feature.

I'm 1/43 in the baby weekend special with just superbowl to come

Glad you guys like this feature. It is an essential part of the live sweat experience.


For example Glen, using this feature you can work out that you are in even better shape to win this pool than you might think. There are two main guys who have a chance of overtaking you. But one of them (Mick C) has an identical answer to you for one of the two remaining questions - which I think means he cannot possibly overtake you. Good luck!

Love the look of this, looks great fun.  Am in a Superbowl one, not a clue on the answers mind you.

have registered for a bash at superbowl.

can see this taking off big time once people start getting mates on board, i will certainly be donating.

gl with this

is there a way to look at past pools also in running pools that i have not entered?

No, once the pool is live you've got to be in it to see it.

Boom! Nicely done sir.

Luckbox ;)

used my free 500 points and binked the £1 superbowl pool for £50.39

never watched NFL barely know rules beginners luck at its finest!

now for the monday special......

Boom! Well done :)

Spin up time now!!

Sorry... I didn't notice that your question was in two parts.

You can only view a live pool if you are in it, as I already explained above.

However, yes you can see all your past pools by clicking on the 'MY POOLS' button in the pools lobby and then selecting 'COMPLETE'.

Just signed up.......great fun.

Now that I've signed up, I realise it is very similar to my prediction comps I run at work, albeit on paper.

Go go go!

Just so everyone is in the loop.

Stakes & Ladders & blonde may work together, for mutual benefit, & discussions are in progress. The idea is that blonde will support S & L positively, as & when we can, & in return, some revenue share will find its way to blonde.

We are always keen to help those who have supported us, & Stu has been an awesome presence on blonde generally, & PHA in particular.

They do have a headache or two right now with this & that on the software - all new sites do - but I'm sure they'll sort it soonest.  

Best of luck to them, & all who sail in her.

I got registered eventually and happy to say it actually quite a nice site and easy to use once your past the homepage.  I will get some funds on soon and play but need to give a bit of study to it rather than just clicking buttons like I did last night. 

Can someone stop The Camel from winning the prem fixtures pool this week! he is currently top!!!! £80+ score if he holds on lol..

Re-arrange the following words into a well known phrase:

"Rising"

"The"

"Top"

"Cream"

"To"

True! lets hope i rise from tenth tonight, no idea what i need to happen though :)

As far as I can see if, as seems likely, Citeh clubber the scum, you're playing for second Acid :)

lol, good luck then. Pretty fun for 100points / £1

I agree totally.

I was a bit surprised at the early feedback on this thread was pretty negative. I think it's a great concept and the website is very good - even if there's still a few wrinkles to iron out...

I'm pleased more recent comment seems a lot more positive.

This time next year Rodney, Stu Barnett is gonna be a millionaire!

Glad to see people enjoying the concept. I like it. Will be playing along.

Hey! Thanks everyone for the positive comments about the site. I am really glad that you guys like the concept, and have enjoyed playing the games. I am also glad that two Blonde's - nirvana and bagel - won pools yesterday, and that The Camel looks nailed on for the Premiership one.

And yes Keith, that was a deliberate bock! ;)

Having the support of the Blonde community really means a lot to me, since S&L is something that I have such a lot invested in. However, I am not asking favours from you guys... I think the product/concept we are offering is something that many of you will really like and genuinely enjoy playing.

BTW, the negative feedback is appreciated too, and is very important. According to our software developers, by the end of play today it will be possible for visitors to the site to get into the pools lobby and look around before they decide whether to register. This was on the to-do-list anyway, but as a result of the feedback here it got moved up the list to become a top priority.

You should put a little more on your Facebook page and you'll get some shares, it may help a bit.

Signed up for this from roughly the start. The website is now so much better than the original in terms of layout and user friendliness.

Was pleased that my 3800 points can be converted to cash and have gone for a big spin tonight.

Will definitely play more

Thanks, yes you are right ofc. We will have our FB page active very soon, within the next 24 hours I hope. We've just been trying to get through launch first! Our Twitter account is active already @SkillAndLuck. Obviously social media is going be crucial to us... we are hoping to grow mainly through word of mouth/virally rather than spending fortunes on TV ads etc. So FB shares and retweets are going to be very valuable for us.

Hi Rob. Thanks for your support when we were in our pre-launch developmental stage. Hopefully you can spin those points you earned into something bigger!

^^^

Problem is you against sports betters! who know more then me :) pure luck pools needed lol *cough keef*

Ha, thanks. Benefited from the last 2 questions being ones where a range as an answer, rather than a specific number, might have had me in trouble

Ha ha, this is a really interesting issue - we have discussed the balance of skill and luck a lot over the last couple of years. And there is a divergence of opinion within S&L over just how much weighting should be given to each.

When we first had the concept I thought that the games should be heavily skill-based. There is a ton of luck in any form of gambling of course, but I really liked the idea of putting thought into my selections and trying to out-guess the field. To apply skill and knowledge. But as time has gone by, I am gravitating more towards the luck side of the continuum.

Speaking as a user of S&L, rather than an owner... I am most definitely a mug punter. Pretty much everyone reading this thread will know more about sport than me, and be able to make better selections. Yes, I do enjoy thinking about who to pick in my fantasy team, or trying to figure out how many corners will be given in a football match... and I like the fact that it feels like I am exercising skill and judgement. But in truth I know that this is mainly an illusion, and I am really just making random guesses compared to some others.

But I actually love this! I like the fact that I can even just pick my answers randomly and - whilst I will have a slightly smaller chance of winning than a shrewdie - I still have almost the same chance. Because of the luck element.

I have come to realise that what truly appeals to me about playing on S&L is THE SWEAT. I love watching sport on the telly whilst at the same time sweating my pool entry; cheering for two more corners, a red card, a late goal or whatever. And I love rubbing my friends down when I beat them in a pool... especially if I know they have spent a lot longer on their selections than me! This is what I am paying for when I enter a game - the enhancement to my enjoyment of a sporting event through having a great sweat experience. And rub-down potential.

So I have come full circle on this one I guess. I now personally prefer questions which are heavily luck-based. They give just as much of a sweat as the more skillful ones, but I don't have to put too much effort into selecting my answers.

Thus, I am pleased to say that most of the questions in our games are pretty luck-based. Many of them are actually straight 50/50s. And of course because it is pools betting, if you do happen to choose a very unlikely answer... well, you probably have it on your own! So the rare times you get that answer correct, no-one else is likely to share the points with you. Of course there is also skill/knowledge involved, and there will definitely be guys who make good money long-term on S&L. But in the short-term anyone can win - even me! - and I don't mind that I am losing out a little bit to someone like Keith since I am paying for the sweat. Plus, it makes it all the more fun when I do beat him in a pool :)

In and dragged a few other mug punters along.

Best of luck with it, really like the site and concept.

I'm in!

Thanks for joining, and for encouraging others to join too. I'm glad you like the site. Good luck in the pools! :)

Yay! :)

Good luck Chris. Hope you like what we are offering. Not too many pools in the lobby right now, but then it is after 9pm on Monday night. There will be more games available tomorrow. Of course most sporting events take place at weekends, so that is when the lobby is busiest.

when roughly do the busier weekend pools start showing in the lobby?

i read camel was leading a weekly prem pool. is there one this weekend?

no joy for me tonight, on it tomorrow..........

my mistake. joint top of the £10 monday special

bring on the basketball.....

I predicted the 32nd minute for the first card tonight.........yep you guessed it, it was the 33rd minute.

Cost me a place aaaaarrrgggghhhh.

Pesky kids.

If it is on the telly we will have a pool on it!

Of course we will also have pools on sporting events that are not televised.

Every weekend there is a Weekend Premiership Pool and also a Weekend Special Pool (Special Pools have questions covering a variety of different sports). There are also pools on individual football matches, and on plenty of other sports - depending on what is going on in the sporting world.

Weekend pools are put up towards the end of the week so that users can enter them in advance if they choose.

During weekdays there are always pools available to enter in the lobby - it depends on what sporting events are taking place that week. There will pretty much always be racing pools, because there is racing every day. There is football most days too. Last week we had a variety of pools on Golf and Cricket, plus a Transfer Deadline Day pool, among others. The week before it was Tennis; the Australian Open. Basically, every big sporting event, and plenty of smaller events, will have pools games to enter.

Moaned it in lol ;)

Have had a bash of the games and finished 2nd in one.

Haven't had much time to delve further into the site however, if say, myself and a few friends wanted to, could we set up a private pool?

Yes! :)

Let me explain our plans for private pools...

The next phase of S&L's development is going to include the ability for users to set up their own private pools and invite friends to play against them. We will have a Pools Wizard to make this process easy and intuitive. Users will not be able to create any pool they want - for example, they could not use S&L to run a pool on a local pub football match (we need to get live feeds/results from OPTA to verify each pool). Instead, users will choose from exisiting 'templates', decide the pool size and buy-in, then invite friends to join through the S&L system and/or via social media and email.

This stage of the development (along with some other cool features) will take a few months to implement.

In the meantime, we would love to set up private pools manually for our users. If you - or anyone else - would like us to set up a private pool then please get in touch with me (PM me here, or add me on Skype - my username is dodgyrocker) and we will discuss it. Please take me up on the offer!

We have other future plans for private pools, including offering bespoke pool design for users who wish to play higher stakes games. But in the meantime, I would be over the moon if a few users wanted us to set up private pools for them on the site.

Entered a couple more today.  It really is a fun thing to do, it get's you thinking, and I think punters will enjoy doing the math.

I work with over 700 people..... moving forward, do you have anything on offer for any referrals I may be able to get?

As stated earlier, I do a similar thing on paper with a few lads at work, they'd like this I reckon.

There needs to be somewhere to view my historic pools i entered. I wanted to see how I did in the superbowl one but cant find it.

Signed up last night +1 to the referrals question I just put blonde but do I get anything if anyone puts me?

Go to MY POOLS in the lobby and then select COMPLETE.

MY POOLS is also where you go to see your live pools, so you can sweat them in real-time and watch yourself move up and down the leaderboard as the sporting event unfolds. To do this, you'd select LIVE rather than COMPLETE.

Regarding referral bonuses - we will hopefully have something sorted within the next 24 hours, so watch this space.

loving the site Stu gonna take you all on!

Really like the concept...

Maybe influenced by the fact that I clicked a few buttons on the Sunday million pool with my free points, fell asleep and forgot about it.

Saw an email today congratulating me on my first place finish for 11 quid.

SPINNNNNNNNNNN!
Seriously though I like the idea and the potential for this kind of betting, wish you all the success so the site can grow.

In for every pool on any sport at any stakes Dave wants to play. :)

Bum-hunter IMO ;)

Stu set Kieth up to be able to see my private pool! Golf this weekend Kieth :-)

Looks like fun had my first try in the golf.

MrMasterful is in da house.

Got an error when i tried to register new account.
Got an email saying to contact customer services, which i will do when i have time.

Just so you know this is on iMac/safari Version 7.0.1

Dave, it's done - The Camel has now been added in so he can see and enter your private pools.

Keith, you gonna put your money where your mouth is and play with the big boys? ;)

Lill'Dave's private pools will be showing in your pools lobby now. £100 entry.

Get in touch with Dave before entering because we have set up three different games for him to look at and then choose which one(s) he wants to play.

Hopefully the help desk will sort the issue out when you get in touch. We are not 24-7 right now, we are 8am-8pm. So please try to contact them between those hours. Easiest way is to use the live chat feature at the bottom of the page. Or call the help desk on 0203 2893334.

If you can't get it sorted then please PM me and I will try to take care of it personally.

Hi Ralph. Thanks for registering and having a go. Hope you enjoy the site. Good luck in the golf pool!

Working away for a few days, will try and speak to support once I'm back home any problems and i will drop you a pm, cheers.

We have now launched a referral bonus scheme. When you get friends to join the site ask them to enter your S&L username in the box marked 'Referrer'. You will then be credited with 500 points, which equates to £5.

We tested the system yesterday before rolling it out, and good job we did... because referrers were initially set up to receive £500 worth of points by mistake. Would have been an expensive error!

Stu, I like the new 'Fantasy League' section, it feels less like I am losing out by not doing any research and I can't get any questions wrong.
Natural ability should be rewarded and laziness not punished...
I still won't be betting on Golf though.

Surely the PLD deserves it own pool?
Id be keen to play it but Corners on a Non League Football match and NBA which takes plqce when im in my kip quickly puts a dampener on it.

Registered and enjoying the site

Everybody at least give it a go

Registering now, who wants to be my referrer? You've got five minutes.

snowball :)

+1

Done.

Points added already, cheers

Definitely agree that darts should have its own pools. Plus it fits really well with the S&L concept, since darts provides great sweats!

PL is every Thursday, right? If so, leave it with me. We should have a pool out in time for next week's matches.

If anyone has ideas for what they would personally like to see in a darts pool game then please PM me or post ITT.

Snowball, please check your PMs.

Signed up the other day. I will hopefully deposit and join in soon. Is it accessible from USA?

i joined a liverpool arsenal pool

You're playing for 2nd place ;)

At the moment no access from the USA. We are hoping this may change in the future.

Thanks for signing up. Hope you enjoy the site and get some great sweats!

No, you are playing for second place. Pleno might get third. This one is mine.

Pleno is playing for 4th place. 3rd place has my name written all over it

Anyone else unable to selecet multiple choice questions via android?

Ah ok. Ill try and get stuck in before Sunday, like the site just deciding where to win do my dough :D

is it possible to have a referall friendly URL? ie StakesAndLadders.com/Acidmouse

something like that, i on going to tell people from my gaming forums about it....

Match Results
Match with most legs
Match with combined most 180's
Player with most 180's
Highest Checkout
Player with highest checkout
Player with highest Average
Highest 3 dart Average
Combined Total Legs
Combined Total 180's

Brilliant. Thank you so much. Gives us some ideas to work with.

I have an idea for a sort of fantasy darts game that I am working on at the moment. Will very likely include some of these things in it.

We should have something up in time for next week's PLD. Hopefully it will be fun and give a great sweat!

Check PMs please pal.

Lol :)

I might make multiple entries in this pool. To try to get last place locked up.

This is not possible at the moment. They will have to enter your username into the box marked 'Referrer' when they sign up. I realise this is an issue if you are recommending S&L on another forum since it could look like you are hustling for referral bonuses if you say "oh, and please put my username in when you register and I get a free fiver". I hope this will not stop you spreading the word though.

I am really chuffed you like S&L enough to want to promote us on other forums :) Thanks so much for that. This is how we will grow - by users who like what we are doing telling others about us.

thanks, always happy to spread the love on something thats good! hopefully my computer gaming friends sign up! lol

As requested by Snowball, Kmac84, and a couple of others via PM, S&L have put up a pool for Thursday's PL darts. Hope you guys enjoy it, and get a good sweat!

(cross-posted with the darts thread)

I have been asked by Snowball to set up a private blondes-only pool for this Thursday's PL darts. It is £10 to enter.

Since this is a private pool for blondes only, all members who want to enter should let me know their S&L usernames so they can be added to the permission list. However, once you have done this you will never have to do so again... you will automatically be eligible for all private blonde pools in the future. You can either PM me, or just post your username in this thread or the darts thread. I realise this is a bit of a ballache, but you will only have to do it once.

Btw, if you can currently see the Blondepoker pool in your pools lobby then this means you are already on the list because we recognise your username and have thus added you in.

There are also public pools on the darts which are open to everyone. The private one is clearly marked "Blondepoker PL Darts (week 2)"

Enjoy it guys!

Stu

OVERLAY ALERT - come snap up the value!

We decided to double the guarantees for today's Wednesday Special pools. And there is currently a big overlay in each pool, with not long before they close for entry.

If you fancy snapping up the value then be fast, since entry closes in a little over an hour.

Hi Stu,

I like this a lot and have just thrown a few darts into some of the pools. Do the scores for each pool update real time (where possible) or after the event?

good luck with this.

Thanks for registering. Really glad you like what we are doing! :)

At the moment most of the pools are not updating in full real-time - although we try our best to be as quick as possible. We receive real-time data from OPTA but at the moment this data is manipulated manually. However, we are in the process of integrating the OPTA feeds with the pools engine so that each pool will be linked directly to real-time feeds. This is being done on a sport-by-sport basis, and will take us a little longer to perfect.

Once this is done, pools will update almost instantly and you will be able to see yourself move up and down the leaderboard in real-time as events unfold in whatever sport you are watching. The only exceptions to this will be pools for which there are no OPTA feeds. For example, pools on poker will have to be updated manually by S&L so these will never be in full real-time (although we will try our best).

We are shovelling coal into the engine at the moment. But we are about to switch to a fuel injection system!

Can you explain to a noob like me how this works?

Lol George. I'm off to bed now because I have a very busy day tomorrow. But I will write a post ITT tomorrow night explaining the concept to you.

Think you should incorporate a Paypal feature. Not a massive fan of paying with my card details.

We are currently in discussions with Paypal, Skrill and Neteller. These will be available as payment options fairly soon.

If anyone has any other recommendations for which other payment options we should offer then please let me know and we will look into them.

Nice one honey.

No worries sweetheart.

A suggestion:

I think it would be good if you could get a history of results, for example I was in two pools today that have ended by the time I have got home from work and I can't see how I performed in them.  Which I think would be good, especially if you increase the stakes and I move up the ladders I would want to know as much as possible about where I was doing well and where I could improve. 

I joined yesterday, used some of the free points, thanks!....and went on today to see what happened, and can't seem to see any history...maybe I'm missing it.*
FYI .....I also tried to deposit a tenner, and got an email  from you saying it had been credited....and initial it showed on my account. However I couldn't use it when I went to place a bet, as it said "no funds available".
 After a few minutes the "£10" then went from the balance, and I'm back to zero. (no money it seems has gone from my bank)

Like the idea and will keep playing

 *seen BtoB post to find history

Cheers Ripple.

Kmac84, borntobubble has already answered your question for me ... yeah go to 'My Pools' and you can see your completed pools as well as pools that are still live.

Ripple, I don't know what has happened with your deposit. And I'm away at the moment so cannot do anything. But obviously it needs looking into. Can you please contact the helpdesk tomorrow (either call them, email them, or use live chat feature at bottom of screen) and tell them what happened. They will look into it. I am back tomorrow afternoon so please PM me if they are not able to sort it out, and I will look into it personally.

Cheers, will do.

Cajoled into lil Dave to get involved tonight - love the concept and on first impressions you've done a really good job with the site mate.  As I am sure you know this market his getting huge in US and VCs are all over it.....gl with the venture.  Think the whole social media, friends things is pretty crucial to strategy (I am purely in to beat some people at darts betting I won't at poker lol) - some cool facebook group type links in future could be good.

Really like site though

i just got owned in the RL, was winning as guessed total score of 40 until a freebie try in last min..gg me.

I hear you won Lil'Dave's private pool :) Good start!

I want to mention a really cool feature of the live game experience that I suspect many of you have not spotted.

Most of you already know that you can click on the usernames on the right hand column and compare their answers to yours. But you can ALSO click on the little i symbols in the left hand column and see a breakdown of how many opponents have chosen each answer. Using these two options together really enhances the live sweat experience, because you can work out what shape you are in, and what you need to happen for you to win money.

Screenshots below:

George, you worked it out yet? Or still need a noob's guide? ;)

Can you please add me to all thing's blonde.

well4ever.

Ta.

Almost forgot to mention... We ran the first private Blonde-members-only pool last night. On the PL darts.

Nakor and Lil'Dave chopped our money up between them. Well done to both of you. Lucky buggers!

We will almost certainly have another private pool for next week's PL darts. And we plan to run other private Blonde pools in the future too. If you would like to have the option of entering these pools, then please let me know your S&L username and I will add you into the system.



You are added in! Weird timing, cos I was literally just typing the above post when you asked...

Yeah subbed today

Eso Kral

You're in.

Ooops. Just heard I was misinformed... sorry for the unintentional rubdown.

 ;hide;

Nice rubs mate - middy (who know fuck all and was obv sat in his pants clicking buttons and not even watching when I text him to tell him if MVG didn't check out over 149 he won) obviosuly won and was oblivious to it

Money to and money and all that ha ha - good job he's not a bad lad

Yes....I actually just phoned Kev and said can't believe it think I've nicked £760 but I'm sure my maths was right ha ha. All good mate we have had a laugh as I logged in and saw balance zero

FFS... I feel terrible now :(

Proper slowrolled you. Wasn't intentional obviously. So sorry  ;booboo;

Mate was funny - no worries at all

Thanks pal.

Middy is dipped in it obv.

Add me to please    177272

Done.

A regular Friday Night pool for the AW racing at Dundalk and Wolves could be a good addition. 

Thanks for the suggestion, I will look into it. I am not really into racing myself, but several of the others are massively into it - so they will know better than me whether this is likely to prove popular. If they think it is a goer, I am sure they will be able to get something up for next Friday.

I always assumed the racing pools would not provide much of a sweat, so haven't been entering them much. But apparently I am completely wrong about this and these pools provide some of the best sweats of all, especially during the last couple of races. I might start giving them a go again!

I've been discussing things with the racing aficionados within S&L. We are not going to be offering anything on the Friday AW races right now. Perhaps in the future, depending on how popular racing turns out the be on our site.

However, you might be interested in the TV Pick 8 pool we are running on Saturdays. It is a fantasy racing pool, so is under the fantasy league tab. Very different to our normal 'classic' racing pools.

Cool, will have a look when I am at home, can't get on the site from the office. 

Just another suggestion not sure what others feel but would you consider a different buy in for the small-time punters I personally thing there is a big gulf between a £1 and £10 pool especially if you want to play a few pools each day.  I think offerring a number of £5 pools could be attractive, especially at weekends when there are so many more pools to chose from.

I can easily justify through £20 at it on a saturday afternoon along with my other bets I will have but having £40 on the line is a bit much to a rec punter. And £4 doesn't feel like enough to make the effort. 

Yeah I was thinking similiar regarding a £5 pool.

Waiting for someone with a surname starting with a specific letter to be booked is so frustrating. Explaining it to your mrs makes you sound insane, but love it already. Being able to see what others have chosen just makes it better or more frustrating.

The professor is an arse.

Echo the £5 thoughts.

With zero corners in the first half (city vs Chelsea) will the points go to the two people who opted for 11 corners (first half x second half corners) or will nobody get points?

FARCE - from 3rd to tenth.... What a rubbish idea this site is... Fixed

No idea what's going on

Just read a few posts calling for £5 pools. Agree.

£5 pools for the win.

£10 to steep for me to do regularly. really like the site but earning £300ish a week (when working) means i cant play as often as would like.

Lost the £10 pick 8 on the last race by following Bad Beats selection.  Thought everyone else would be on Captain Chris which most were and thought if I did well with other selections I would only need a place.  I got pipped by 5 points having had points in every other race.  Sigh.

Lots of calls for £5 pools, and we are discussing it right now. It looks likely that we will bring a £5 option in very soon. Seems pretty much a no-brainer, but it took you guys to suggest it for us to start thinking about it.

This is great feedback, and we really appreciate it. Please keep talking to us and giving suggestions and ideas. We will keep listening.

Would 1/5/25? Not be the best option?

That's exactly what we are discussing right now!

Still not worked it out? Well I promised I would write a quick explanation for you. So here goes...

S&L offers a different way of punting on sports. Instead of gambling with the bookies, users gamble with each other. It is pools betting, which means you all put in money to enter and the winner(s) scoops the prize. Think of office pools or sweepstakes... it is the same basic concept.

So for example, let's say you are just about to watch a football match on the telly. You know it is better with a bet on it. Instead of making a bet with the bookies you choose to enter one of our pools for the match you are watching. When entering the pools you have to give your answers to (usually) 6-7 questions. For example,

Will Man United win?
How many corners will there be?
How many minutes until the first booking?
How many goals will be scored in total?
What will be the time of the last goal?

etc

You give your answers, pay your entry fee, and you are now in the pool. Perhaps 10 other users will have entered the same pool, so there is a decent prize to be won if you get more of your answers correct than the other users. You score for each answer that you get right, and the entrant with the highest score scoops the prize pool (some pools pay multiple prizes). You don't have to get every answer right, just more than your opponents.

The idea is that entering a pool like this gives you a lot more sweat for your bet than just backing ManU to win at the bookies. Some of the questions will be decided in the first part of the game (e.g. time of first goal), others will not be decided until the end of the game (e.g. time of last goal, total corners). So you get a sweat right the way through the match. Most of the time you will still be in with a chance of winning even near the end of the match. This is not the case with many bets with the bookies where the sweat has often gone halfway through - e.g. you back Wayne Rooney as first goal scorer...as soon as the first goal has been scored you no longer have a sweat, you have either won or lost but no longer have as much interest. A lot of sports punters like to make quite a few different bets at the bookies to make sure they will have something to sweat all the way through the match. With our pools you don't need to do this, don't need to spend as much money to get a great sweat. You can enter one pool, and get a sweat all the way through. Plus a chance to win some money.

When a pool goes live (i.e. when the football match starts) you can watch yourself move up and down the leaderboard as events unfold in the match. You can also see what your opponents have chosen for their answers. This means that you can work out what you need to happen to win. So perhaps with 10 minutes to go you work out that you need exactly 2 more corners and a yellow card. Now you have a really good sweat, praying for corners and a booking.

It is 'social betting' and this is one of the things that distinguishes us from the bookies. If you enter pools with other users that you know then you get to rub them down when you beat them. Part of the experience is about rub-downs, piss-taking, taunts and bragging rights.

This post has already turned out to be as long as one of my PHA posts! And I haven't talked about lots of stuff, for example not mentioned the fantasy games we offer. Really though George the best way to 'get it' is to enter a pool (we give you some free credits to enter your first few £1 pools). Next time you are planning to watch some sport on TV, enter a pool on it before it starts. Then have your iPad or laptop open next to you (works on iPhones too although it is more simplified) whilst watching the telly, and load up the live pool so you can see the leaderboard, watch yourself move up and down, compare your answers to other users, and work out what you need to happen for you to win money. It is fun.

Ha ha! One corner first half and eleven corners second half (or vice versa). Could happen.

Or of course there could simply be no corners in one half and thus 11 is closest to zero lol. Unlucky pal ha ha ;)

At least if someone chooses 11 then no-one else is ever in a million years going to have chosen the same answer as them, and thus they will not have to share the points when they end up nearest. Oh...wait :)

it would be great if this really takes off. maybe 6 months down the line the pools are huge.such a good concept.

brownnosing aside, when i buy my morning paper or a pint of milk i always go to a small independent shop across the road rather than any of the big chains.deffo costs a few pence more.big deal.likewise i would rather have a sports punt with this lot , who i believe are not run by a bunch of moneygrabbing shisters aka hills mugbrokes etc.

obviously  the people behind this are doing it to make $$$ , the fact that they listen to feedback and act on it (when feasible) makes it a no brainer for a bit of fun

good luck to them

(even though they are all minted)

sounds good Stu. I'll give it a go!

Problem with having too many stake sizes is it splits the entries too much.

Would rather £5 replaced the £10 pool rather than ran along side it.

At least in the early stages of the site.

Thanks so much for that. It is really cool to see guys like you saying good things about our site, loving the concept, and wishing us well.

I am definitely not minted though. Skint member, me. But a skint member with a dream.

Yeah it is a tricky one Keith. On the one hand we want to give users as much choice as possible (and let the market decide etc). On the other hand we are aware that in the early stages giving too many choices could result in diluting liquidity.

We are still discussing it and I genuinely don't know yet which of the two options we will go for. There are arguments on both sides, and perhaps no clearly right decision.

Big fan of getting the "you've won!" email.

 ;thankyou;

Lol Tal. Any thinner? ;)

It's been so long since I won a pool that I can scarcely remember what those emails look like!
#nicemoan

I signed up today, and although it's probably not something I would use every week, I think it's a cool idea and will have the odd punt.

Best of luck with it all.

Camel makes a good point.  I would personally go £1, £5, £15, £25.  I think that gives you a decent spready and the jumps dont't seem as excessive so if you bink a few £1 games you can easlily play the £5 games  and the same if you win a £5 game jumping the £15 iwouldn't be as hard to jump from £1 to £10 although the monetary gap is still the same.

Also the time in settling some of the pools is frustrating.  I know you touched on this other day but on one of the other forum i posted the link on that seems to be the main point of contention. 

I signed up yesterday and I think it's great - am in for the UKPC £25 fantasy league - that'll be great. Just entered a little pool for the Liv-Arsenal game too!

Signed up today, just used the free points so far but will deposit for poker pools in the future.

Put Snowball down as referee.

I'd use this every day instead of the bookies!  Infact I think I have, and sadly for me I have started watching sports I normally wouldn't just because there is a pool I might be in with a chance of winning lol. 

Long term what sort of ROI would you expect to achieve from these or what would you think would be a good win to game %? 

I really enjoyed the pick 8 pool on C4 yesterday, actually thought I had it sewn up but it was snatched away from me at the last minute.   

Really glad you are enjoying S&L, and choosing us over betting at the bookies.

Regarding ROI... I have no idea. And we will not have any idea about this for a long time. Obviously there are going to be people winning long-term on S&L: each pool is mainly luck, but there is still skill, knowledge and judgement involved (just like a hand of poker I guess). But it will take perhaps a year before we get enough data to make any inferences about ROI and other related issues.

Come back when you've played 500,000 pools IMO

Lol Tal. Too good :)

#WhatwouldPlenosay?

I was wondering where that came from, cheers.

I think having 4 spreads such as £1 £5 £15 £25 will spread the field out too thinly IMO.

I like a nice round £1 £5 and £20 for the big boys.

Up n running with a 2nd in the Madrid pool.
Sick sweat at the end, I was top 5 minutes after full time then got done by 1 shot on final counts.

How much hassle would it be to have one pool but with multiple buy in amounts ?

Like the DTD tournament, ie the £20 players are in for 3 pots, £5 2 pots etc.

We are already planning this. It is going to take a little while to implement, probably a couple of months tbh. But eventually, when you fill in your answers and click 'join pool' you will have the option of using the same answers at multiple buy-ins levels. So you can enter the £1, £5 and £25 pools (or just the £1 and £5 pools) at the same time, with just the one click.

Edited to say: I just realised that what you are suggesting is slightly different to this, and that you are suggesting copying the DTD multiple entry concept. So if you click £25 you would be entered into three pools: a £1 pool, a £5 pool, and a £19 pool. Really cool idea IMO. Interested to see what others think; both the others in S&L and you guys. One thing is definite though... if we decide to try this it will not be implemented for quite a long time, since it would take a lot of work to get the coding done, and we have a TON of other stuff to get right first. But still a great suggestion for the future! Leave it with me.

BTW, if anyone has any other thoughts/ideas then please don't be shy. I love getting all this feedback from you guys!

I was bouncing about the top spots the last 30mins and ended up with just over a quid :)

Newsflash:

From tomorrow we are going to be offering £5 entry pools

After much discussion we have decided that £5 pools will replace the £10 pools. There were arguments in favour of going for a 1/5/10/25 model, but on balance we think a 1/5/25 model is best.

Thanks so much to everyone who has suggested this ITT (and also those of you who have PM'd me or phoned me about it). This change is a direct result of the suggestions that have been made by you. It seems so obvious to us now, but we wouldn't have thought of it without it being suggested here!

Please keep the ideas coming. We will keep listening. We want our site to be user driven - you tell us what you want and we will try our best to give it to you.

Yeah we were 1-2 at one point, all part of the fun of it.

Signed up Stu, site looks very slick.

New pool structure (1/5/25) seems better to me.  Is there a way of reusing your picks from one pool to another?  Sometimes I'll want to play the £5 and £25 pool with the same picks, without having to choose again.  Thanks.

Not at the moment. But we are going to be bringing that option in as soon as we can.

Booooooom!

Sunday Million crushed!!

Well, not crushed exactly, but I came fourth...


...in the stakes and ladders pool of it...



...the £1 pool....



...for £3.43


Still, tho, P-Chips is P-Chips.

just saw you plumped for the £5 pools. that was quick.

willl definetely donate to quite a few of these.

S&L are hosting another private Blonde-only pool for Thursday's PL darts. It is £5 to enter.

Just a reminder - if you think you might ever want to enter Blonde private pools then let me know your S&L username, and I will add you into the permission list. Once you have done this you will be able to see all future Blonde private pools in your lobby, and enter them if you so wish.

Yeah we moved fast on that one. It was such a clearly good idea, it did not take us long to see it as a no-brainer. We just had to decide between a 1/5/25 model or a 1/5/10/25 model. As soon as we made that decision, we made the change.

We want to react as quickly as we possibly can to all suggestions/feedback from our users. For technical reasons some changes are going to take us some time to implement - for example the ability to enter multiple pools with the same answers with just one click is on our list of planned developments, but is going to take a while to get working. However, the changes that we are able to implement quickly and easily... well, we are not going to hang around.

Thanks guys. Hope you enjoy playing the games.

BTW Nick... I have picked you in my fantasy team for the UKPC, so you better not let me down! ;)

I think I broke it, trying to register :(

Did I read something about referrals?  I'm lazy this morning and am off to work so can't check every page.

Am gonna put a notice on our boards at work so could get a few sign ups...

Liking the £5 option.

On the reg page there is a box marked 'Referrer'. If they put your username in that box you will get 500 points.

Signed up.

Love the idea.

Love the look of the site.

Prob old news for you but it looks like Bodugi (who seems like main competitor) has gone out of business and lost gambling license in the last few days. Should be good for you. I think they lost a lot of money by offering stupid bonuses and being very poorly run in general

Hey! Thanks for registering. Really glad you like S&L. Lots more developments in the pipeline... it's gonna get even better!

The Blonde private pool for this Thursday's PL Darts is now up on S&L. If you haven't already done so, please let me know your S&L username and I will add you to the permission list so you can enter private Blonde-only pools.

Also, Lil'Dave has a £100 private pool every week on the Darts (and on the golf too). If you would like to gamble with him and his boys then I am sure he won't mind me adding you to his permission list...

Bodugi had its licence suspended today

http://t.co/yI81HKrAze

Tied 1st in the Blonde Darts pool last night....happy days.

Not sure I like the fact that in the horse racing pools you get an auto pick of fav if your selection is a non runner.  I am pretty sure there are people who pick confirmed non-runners in order that it's an effective free roll against the rest of the field. 

Is there any way that you can see how you are doing in a pool?

The premiership footie one for instance which started yesterday, is that red disc with a number in it where you currently stand in the rankings?

Please excuse my techno-duncery which is not uncommon.

I haven't been ignoring these two posts about Bodugi... just needed to see how things played out before I commented.

We are not surprised that Bodugi has gone out of business. They spent too much money on marketing and not enough on making the product work.

S&L's aim is to create a great product and grow virally, rather than hand out gimmicky free marketing stuff etc.

Whilst this is good news for us, it is not that big a deal really. Bodugi focussed almost exclusively on racing and the dogs, whereas our concept is to offer pools on almost everything.

It's a good point, and one that we discussed in depth when we first set up the fantasy racing pools. We decided that it is actually nowhere near as much of an issue as it might at first appear. Let me explain...

First, we do not put out the fantasy racing pools until the morning of the race, after the overnight non-runners have been declared, and we only put up declared runners. This means that only non-runners that are declared between around 10am and the close of the pool (usually around 1pm) are a potential problem. There will obviously be a few of these, but not too many.

Second, it is not always an advantage to be on the favourite anyway. In fact, in many cases it will be a bad strategy. This is pools betting, which means that part of the skill is to 'go against the crowd'. It is not just about getting the answer right as often as possible, it is about balancing this aspect with trying to make sure that you are not sharing your answer with too many others. In pools with a decent number of entrants a strategy of backing only favourites is likely to be a losing one. Longshot theory takes over.

Third, the option is open to everyone. So if you want to follow this strategy then you are welcome to (don't forget you can change your answers right up until the pool closes). But this is connected to the second point - it is usually not going to be a winning strategy.

Take it to an imagined extreme. Imagine that you are in a pool with 10 other players, and all of them decide to 'angle shoot' by choosing known non-runners for each race. This means that every one of them will be on the same selections (the SP favourites). This is a GREAT spot for you. Because, in effect, you only have to beat one player - but you receive 10 to 1 on your money. And your 10 opponents would be in a horrendously -EV situation. You'd be printing money in this spot! Of course it is (probably) never going to happen exactly like this - it is an imagined extreme. But the principle applies in a diluted form in every pool. In pools betting, these 'obvious +EV strategies' often actually turn out to be -EV strategies.

Finally, we needed to make sure that users who pick a horse that turns out to be a non-runner are not punished. This is especially important for users who just 'want a punt', because some of these guys might unknowingly select a horse that is already a non-runner (i.e. it has been withdrawn between 10am and 1pm). We don't want these users to feel done over in this case, hence the rule that a non-runner selection is automatically transferred to the SP favourite.

In the end, we needed to find a solution to the non-runner issue and we felt that this is the best solution. Yes, it may lead to the occasional opportunity for angle-shooting. But, as explained above, in most cases the EV of trying this angle is illusory - and often it will actually become a -EV strategy. 

Hi Ralph. The number in the little red disc tells you how many 'live' pools you are currently in. You can see how you are doing in any of these pools by selecting 'My Pools' then 'Live', and then clicking on the pool that you wish to see. You will be taken to the live pool screen, which shows you the current leaderboad, as well as your answers to all the questions. You can compare your answers to other users by clicking on any username on the leaderboard. You can also click on the 'i' icon for each question to see a breakdown of how many people chose each answer. So, not only does the live screen allow you to follow how you are doing at the current moment, but in addition by using the compare answers feature it allows you to work out what you need to happen in order to move up the leaderboard and win money.

Excellent. Thanks Stu.

Holddddd

Will sign up and have a look, who wants a referral bonus?

acidmouse

pls :)

Hi Stu,

I hope you don't mind me listing something I think is restrictive in some pools. have seen quite a few pools that feature a letter of alphabet question. The problem with those IMO is it restricts your players from entering pools early unless they know they will be around to change their pick when the teams are announced. On a few occasions I've answered a number of questions and come to ' what will be the initial of the first/last player booked or first goalscorer' in a soccer game that takes place hours later and just left that pool alone if I know  there is a chance I won't be around in the hour or so before the game to check the teams. it just gives away such a big advantage to players that are able to select near kick off when they know the line ups.

I wondered if you might get more entries in some pools if those questions were not included.

Cheers

Hi everyone,

I work at Stakes&Ladders and would love to hear even more feedback from you guys. Everything so far has been very helpful!

I am particularly interested in making the poker pools more successful and fun, so if you have any ideas for questions that you'd like to see incorporated that you think would spice the pools up, I'm very open to listening.

You can either reply to me here to email me: annabel@stakesandladders.com

I look forward to hearing your suggestions and good luck in the pools! :)

tried using it on my phone and is there a bug? it would not show markets for tonight and tomorrow only Wed onwards?

Not a bug. Looking at the time of your post (10.05pm) it is simply that all pools for today have already gone live.

Of course I don't mind you giving your feedback! All ideas and feedback are very welcome, especially from someone like yourself with a ton of experience in the industry. Thanks for taking the time to make some helpful comments.

As regards the issue you raised, we've been discussing it since you raised the point. One counter-argument would be that this applies to almost all questions, not just the letter of surname questions. It is always going to be advantageous to enter a pool (or edit your answers) just before the pool closes. And there is not much we can do about this.

Of course there are certain question types that last minute editing is especially beneficial for, and the particular question type you mention is one of them - editing your answer after the teams have been confirmed allows you to fine-tune your selection process.

We need to strike a balance with this though. Whilst we don't want to put people off entering pools if they know they are not going to be able to edit answers before kick-off, we do still want to offer a wide variety of question types. And part of the fun of this particular question type is that it can lead to a unique sweat experience - for example you find yourself cheering for anyone with a surname starting with A, B, C, D or E to get booked. This is the sort of thing that makes our site fun/different... because users can find themselves sweating unusual things whilst watching sport.

We will continue to discuss this issue though, and I will let you know what our further thoughts are.

it was 7:05 on my android when i was in bed trying to get the sneaky footy one on, maybe it was all finished by then but surly if should show tomorrows? it was only displaying wed onwards. Has the site been tested on iphone, android etc? chrome managed to work but default browser on my note 2 didnt.

DoubleN as in Annabel?

Excellent aliasage.

Was good to see you last night.

Hey Tikay,

Good to see you too. Hope you had a good time. Congrats on winning! :)

PM sent.

The mobile version of S&L is still a work in progress. Our software people are working on v2 at the moment and this will fix the bugs as well as improving the mobile experience overall. It will take quite a while for v2 to be ready though, so in the meantime - whilst the mobile version will work for most people - I'd strongly advise users to access S&L via a PC/laptop/tablet. The overall experience is so much better than on a phone.

root top scorer and bravo most wickets! i am 0/14 on leagues right now, my luck might change lol.

The private Blonde pool is up on www.stakesandladders.com for tonight's PL darts. It is £5 to enter. Last week Kmac86 and MattNFFC shared first prize. If you want to enter it then please let me know your S&L username and I will add you to the permission list (if you have already done this you don't need to do it again).

Also, Lil'Dave has a private £100 pool for tonight's darts. Same thing applies - if you want to enter this pool then let me know your S&L username and I will add you to the permission list. Toby Lewis finished top last week out of 12 entrants. I finished last lol :(

Hey Stu
I understand that the last match Whitlock v Newton isnt being played tonight as Newton is ill so what happens there with all the selections?

Also pls add me to LilD's list in case I fancy a punt.
Cheers

I joined the £5 one, have Newton in a few of the anwers also....

updated my answers :) took newton out and adjusted the 180s spread.

Don't give away your strategy till pool closes! I might copy you lol ;)

You are added in to LilD's list. Hope you join us... want the prize pool to be as big as possible because I am going to win it this week!

Re: the Whitlock v Newton game: If the game does not go ahead then the question related to that game will be voided. If you choose Newton or Whitlock for one of the other Qs (e.g. player to score most 180s) then it is just tough luck!

Cheers and IN!!

Great! I'd say good luck... but I wouldn't mean it ;)

We'll done adding him, farce

Oioi same time next week boys....

MBN to just randomly 'fancy a punt' and get an immediate bink! Well done Rich :)

Also, well done to Bazzaboy for winning the Blonde private pool.

Cheers Stu but it wasnt a random punt it was more along the lines of if Claypole can nearly win it the week before they must be a bigger band of punterers than me  ;)

Holddddd one time please in the premier league pool.

Cheltenham starts today and we've got a variety of great pools available to join. We have a classic pool for the whole four days, a pool for Day 1, a pool for the Champion Hurdle, and a Fantasy Pool. Also, we have guaranteed each pool so it is very likely there will be overlays...

I won two of the Cheltenham pools today.  Shame I never stuck with Jezki in the overall pool or I'd be leading that to. 

My Cheltenham fantasy pool entries today are a great example of how making your selections in pools betting is very different to other betting formats. Knowing nothing about racing I decided to follow the Cheltenham ratings of a well-respected tipping site. Unfortunately another user followed the exact same ratings for his selections too. Which means we have identical answers. Thus we are screwing each other over, and donating every other user a shed-load of equity.

Even if we win, we lose... if that makes sense?

Candidates Chess Tournament starts tomorrow.

Stakes and Ladders has a pool for the tournament. The questions are deliberately designed to give very little edge to knowledge, so show us all how degenny you are. £1/£5/£25 pools available.

I'll inevitably finish bottom. Hilarity will ensue, but only if there are enough entrants to make finishing last funny.

Tonight's Blonde PL darts pool is available to join. £5 to enter. Bazzaboy won it last week if I remember correctly.

As I've said before, if you want to be eligible to play in Blonde pools (and have not already done so) then let me know your S&L username and I will add you to the permission list.

Also, Lil'Dave has a £100 private pool on tonight's darts as well. If you fancy gambling with him then let me know and I will add you to the permission list. That swine Eso Kral randomly decided to enter it last week, and scooped the lot on his first try!

In Stu, love the fun

Boom!

3129: Special Friday Special Classic pool (14/03/2014 - 14/03/2014)

Position: 1st
 
 Prize: 26.67

Nice way to start :D

PL darts tonight and as usual we have a private £5 pool for Blonde members only. Come and join if you fancy a sweat. Also, Lil'Dave is having his usual £100 private pool. 14 runners already and he has asked if it can be winner takes all this week... so someone is going to scoop a nice hefty prize tonight. If you want to join either the Blonde pool or Lil'Dave's pool then please let me know your S&L username and I will add you to the permission list so you can see the private pools in your lobby.

Big sigh for me though. I was supposed to be going to Leeds tonight with Lil'Dave to watch the darts. But my eldest son has had an operation this morning so I've had to cancel. Nothing serious, just a very minor op and he is absolutely fine. But I don't want to go out when he was in hospital just a few hours ago. Pretty gutted tbh... I'd been looking forward to it for ages :(

16 runners in Lil'Dave's private £100 Darts pool now. And it is winner takes all. Someone's going to scoop a hefty prize tonight!

Hope it is me...

Lol

Degens!

Enjoyed that tonight. Thought it was well put together and gives an interesting sweat not to mention that it is an interesting challenge....what else can we do it on?

Can you add me to the list for next week please.

Ta

Well Lil'Dave wants to get some higher stakes (£100 probably, but perhaps bigger?) private pools running on the golf. And the Masters is coming up...

Of course, if you have any suggestions for other pools to play for bigger stakes then let me know. We are ALWAYS open to suggestions.

On a side-note, this was the first time I have personally been in charge of the live updating. I managed to get it fully 'real-time' to within 30 seconds.

The real time updates were much better tonight especially with both the pools I was in being decided on the last dart with Wrights 161 checkout.

No problems, you're on the list now. Although adding a sharky darts guru like yourself to Lil'Dave's group of degen gamblers could be a little messy lol ;) He won't mind though... he just wants his pool to be as big as possible.

Congratulations on winning the £25 public pool BTW :)

Thanks pal. As I said, it's the first time I have ever done any data-updating for S&L (I don't work for S&L, I just part own it). It is really easy to do provided you are watching it live. Problem is that most of S&L have families and so we are busy with bathtime/bedtime between 7pm and 9pm. For example, I usually Sky+ the darts and watch it 'live' after the kids are in bed.

I now have an excuse with the wife to watch the darts properly live next Thursday... :)

Thursday is PL Darts night. As usual, we have a £5 private Blonde-only pool running, as well as the normal £1, £5 and £25 public pools.

Lil'Daves private £100 pool already has 14 runners in it. He's made it winner takes all again this week, so someone is going to scoop a hefty prize!

As usual, if you are not already on the permission list for either the private Blonde pool or Lil'Dave's private pool and wish to enter, let me know your S&L username and I will add you.

Can you add me to Lild's pool as well might chuck a dart at it.   Had a good day thanks to Chompy.

You're in. Gonna be a record attendance for a £100 pool tonight. 18 already, you will make it 19. Plus still half an hour to go so we may get one or two more...

Needed between 2 and 4 180s to scoop. Theres 1 with 2 legs left, Barny opens up with 180 now I basically cant lose. But don't worry, the opposition played their "joker" card- my phone started ringing and its the King Cooler himself Mr Richard Trigg, a short 1min convo involved 3 180s in a row, and then another in the last leg, to confirm the chop. And he asks where he gets the reputation as a bok from :)

Great fun tho and highly recommend.

Lol, can't believe you're moaning! Your very first pool on S&L and you chop it for £855. MBN. Meanwhile I've entered Lil'Dave's darts pool every week and not even got close. Can't remember the last time I won a pool :(

S&L better take off, otherwise it's gonna send me skint from pools betting!

Well done though Dave (despite the moan) :)


Glad you like it. Hope you have a splash around in our pools with your winnings. I know they are a bit small-stakes for you, but still fun hopefully. Plus, we will no doubt be having a few more higher stakes private pools over the next couple of weeks. The US Masters is coming up for example...

Aintree starts on Thursday and S&L have Classic and Fantasy Pools for the whole Festival, Daily Pools and Big Race pools each day and a Grand National pool. We've also put up some hefty guarantees, so there is a very good chance of some tasty overlays.

If you haven't entered any racing pools yet then give them a go over Aintree. They give a really good sweat, especially when you get down to the last couple of races.

Also, would anyone be interested in S&L running a private Blonde-only pool on the Aintree Festival, or perhaps only on the Grand National?

Can you add me to the blonde and lildave pools. not sure im going to punt LilDaves but just in case i fancy a gamble it would be nice to have the option!

Deposited again tonight and punted all the pools over the next few days. Degening it up nice to see a large pool for the national on Saturday will try and get a few signups for that!

Yeah course I can. What's your S&L username?

CallumM

I think.

You're in :)

PL Darts again tonight, and as usual we have a private £5 Blonde-only pool plus Lil'Dave's private £100 pool running alongside our public pools.

Despite Lil'Dave and most of his degen crew being in Amsterdam on a messy one, we already have 8 entries to his pool. And Dave assures me there will be more entering as soon as they get their heads together...

Anyone wants to enter for the first time then let me know your S&L username and I will add you to the list. Highly recommended since Lil'Dave's pool has been won by a first time entrant every week but one so far...

We have put some hefty guarantees on our Grand National pools today. Big overlays so far, so come snap up the value!

US Masters today. We have loads of pools and some double guarantees, so come snap up the overlays.

There is a classic pool and a fantasy pool for the entire tournament. Plus every day we will be releasing fantasy 'match up' games just for that day's play. So if you are not in time to enter the pools for the entire tournament you can still enter the daily fantasy pools.

Also, Lil'Dave is running £100 private versions of all the pools, so if you fancy gambling a little higher then let me know your S&L username and I will add you to the permission list.

any update on when a button to enter more pools would be added.

Its saving me money costing you money not having it at the minute as mugs like me would definiatly enter more pools but im happy currently just entering the selections in the £1 pool but if there was a button to say do you want to enter them all id probably click it cause im degen.

v2 is being designed at the moment. It will include the ability to enter multiple pools, along with lots of other new stuff. It's gonna take a while before it is ready though. No exact time frames but I will keep you posted.

Cheers getting back into it i just pop on enter a load of pools and then try and get on to sweat them at the end of an evening! Hopefully keep binking one in 10 to keep a balance on there!

We have just put out a fantasy pool for the Irish Open Poker Main Event. Pick your team, choosing one poker player from each category, and then score points based on how well they do in the tournament. Remember to click on the 'Fantasy League' tab to find this pool in your lobby.

Also, we have a pool out for the Snooker World Championship. We will also be running pools for each round of the snooker.

It's PL Darts tonight and we have put guarantees on our public Darts pools. So there is a chance of some overlays for those interested in snapping up some value.

Also Lil'Dave's £100 private pool is running as usual. It has been won by Blondes for the last two weeks (redarmi and Bazzaboy), maybe it will be a third Blonde victory in a row this week. If you're not on the permission list yet for Lil'Dave's private pool then let me know your S&L username and I will add you in.

Also, there is still 24 hours left if you fancy entering the fantasy pools on the Irish Open Poker Main Event (in the Fantasy League tab of the lobby). Seems to be very popular with the pools filling up quickly, especially the £5 one which already has 25 entrants.

The Irish Open Fantasy pool is closing shortly. If you fancy picking a team then get in quick.

Loads of great pools on S&L over Easter weekend.

We have classic and fantasy pools for the snooker. I especially like the Fantasy 'Pick 8' pool. Players seeded 9-16 score double points and unseeded players score treble points. So it creates an extra level of judgement because you have got to think about the potential upside and downside of choosing a player who may not be as good but who has a 2x or 3x multiplier.

We also have pools on the IPL, racing and PL football. Plus we have a 'Weekend Quickie'. I personally love the Quickies - they are my second favourite pools after the darts ones. You just answer a series of Yes/No questions (i.e. there are no Multi Choice or Nearest Wins Qs), and they are all pretty much 50 50s. Perfect for someone like me who doesn't always want to spend time thinking of answers and often enters the pools purely for the sweats. Takes me about ten seconds to enter the Quickie Pools... I just click yes, no, no, yes etc at random and job is done. What could possibly go wrong lol?

S&L have just put out a pool for the Snooker World Championship Quarter Finals. If you fancy it then you've got until 10am tomorrow to join because that's when the first matches start.

We also have a private £100 'Lil'Dave pool' running if anyone fancies gambling a bit higher...

S&L have had separate pools for each session of the Snooker World Championship Final.

There is 50 mins to left to enter the Final Session Pool. So far these single session pools have provided great sweats. And I have even won one of them!

Come and enter, for a proper sweat as you watch the final.

The updates for the tournament long pools have been really poor, you can hardly have a sweat when some pools haven't been updated for nearly a week.

Yeah, really sorry about this. I agree that the updates for the tournament long pools were not good, especially the fantasy team one. We don't have data feeds for snooker (yet) and so it had all had to be done manually, and I think that the tournament long pools slipped down the list until towards the end of the tournament. This is not an excuse, just as explanation. We will not let this happen again. We are still learning at S&L, and we don't ever want to make the same mistake twice.

Please accept my apologies for this, and also please PM me your address and shirt size and I will get a T-shirt sent out to you to say sorry.

With the UKIPT main event starting tomorrow, S&L have launched a Fantasy Pool for the tournament. Pick a player from each of seven categories to create your team, and score points based on how well your selections do in the tournament. Closes at noon tomorrow, so if you fancy entering get in quickly!

Also, these pools are guaranteed, so there is a chance of overlays...

Whats the idea behind email marketing to existing users?

I seem to get a lot of emails from you (one every other day at least)

They dont bother me in the slightest but compared to other gambling sites you seem to email a lot and to some people that might get annoying?

I am sure research tells you the amount you send is about right but just putting it out there.

We are currently working on our marketing strategy. Part of this will be looking at both number of email sent out, and the improving the design of them. We want to strike a balance between continuing to remind users about S&L and not annoying them. We have almost certainly got this a little wrong right now, and I think the eventual strategy is going to be to send two emails a week out to users. Does this sound like a reasonable amount to you? Anyone else have any thoughts on either the frequency or the design of the emails?

Tbh they all seem to merge into one to me? Bit samey

I would have thought once a week would be about right maybe twice as you are still quite a new site e.t.c

I am with Horsey on this one I just delete them now.  I liked the site at first.  But now not so sure, slow updates on a number of events coupled with slow settling on events and then the same players in every pool.

2 emails a week is too much mate, you want to have action based CRM, so eg user does X so gets Y mail at Z point. This can also be if the user has lapsed too.

You can probably see (dunno how you're sending emails...) the effect of two or more emails a week by comparing open rates per user (on average) over time.

No need for a t shirt, just have these issues sorted for the World Cup  :)

Hi guys,

I've been in touch with the S&L office today about the issues raised. Thanks for your feedback. Here is the current state of play, and the improvements which will be arriving in the (hopefully very near) future.

Emails. Currently users can choose to unsubscribe from emails under their account settings. When we release v2 users will be able choose exactly which emails to receive and hopefully how often too. I realise that this does not solve the problem since many occasional and/or dormant users will not know that they can do this - it will only be regular users, and to a great extent our email strategy is not aimed at users who already visit the site regularly. For users who have not opted in/out of emails we need to get the strategy right. On the one hand we want to regularly remind dormant users about S&L, but on the other hand we don't want to send so many emails that they just get ignored. Hopefully we will get this right, but we are learning as we go. So advice given so far is very much appreciated, as will any future feedback even if negative.

Updates/pool settlement. I agree that there are a few pools that are not updated quickly enough right now. Most pools are updated as close to real-time as we can get, but not every one. This is not going to be the case forever though. Our live updates (via OPTA feeds) are still in Beta testing and thus not live yet. This means that sometimes updates are slow because we are still doing (almost) all of them manually. However, the auto-updates will be rolling out over the next few weeks. It has taken us a lot longer to get these right than we expected - it turns out this is an issue for almost everything we try to do, everything just takes a long time to get right. I think this is a problem faced by all start up companies like ourselves, and we are as frustrated by it as anyone! We wanted the live feeds to be fully functional by now and are gutted that they are not. But they will be.

This affects pool settlement as well of course. At the moment all pools have to be double checked by a second member of S&L before settlement. This often means that pools are not settled until the following morning. For example, the PL Darts has really good live updates (I do it personally most weeks and try to be less than one minute behind) so users should get a proper sweat. But because it ends at 10.30pm the pools cannot be settled until someone else can check them through in the morning. When we get the live data feeds working properly then not only will almost all pools update in real-time (pools without OPTA feeds will still have to be done manually ofc), but also pool settlement will be much quicker.

Number of users/same users in the pools. This is a key issue obviously. The nature of pools betting is that it relies on liquidity. At the moment, after an initial surge upon launch, we are growing (too) slowly. And of course some previously active users have stopped playing. So many of our pools are not as full as we need them to be, and often it is the same guys playing each other especially in the higher stakes pools. However, we are just about to launch a big marketing drive, including an affiliate plan that will hopefully lead to several thousand new sign ups over the next few months. If things go as we hope then by the summer we will have a lot more users and the pools will be populated as we need them to be. And by then, as I said above, the live updates will be fully working.

Over our first few months of launch we were mainly focussed on getting the product right. In particular, refining the design of the pools (and we've had a lot of useful feedback to help us in this respect from you guys), and getting the data feeds sorted (almost ready to go, as I said). Our resources were not focussed on marketing. However, now that the product is (almost) as we want it, we are turning our focus to marketing S&L properly and getting new sign-ups.

One other thing to note is that v2 of the software will be coming out very soon. There will be a ton of improvements with v2 and plenty of new functionality as well. Hopefully pretty soon we will have the product as we want it (or at least close to how we want it), and we will have several thousand new users too.

We are a start-up company trying something that has never been done before (at least not in the way we are doing it). We know where we want to be, and we are working hard to get there. And we will get there. At the same time we are listening to your feedback and making changes based on this. I hope you guys (and all our users for that matter) will bear with us and continue to support us. We have made mistakes, and will no doubt continue to do so. And also, certain difficulties have arisen that have been beyond our control (e.g. the delay in getting the live feeds working properly). But we will get it right. I believe in the S&L concept and think it has the potential to be brilliant. Hopefully it won't be long before S&L is an amazing resource for those who dig our concept and enjoy punting in a pools format.

Darts tonight :) That is all.

When you enter the £1 pool for an event, there should be a button which you click to replicate your selections for the £5 and £25 pools.

There will be very soon. v2 of the software is almost ready... Few weeks now I hope.

We have put on double guarantees for our Eurovision pools. No way we will ever make these guarantees! So it's pretty much certain that there are going to be huge overlays. Come snap up the value... the overlays mean that it is likely to be +EV even if you just select the answers at random.

Hi guys. We have published classic and fantasy pools for the WSOP. There is a £100 entry pool as well as the normal £1, £5 and £25 pools.

These pools are great IMO and should provide a fun sweat over the WSOP. Plus, we've put hefty prize guarantees on them (£3,000 in total guarantees).

During the WSOP we will also be publishing pools for all the $10,000 (or more) tournaments.

There is just over a day left to enter the WSOP pools. And there's very likely to be decent overlays, so get entering if you want to snap up some value.

Hi guys, we are running pools for most of the 10k WSOP events. And we are putting guarantees on them. The 10k Razz pool closes in 24 hours time and the 10k HORSE pool closes in 3 days. There is almost certain to be big overlays. So come and snap up the value!

The World Cup pools are going to close shortly on S&L. We have a classic pool and a fantasy pool available. We have put really big guarantees on these pools so there will definitely be big overlays. At the moment there is around a 300% overlay in some of the pools. So come have a punt and snap up the free money!

We will also be running daily pools on the World Cup.

Also, we've just introduced the ability to enter more than one pool at the same time, without having to fill in your answers again. So if you enter the £1 pool you will get an option at the end to choose to enter either or both of the £5 and £25 pools as well.

Lots of stuff going on at S&L this weekend. We have a pools for the Tour De France, Wimbledon finals, WSOP Main Event pools, World Cup, as well as our usual stuff. There are guarantees on quite a few of these pools so there will likely be overlays to snap up.

Here is my team for the WSOP Main Event fantasy pool:

We have guaranteed the World Cup Final pools on Sunday night, and so it is very likely that there are going to be overlays to be snapped up. And we have included a £100 buy-in pool for the Final too. Come and have a punt with S&L for the last match of this great World Cup.

Couple of hours left to enter the WC Final pools. With double guarantees on these pools there is currently a HUGE overlay to be snapped up: 300% in the £1 pool, and 100% in the £5, £25 and £100 pools. Free money...

With the Darts World Matchplay starting tonight, we have an overall pool for the tournament plus a pool for the first round. Hopefully it'll be a great tournament and it'll be even more fun if you get in the pools!

We also have £100 private darts pools hosted by Lil'Dave. If you want to enter these bigger buy in pools then let me know and I'll add you on to the permissions list.

Pools for the World Darts Matchplay Quarter Finals are open for joining now. Come and have a punt!

Hi guys,

There have been a lot of changes at S&L over the last week.

We have brought out a new version of the software. v2 includes a ton of changes that have been requested by users, it looks a lot sexier, is more user-friendly, and has some cool new features.

Also, we have launched a rakeback/loyalty scheme. How it works is that users get a certain percentage of their 'rake' back at the end of every month in the form of points. This can be up to 25%. The % of rakeback each user earns depends on how many 'achievements' they unlock. There are 36 achievements to unlock. Some of these are really easy - e.g. Win a Pool, Tweet your entry, Play 10 pools etc. Other achievements are hard - e.g Win pools on five consecutive days, Win a pool with over 100 entrants etc. If you view your profile by clicking your username on the top bar of the pools lobby then you can find out more about the achievements, and see what status you are currently.

Finally, we have put up some very hefty guarantees for the start of the Premiership. We know there is almost no way we will meet these guarantees, so it is pretty much certain that there will be big overlays.

I hope you guys come and have a look at the new site and its new features, as well as snapping up the value in the guaranteed pools.

Just to add. We have spent these first 6 months since launch working to get the product right; mainly refining the pools, getting the live feeds working properly, and getting the software right. In that time our focus has not been on attracting new users, in fact to some extent we did not even want too many users until we launched v2 of the software. These first 6 months have - to a great extent - really been a 'soft launch'.

However, now we have software which we are happy with and pools that we believe are challenging and fun, our next stage is to work on attracting new users. This will be our main focus over the next 6 months. We have a marketing plan in place, including an affiliate system, social media, advertising, and 'white-labeling'. If our plan works well then over the next 6 months we will succeed in attracting lots of new sign ups and the pools lobby will be busy and vibrant with lots of users entering and large prize pools. This is the key to our success of course... we need to get liquidity, and we need to get it fairly quickly.

So please wish us luck guys. And have your fingers crossed for me. As I said before, I am not good enough to get the lot at poker. This is my one chance to win the game!

still love it, will try and log in more and keep punting!getting better all the time also which i love

What he said.

Even more motivation to join in more VALUOHHHH

The way those candidates chess pools went, you might be right!

Hi guys,

Just to remind you about the PL pools. To celebrate the start of football season we have put silly guarantees on many of our PL pools. We know that there is no way we will ever make these guarantees so please come and take advantage of the free value in the overlays.

Also, any feedback on the new software and/or new pools games we are offering will be very welcome.

the 7 to follow NH racing pool looks good fun for a cheap buy in

We have guaranteed the prizepool for this at £1000. For a £1 entry. There's likely going to be a huge overlay. And it'll be a fun season long sweat.

Hi guys,

If you are intending to follow the upcoming WSOP final table then why not enter the WSOP final table pools we have available? We have put double guarantees on these pools, so there will be an overlay for sure.

Also, the Lucky 7 to Follow racing pool mentioned above is going to be great value too, because we have guaranteed it at £1000. It's a bit like fantasy football, but for racing. Pick a horse from each of 7 categories, and score points for your 'team' based on how well each of your horses does throughout the season. You get a season-long sweat and the chance to win a large amount of money, for just £1.

Just a bump to remind you about the WSOP Main Event Final pools tonight. 7 hours left to enter. There is currently a 200% overlay on the £1 pool, a 150% overlay on the £5 pool, and a 100% overlay on the £25 pool. So come snap up the value!

Forgotten pw won't send me a new one either

Check your spam/junk folder. Often the new password email ends up there for some reason.

If still no good then use the live help popup at bottom of your screen and you'll be able to talk directly to someone in the office. I'm at DTD all day today so can't sort it personally for you I'm afraid.

We have another pool up for the second day of the WSOP final table. Probably going to be an overlay again, so get in if you fancy a sweat whilst snapping up free value!

Reminding you all about the 'Lucky 7 to Follow' racing pool. It is £1 to enter and guaranteed at £1000. We only have 266 entrants so far, with less than 24 hours left to enter. So there is likely going to be a big overlay.

Chopped the NFL Last man Standing this week £25 for £1 as both the last two standing busted and shared the £50 pool :)

One hour left to get your entries in for the UK Snooker Championship pools. Looks like there will be an overlay in the £1 and £5 pools.

The Darts starts in three days!

We are running pools for every round, and putting on £100 public pools as well as the usual £1, £5 and £25 pools.

Also, we have a 'Pick 7' darts pool which gives you a chance to win big for a quid. Pick a player from each of the 7 categories and score points based on how well your team does. It is £1 to enter and we are guaranteeing a £500 prize pool.

There is currently around a 150% overlay on the Pick 7 fantasy pool for the Darts World Championship. It is £1 to enter and we have guaranteed the prize fund at £500. Snap up the value!

Hi guys,

The Darts Quarter Finals is tonight and we have public pools with entries from £1 to £100.

Also, there is only 2 days left to enter the Big Fat Pool Of The Year. It is £1 to enter and we have guaranteed the prize fund at £500, so there is gonna be a big overlay. Predict who will win all the big sporting events of the year (FA Cup, US Masters, Superbowl, Snooker World Championships, Tour De France, Cricket World Cup etc etc etc). Get a sweat throughout 2015 plus a chance to win big for a quid.

An hour to go until the darts starts and we have two different pools for semi-final night. The main pool has a £100 entry as well as the usual £1, £5 and £25 entries.

We have two different pools formats for the PL Darts tonight. One is the standard pool type that you will be used to from last time, the other is a 'betting coupon' format. Would be interested to hear which style of pool people prefer. Both pools have entry fees at the £1, £5, £25 and £100 levels.

Hows it going at Stakes and Ladders?

I keep forgetting to come over and have a look! Hope things are going well I love the idea, just lack of time affects me!

It's going well so far. We have done a lot of work refining our pools, and have brought lots of new ideas into play. Some of the pools we have launched recently are really cool, and a lot of fun. Live feeds are now fully working, and the software has been massively improved. We learned a lot in our first year of business, and are confident that we are going to grow into a thriving pools network in our second year.

I still have not won a bloody darts pool yet though... and it doesn't look too good for tonight either lol :(

S&L has introduced several new games recently. One of these is the Predikta Pool. The idea is simple: Predict the results of the 10 weekend Premier League matches, and win if your predictions are better than the rest. You get to select one of the matches as your 'banker', which means you score double points for that match. £5 to enter and the prize fund is guaranteed at £500. Come and have a go - and please let me know what you think to this new pool.

Another game we have added is the Netbuster Pool. It is the simplest game of all, in fact it is just one question! Simply guess the time of the first goal, closest to the correct time wins. What could be simpler than that? Takes less than 10 seconds to enter!

We are using the Netbuster for our Progressive Jackpot. If you choose to enter the PJ then you scoop the prize (currently almost £3,000) if you get the time of the first goal exactly right.

Attention all golf fans!

We have a 'lucky 7 to Follow' golf pool open, with 3 days left to join. It is a season long fantasy pool: Pick 7 golfers to be your team and score points throughout the season based on how well they do. It is £1 to enter and we have guaranteed the prize fund at £500. There is very likely to be an overlay, so you get some good value. And you could win big for a quid.

At the moment the Lucky 7 Golf pool only has 80 entrants. At £1 to enter and a £500 guaranteed prize pool that is a HUGE overlay. There is 24 hours left before the pool closes so we'll get more entries in that time of course. But I would not be surprised if there ended up being a 100% overlay in this pool. So please come and snap up the value!

Just an hour left to join the Lucky 7 Golf pool. It is only £1 to enter, prize pool guaranteed at £500... and currently there is a 200% overlay!

Bugger I would have had a few lines if I had seen this. Did it end with an overlay? ( that's not the only reason I would have had a go)

Shame you didn't see it in time :( Yeah it had a big overlay!

Our guaranteed pools overlay a lot of the time tbh, at least the £1 and £5 pools anyway. If we stop overlaying in these pools then we will start to increase the guarantees until we are often overlaying again. We are happy to do this because we only guarantee some of our pools, and we want these to be an incentive for people visiting the site.

Btw, we will be having lots of golf pools over the next few months. Please have a go at them and let me know what you think.

Just logged in to S&L after typing the above ^^ and it seems that the lucky 7 pool is still open for joining. I thought it had already closed. Either it was me being dim and getting confused, or entry deadline has been extended. Anyway, if you are still awake you have a little over five hours left to enter.

There are currently 190 entrants, so a big overlay.

There is currently a huge overlay in our weekly Predikta football pool. It is £5 to enter, the prizepool is guaranteed at £500, and we only have 30 entrants so far!

Predict the results of 10 matches and win if your predictions are better than the rest.

Pool closes when the first match (West Ham vs Crystal Palace) kicks off at 12.45pm.

10 mins left to get in the PL darts pools. We have two different pool game formats running for the darts, choose which one you prefer... or enter both. As usual, entries from as little as £1 up to £100.

Decent sized overlay currently in both the £1 pools, and a small overlay in both the £5 pools.

We've got pools running daily for the Cheltenham Festival. If you fancy betting different then come have a look at what we have to offer.

The overall festival pool closes in 4.5hrs. We have £1, $5, £25 and £100 entry levels. The £1 pool has a £100 guarantee and there is currently a chunky overlay to take advantage of.

We had our busiest ever day yesterday with the start of Cheltenham :) And we have several different Cheltenham pools for tomorrow's races. So if you fancy having a different sort of punt alongside your normal Cheltenham betting then please take a look and jump in the pools.

20 mins left to get in the PL Darts pools! We have £1,000 in the prize fund for the big pool so far.

And there is a decent overlay at the moment in the £1 and £5 pools. Get in quick!

11812: Racing The Cheltenham Festival 2015 Classic pool (10/03/2015 - 13/03/2015)

Position: 1st

 

Prize: 50.05

Balance up to £85 without depositing a penny :)

Brilliant! Hope you are able to spin it up even more :)

Just over an hour left before our Predikta Pool closes. It is £5 to enter and we have guaranteed the prize fund at £500. Right now there are only 34 entrants, which means there is an overlay of almost 200%. Predict the result of 10 football matches, and if you make the best predictions you win the money. You don't have to get every prediction right, just do better than the others. What's not to like? You can win big for a fiver, you get a sweat over the weekend... and you know that you've had a +EV punt due to the big overlay.

It's PL Darts night. That is all.

Managed to win the golf pool at the weekend.  Enjoy playing the pools, you really need to score in the 25pt questions to be in with a chance though.

Certainly got me watching golf a bit more on the telly!

Roll on the Masters!

Well done! :)

I really like the fantasy golf pools personally - golf seems to lend itself very well to the S&L format.

We will be running some big pools for the Masters, they will be going live at the end of next week. I'm sure we will put some hefty guarantees on them.

Due to it being international the weekly Predikta Pool closes on Friday rather than Saturday. Predict the results of 10 international football matches, and win if your predictions are better than the rest. It is £5 to enter, prizepool is guaranteed at £500, and so far there are only 27 entries. So a HUGE overlay to take advantage of.

There is currently a 100% overlay in the Predikta Pool mentioned above ^^

Obviously there will be more entrants by the time the pool closes in 3.5 hours time, but I'm pretty sure there will still be a decent overlay to take advantage of. Come snap up the value!

We have some other fun pools running for the international matches. One of is a 'Time of First Goal' pool. Predict the time of the first goal for 9 international matches, and if your predictions are most accurate then win money.

We also have our simplest pool of all for the England vs Lithuania match - the Netbuster pool. It is ONE question only - what time will the first goal be scored? If your answer is closest then you win the pool. And if you get the answer EXACTLY RIGHT TO THE SECOND then you win an extra £3032! *


* To be eligible for the £3032 progressive jackpot you need to throw in an extra £1 when entering the Netbuster Pool - it gives you this option when entering.

5 mins left to get in the Predikta Pool. 71 runners so far which means there is a £145 overlay. Free value!

PL Darts night tonight. 30 mins left to get in the pools. Can anyone put a stop to Tom Langley's astonishing winning record? Best darts judge ever!

Also, there is 30 mins left before the Big Fat Pool Of The Month closes. And there are big overlays in all three of the entry levels (£1, £5 and £25). Plenty of value to snap up...

A little over an hour left to get in the golf pools for the Masters. We have every angle covered including a Fantasy Pick 6, a Masters Quickie, an Overall Classic and Round 1 3-balls. As usual, we have put up some hefty prizepool guarantees so expect there to be decent overlays to take advantage of.

It's the PL Darts tonight, so get in the pools!

Also, we have a pool for the Snooker World Championship available to enter. And we will have pools out for each round as the tournament progresses, and probably session by session in the latter stages of the tournament. Last year the pools format worked brilliantly for the snooker, especially the session by session pools for the final. So give us a go if you fancy a different type of punt on the snooker.

We have also put up a fantasy pool for the Snooker World Championship. Pick one player from each section of the draw, to create your team of 8 players.

Points are scored as follows:

Winner 100 points; Runner-up 50; losing semi-finalist 25; losing quarter-finalist 10.

Bonuses: 5 points for each century break; 30 points for a 147 break.

Players seeded 9 to 16 score double; unseeded players score triple.

Attention horse racing fans!

Less than 24 hours before the Lucky 7 to Follow pool for the Flat Season closes. It is basically fantasy football... but for racing. Pick one horse from each of seven categories to form your team, and earn points as your horses place in races over the flat season.

We have guaranteed the prize fund at £1000 and it only costs £2 to enter. There was a huge overlay for the jump season version, and we expect another substantial overlay for the flat season one too. So please pick a few lines, and have a good sweat throughout the flat season.

We've got a pool open for Mayweather vs Pacquiao, with entry fees ranging from £1 to £1000. If you fancy having a different type of punt on tonight's fight then have a go...

If you fancy a fun punt on the general election then have a go at The Election Quickie. Forecast the outcome of 15 key marginals to scoop the pot.

PL Darts tonight. Can anyone stop TL900 from winning again?

Also, we have another General Election pool available to enter, with 45 minutes left until it closes. It has proven surprisingly popular; we already have 62 runners in the £1 pool! Have a go at it if you fancy a fun punt on the election.

Just under 20 mins left to get in the PL Darts pools. As usual, enter for as little as £1 or as much as £100.

And it looks like there are going to be decent overlays in the £1 and £5 pools.

Last night of the PL Darts tonight and we have pools up. Hoping we will get lot of entries and get big prize funds built up. Already some users who have been absent recently have returned to enter the pools for the final :) Should be a fun night of darts, and even better if you're sweating your S&L pool entries!

One hour to go until the last PL darts pool of 2015 closes for entry. Get in and have a punt!

We have been running the PL darts pools for 2 years now, I have entered almost every week, and I have never yet won one. Hopefully this is the week I scoop... so I want the prize pool to be as big as possible lol.

For those of you who fancy having a bit of fun with the Eurovision Song Contest tonight, why not get in our Eurovision pools? We've guaranteed the prize pools, so there will likely be an overlay. And what could be better than listening to crap music whilst sweating your pool entries on S&L?

I have held off on mentioning this because I did not want to interfere with Mere Novice's excellent Blonde pool. We also have a WSOP Fantasy game, and there are still 3 days left to join (we are not counting the first few events in the scoring). And there is a HUGE overlay! It is £2 to enter, we have guaranteed the prize fund at £500... and there are only 49 entrants so far. Obviously we will get a lot more entering in the next few days, but I imagine there will still be a very substantial overlay.

Pick one player from each of the 7 categories, and whoever's team cashes for the most money scoops first prize.

So come and pick your team, flick in £2, and have a crack at a £500 prize pool.

We have put double guarantees on our FA Cup Final pools. Which means for example that the £1 pool is guaranteed at £100. There's a fair few entries already, but still a good chance of an overlay.

Still some huge overlays in the FA Cup pools. Almost 100% overlays in some of them in fact! 30 mins to enter.

In.

Just a few hours left to get in the WSOP Lucky 7 pools. Pick your fantasy team from the 7 categories. The 'main' pool is £2 to enter and is guaranteed at £500. 99 entrants so far.

With the CL final about to start, it is your chance for a while to get in a football pool on S&L. We have three different types of pool to choose from. Good luck.

We have a different type of pool up and running for the WSOP. Based around the 10k Omaha 8B event, it is a 'last longer match-up' pool. Each question is simply 'who will last the longest, x or y?'. Couldn't be any simpler, and only takes 30 secs to enter. Come give it a go, and any feedback on the format would be appreciated. Just over a day left to enter.

There's gonna be a good choice of pools every day for Ascot. Something for everyone I reckon.

We have three different types of pool open for the WSOP Main Event. 24 hours left to enter. We've guaranteed the £2 fantasy 'lucky 7' pool at £200 and there is going to be a big overlay, so come take advantage of the free money.

Still 25 minutes to get in the WSOP Main Event pools. Currently a 100% overlay in the £2 to enter Lucky 7 fantasy pool.

How come Neil Channing isn't in the WSOP Legends list?

Lol. He's in the Team GB list though.

That's like playing for Espanyol instead of Real Madrid.

If you fancy a different type of punt on the golf, you have 14 hours left to get in the pools for tomorrow's Open Championship. We have both classic and fantasy pools available, and each one has guaranteed prize pools.

Also, pools open for the Ashes and the Darts World Matchplay.

Great turnout for our overall & Day 1 pools!

Day 2 pools will be open from 9pm.

Bit thin but......

I am first and eerrrr first in the August pool of the month

Go me.....

A feat never to be repeated.

Hey well done! :)

As a big UFC fan I have set up a Fantasy Game for UFC 191 tomorrow night. Predict the outcomes of the 5 fights on the Main Card: Who will win? By what method (KO/TKO, Submission or Decision)? In what round will the fight end? As usual, entry levels are £1, £5 and £25. If you love UFC then come and have a fun punt in the pools!

Bump.

Anyone fancy playing in the London Chess Classic pools? I've entered all three. Not exactly a specialist knowledge goldmine: ten players with not a lot between them, Carlsen favourite but short of form.

Starts at 3, I believe.