POOL

1. A combination of persons or corporations engaged in the same business, or for the purpose of engaging in a particular business or commercial or speculative venture, where all contribute to a common fund, or place their holdings of a given stock or other security in the hands and control of a managing member or committee, with the object of eliminating competition as between the several members of the pool, or of establishing a monopoly or controlling prices or rates by the weight and power of their combined capital, or of raising or depressing prices on the stock market, or simply with a view to the successful conduct of an enterprise too great for the capital of any member individually, and on an agreement for the division of profits or losses among the members, either equally or pro rata. Also, a similar combination not embracing the idea of a pooled or contributed capital, but simply the elimination of destructive competition between the members by an agreement to share or divide the profits, of a given business or venture, as, for example, a contract between two or more competing railroads to abstain from “rate wars” and (usually) to maintain fixed rates, and to divide their earnings from the transportation of freight in fixed proportions. 2. In various methods of gambling, a ‘opoor’ is a sum of money made up of the stakes contributed by various persons, the whole of which is then wagered as a stake on the event of a race, game, or other contest, and the winnings (if any) are divided among the contributors to the pool pro rata. .Or it is a sum similarly made up by the contributions of several persons, each of Whom then makes his guess or prediction as to the event of a future contest or hazard, the successful better taking the entire pool. 3. A body of standing water, without a current or issue, accumulated in a natural basin or depression in the earth, and not artificially formed.