FULL PERMS

Full perms is a commonly used term among football pools players that refers to full permutations. A permutation can be defined as 'an ordered arrangement of numbers or objects', so a full perm would be every possible arrangement of numbers or objects. In the football pools the term full perms is used to described every possible combination of numbers or objects, and the use of full perms allows the football pools player to select more matches than a pools entry requires in the hope of catching a winning combination.

For example, let's imagine that you are asked predict three draws from four football matches (Match A, Match B, Match C and Match D), and that all three of your selections need to be draws to win a prize. You could bet on a single line of three specific matches (say Matches A, B and C) or you could arrange the four matches into every possible unique grouping of three and bet on each of those arrangements, like this:

Bet 1 - A B C
Bet 2 - A C D
Bet 3 - B A C
Bet 4 - B C D

Now if any three of the matches A, B, C and D resulted in draws, you would be guaranteed to have one winning bet. If all four matches resulted in draws you would have four winning bets.

Because the football pools requires you to find more than three draws, and because you are selecting from a sample of 49 matches, it would be laborious to place each bet of a full perm individually. So you simply make all the selections you require and then enter the whole thing as a full perm of 'any 8 from x' where x is the number of selections that you have made. For example, if you select 10 matches you would use an 8 from 10 perm. Select 12 matches and you would use an 8 from 12 perm.

Because every match you add to your selections increases the possible number of combinations, the cost of full perms also increases accordingly. For example, when you play the Classic Pools it costs just £1 to enter 10 selections with an 8 from 10 perm, but add four more selections and use an 8 from 12 perm and you'll need to pay £7.50. An 8 for 15 perm would cost £85.

Of course, if you fancy trying your luck you could enter five different 8 from 10 perms and cover all 49 matches. There wouldn't be any guarantee that you would get eight draws in one of your 8 from 10 perm entries, but at least you would know that you won't miss out on any draws by taking that approach. An alternative would be to leave one match alone and cover the remaining 48 with four separate 8 from 12 perms, but that would be more expensive (£30 as opposed to £5 with the Classic Pools).

If you want to keep costs down and still enter more selections than the minimum then you could also consider using a Pools Plan instead of a full perm - see our Pools Plan page for further details.