Big, Warm Football Pool

Norfolk May Dive Into That

By a staff writer

Norfolk Island may be the nerve centre of a massive foot ball pools operation covering Australasia and South-East Asia.

As an Australian territory, the tax-free advantages of such an operation on Norfolk have attracted the attention of the big English football pools operator, Little woods.

Littlewoods frequently make world wide news, when they, or the other big English pools’ operators, Vernons, award huge cash prizes of up to £Stg.3oo,ooo.

Both base their competitions on overall results of football matches.

Anyone can enter, and invest from a few pence to several pounds, in an effort to pick eight drawn games from approximately 50 matches.

In late April the Australian Gov ernment was considering a proposal by Littlewoods to open an admin istrative office on Norfolk, which would initially employ 50 to 100 Norfolk Islanders on a casual basis.

These islanders, probably housewives, would be supervised by several ex perienced Littlewoods staff.

Registered

Littlewoods have registered a com pany on Norfolk called Sloop Limited, with a capital of $lO,OOO. Directors of the company are Messrs. D.

Neagle and R. Ombler, both Norfolk Island businessmen.

A representative of Sloop, Mr.

George Pearce, put Littlewood’s pro posal to the Norfolk Island Council in February.

He offered the council an ex gratia payment of five per cent, of the revenue raised by Sloop in its first seven years of operation, with the payments then to be reviewed for a further period of three years, and thereafter to be reviewed annually.

If the pools are successful, Sloop anticipates company revenue would start at $20,000 a week and could possibly reach $BO,OOO a week within 12 months.

Likely postal revenue from entry forms and money orders would be enormous, with one million forms dispatched from the island a month to subscribers. The pools do not acccept cash through the post, but insist on postal orders.

Sloop hopes to have permission granted for its operations quickly so that its scheme is under way for the English winter football season,

from September this year, to April 1969. (In the English summer thi English pools are run on Australiai soccer matches).

Norfolk does not have all thi facilities to fulfil Sloop’s plans an the sorting, processing and com puterisation of the entries would hav< to be done on the Australian main land, most probably Sydney.

When first approached with thi idea, Norfolk’s Council did not maki a snap decision.

In recent months dozens of nev companies have registered on Norfolk and many islanders, including not < few councillors, feel the paramount and in some cases, only reason foi this, is the island’s attractive statui as a tax-free territory.

Is this good, or bad, for Norfolk' Islanders are divided here—and thii is obviously one of the reasons whj the council decided to refer th( application to Canberra instead ol making a quick decision, as wantec by some islanders who are fearfu the prize might be taken from theii grasp if there is too much delay.