Littlewoods was a retail and football betting company founded in Liverpool, England, by John Moores in 1923.

[1] By the 1980s, it had grown to become the largest private company in Europe but subsequently declined in the face of increased competition from rivals and the Internet.

[6] Littlewoods was among the key retailers to relocate from town-centre stores to new developments, mostly in enterprise zones, to take advantage of the financial incentives they offered.

[citation needed] The catalogue market was transformed with the emergence of the Internet and phone transactions slowly diminished after the mid-1990s.

[citation needed] In October 2002, the Moores family sold the shopping and catalogue business to David and Frederick Barclay for £750 million.

Index was closed in early 2005, and at the time of its failure, it was noted that it had not made a profit for 18 out of its 20 years of operation and was running at a loss of £100 million.

[13] The launch of the National Lottery in 1994 led to a major advertising campaign to distinguish Littlewoods Pools from other forms of betting and this proved successful in the short term.