Priests in a Pools Pickle

 Normally the words priest and gambling in the same sentence would be all about hellfire and damnation. But this wasn't the case in a report that appeared in the Sheffield Telegraph in January 1953. This report covered the announcement by police in Bradford that they had put a stop to a football pool that had been operated by four Catholic churches in the city. The report also remarks on a similarity to a case in Cheshire where another priest had been running a football pool in aid of Catholic schools. The Bradford problem was described thus:

"The pools method of giving members static code numbers with the team changed every week constituted a lottery that had no skill attached."

And it wasn't peanuts that were talking about here, one church raised a whopping £700 a week, keeping £200 for the charitable cause. 70 years on, I'd love to be raising that much in a lottery for my little charity! 

"The police were very nice about it" said one of the priests, thankfully, giving as his excuse ignorance of the law. But rather than being put off, the persistant priest simply took advice on how to get round the law and continued on regardless.

A clear demonstration that if people that can persuade themselves that their gambling is sanctioned by the great and good, they'll really let their hair down.